Why call it the 4th of July? It's Independence Day!

Thought I'd share a few photos of some of the things we did to celebrate Independence Day. In the morning we drove over to the church to have breakfast and supposedly a flag raising, but for some reason the flag was already up and none of the Boy Scouts who were supposed to do the ceremony ever came. So we said the Pledge of Allegiance and called it good. The kids had fun running around and somewhere in there Aaron and I were extended callings. I'll be helping with the Weebelos and Aaron will teach the 10-11 year old boys in Primary. Other than seeing the things my Dad and brothers were involved in growing up, I've never had any experience with Cub/Boy Scouts. This should be interesting...

After that we all went home and just kind of lazed around. The kids played outside for a while, and eventually soaked themselves with the hose. I had them take a really, really late nap today (like, 4:30 instead of 1:00), so they could stay up for the fireworks. At 7:00 we went out to our neighbor's driveway and had a cookout with them and some of the other neighbors on the street. We had a pretty good turn out, and the kids had a great time running around playing until dark. Then we all settled into our chairs to watch the fireworks show coming from Simplot Stadium across the highway. It was a pretty good ways away, but they sent them high enough into the air that we had a perfect view, but didn't have the noise and the crowds. Down the street there was another group of people setting off their own fireworks, which at first kept scaring the kids but they eventually got used to it. Those guys must've spent a few hundred dollars on fireworks because they were setting them off nonstop for about 4 hours, well past midnight.

Our friends next door had some fireworks of their own (just the small kind that stay on the ground and don't shoot into the air) which they set off as well. They had sparklers for the kids, which Hakan and Pyper were kind of indifferent about. It was really fun, though, being able to just hang out and talk and get to know some of the people we live near whom we hadn't met yet.

After all the excitement of the day we all crashed and got to sleep in a couple of hours this morning.

Pyper is bummed because she really wanted to climb the tree, too, but realized she is still too little. Poor thing.

We don't do family pictures very often, so I thought I'd try one. I had to post this one because Aaron was trying out a new smile and it just makes me laugh. When I look at it, I hear my Mom's voice saying, "Okay, Todd, smile. Nooo, smile nice."

You can tell by the look on Pyper's face that she didn't exactly enjoy her sparkler.

Just playing around with the newly discovered black & white feature on my camera.

Our group, minus about 6 or 7 kids who are playing somewhere.

Sunset over Caldwell

Aaron helps Hakan with his sparkler. About five seconds after I took this Hakan ran away screaming. I guess our kids don't like playing with fire. Phew!

Before this holiday arrived, I was feeling a little guilty about not really looking forward to it. It seems like people pay some attention to what it's for by raising flags and singing patriotic songs and wearing red, white and blue and such, but that what they're really celebrating is hot dogs and fireworks and boating and swimming and having a riot. It also kind of bums me out that it's referred to as "the 4th of July" more often than "Independence Day". Why is that? I mean, we don't say, "the 25th of December" or "the 14th of February". I decided to explain to Pyper as best I could what this holiday was for. I also got to thinking about my own patriotism. I often think that my life is unremarkable and kind of boring. But then I think, I am safe. I can have a family and work at making my life whatever I want it to be. We have a comfortable lifestyle and education and a religion that suits us. I know that I am lucky to have been born in this country and to have every opportunity available to me here, and am glad to have a holiday that reminds me of this.