America's 250th

Happy 250th America! We are in St. George right now on our way to Newport tomorrow. Abi took a few of her siblings to try and find fireworks and they did, she got some great photos. 

Owen sitting with Katharine on top of the car - 

Abi took Owen, Peter, and Katharine. 

It's nice that she did that. She's doing a good job making memories with her younger siblings before she leaves the nest at the end of this month, crazy.

Corey and I are getting to bed later than we want (still waiting for them to get back) but that's ok. We are taking Peter and Katharine with us to the Springhill Suites. The rest of the kids are staying the night at the Worldmark Resort (room capacity 8). We left home for our drive down at a decent time, 2pm, and got her in time for the kids to swim and have fun before dinner and bedtime. 

This morning was the usual fun Granite Community 4th of July Breakfast and Parade. 

Corey took the kids to breakfast while I went on a short quick hike at Lisa. Rumor has it that this will be the last breakfast. The breakfast used to be sponsored by Jiffy Lube, but then "they" said you can't have it sponsored (I'm not sure if they is the church or Sandy city?) and so then they charged for breakfast, but then they said if you charge you need to pay taxes so they just did it for free this year, and yeah I heard that this is the last time they'll be doing a breakfast. Our chapel that we start at might be gone soon, so next year, if there is a parade, the route will start down there and go north instead of south. There was no carnival this year either, lucky people who didn't have to be in charge of that like Corey was in 2024. The parade was great. Kids ready to collect candy. Hyrum and Wes helping me not lose any children. 

I was on Katharine duty.

So Corey and Abi were going to be marching in the parade, as I mentioned yesterday. Abi wasn't too excited about practicing this week because of her cheeks and still numb lips, but she did and she sounded good. She was looking and feeling better today now that she's a week post surgery. She and Corey and Owen were told to wear white shirts and brown pants. They went into the church to get their costumes on and then she got excited about it cause their outfits were legit and this was going to be cool. 

They were at the beginning of the parade, right behind the Sandy City mayor and the parade's Grand Marshall. I got in the road to take a few videos. It was the best. Here's a pic I got at the start of the parade. 

Corey and Abi playing the fifes, neighbor Spencer on the drums. Owen and his friend Oscar holding the banner. 

Hyrum saw them and said wishfully "I want to dress up..." followed by "...I slept in this..." haha!

I had several people text me afterwards and say that the continental march was the highlight of the parade for them too. Our neighbor Brox arranged all of this with his family. He was George Washington, he had all the flags, his sister made legit costumes for them all, it was awesome. Abi teasing Corey by taking .5s ~

So the parade started, Mayor went by on her horse with other riders on other horses, some cute colts, and then the Grand Marshall was Elder Christofferson and his wife Kathy. So fun to see them!

Two pics that a neighbor sent at the end of the parade. With banner - 

And without so you can see the drums better. 

Definite highlight of the parade. I'm so very grateful for our founding fathers and the patriots who fought to give us the freedom we enjoy in this blessed country. Good job you three, I'm glad you were able to be a part of that. 

We did most of our packing last night, and after the parade, since there was no carnival, we were able to come home and finish getting ready. Grant came to the parade and picked up Edmund there. They came to the house to play for a bit before leaving to pick up Steph and Daisy at the airport. Then we left for St. George. Abi/Hyrum took turns driving the van with SNODPK and we had Wes and Lily in our car. Lily isn't feeling great, might have strep, had a sore throat all of last week at FSY, hoping she didn't get her friends sick and that she doesn't get any of us sick. Corey Wes and I were the most at risk today, but hopefully the open windows on the whole drive helped with that. We had open windows the whole time cause Corey's car still does not have a working AC. We were feeling it today - 

We'll be feeling it tomorrow, so plan is to leave dark and early if possible. Yay, Abi is back, we're at the Marriott Suites. I thought Peter and Katharie looked so cute walking in, our little girl in her princess dress, our little boy in his Jurassic Park shirt with his stuffed dinosaur. Cute boy and girl.

Good night. Oh, Bella sent a pic tonight - poor Alvie had a fall and scrateched up his nose real good! Poor little guy! 

He's ok and they will still be coming to Newport. They fly out Monday morning to join us. Ok, heading to bed, hoping to leave at 7am tomorrow morning. Happy birthday America.