Monday was July 4th.  We started out meeting up with some of our good friends from our ward in Phoenix - the Harris family!  They were also in Utah to celebrate July 4th.  We met up with them at the parade in Provo.  Now THAT is a parade.  It has a small town feel to it and was a whole lot of fun (and that is coming from someone who isn't super excited about parades normally).

After the parade we met up with my cousin Shelly and her cute family for lunch.  Shelly and I really enjoyed hanging out together at BYU when we were in school.  I've really missed her!  So that was a lot of fun.

After lunch we went to the BYU campus to sign Bryan and Chase in to EFY (Especially for Youth).  It was so funny to see how giddy they got when they started seeing all these cute girls their age!  It was also very nostalgic for me.  I LOVED my experiences at EFY!  Brad Wilcox (an amazing speaker who always spoke at EFY when I was there) was there helping to sign people in. I was like "Look!  It's Brad!!".  I'm sure I totally embarrassed Bryan.  Man, I wished I was his age again and heading off to EFY.  That was so fun!

After dropping the boys off to begin their fun week at BYU, we drove to Park City with the Harris' to go on the Alpine Slides.  On the way we stopped in Heber at a place called "Granny's" for ice cream.  This place is apparently an institution.  It had huge yummy ice cream concoctions, but the highlight for my children was meeting the star of the movie "The R.M."...Kirby Heyborne.  They spotted him at "Granny's" getting ice cream with his family.  We had his DVD in our car, so we asked him to sign it for us and he posed for a picture with our kids (who were over the moon about it!).  Bryan was so bummed that he wasn't there to meet him.

So on to Park City...

If you ever get the chance to do the Alpine Slides they are amazing!  There were regular slides you went down on in carts.  There was a coaster slide.  There was also a Zip Line...

All of these go down the side of this great big, beautiful mountain.  The scenery is gorgeous and the slides are SO FUN!  We will definitely do that again.  Jamie and Brady joined us, along with my sweet sister, Brittany (who also lives there).  Brittany brought up an ice chest with pita sandwiches along with snacks, drinks, and dessert!  She is so thoughtful - and a great cook!  We really enjoyed our time with them.

After the Alpine Slides we drove to Mark's best friend's house.  He and Mike Colvin were buddies in high school, and we love their family.  They had invited us for dinner and fireworks.  We were not prepared for the amazing fireworks display they and their neighbors put on.  They had every kind of firework and plenty of them.  It rivaled the show we saw at BYU's Stadium of Fire!  Here are some pictures of the boys "playing"...

Kyle and I...

Here's Colton...Do you like the double shade look?  He has his glasses on over his eye protection.  He was helping Mark light some of them.

Mike's wife Valeree...

We took out sparklers and had fun with slow exposure times on my camera.  We were able to draw shapes and our names or initials.  So fun!!

We ran out of sparklers, so Mike brought out flares!

Mike and Valeree's daughter whispering something in Kyle's ear...they had a lot of fun together.

Mike and Valeree are moving to Australia for 2 to 4 years for Mike's job.  Hopefully we can go visit them while they are there!  We really like hanging out with them!