4th of July: 2011

We had another fabulous 4th of July at the cabin.  I think this is my favorite weekend up there with the entire Marz clan.  It’s great to get out of the heat in Vegas & just hang out and have fun.  I love that we’ve become a part of this small little village in the mountains of Utah.  And I love seeing my kids make wonderful childhood memories up there with their family.  It’s pretty awesome. 

I also just plain love the 4th of July.  I love our country and feel proud & grateful to live here.  It’s a favorite holiday of mine to celebrate.

So after digging through over 700 pictures between the Thompson & Griffeth camera – here we go.

We did a lot of the usual stuff with a few new activities . . .

FIRESTATION BREAKFAST

The Cedar Mountain Fire Station does an annual breakfast at the firehouse over the 4th of July.   We eat & the kiddos get to ride the fire truck and bring home all kinds of fire safety activities.

Ryan was pretty stoked the first time he saw the fire truck pull in.

And despite these gloomy faces, the boys LOVED their fire truck rides.

 

THE PARADE

Nate has been waiting for the Duck Creek parade for an entire year.  Every time we see an American Flag he calls it “the parade flag” and asks about the parade.  So you can imagine his excitement when the big day rolled around.

The car was decorated in the afternoon . . . complete with duct tape headbands for the kids.

And then it was time for the parade.  Abbie, Daisy & Nate had a blast riding with Grandma & Papa throwing out candy.  Grandma & Papa even wore their crazy 4th of July hats that we gave them for the parade.

And while the big kids enjoyed THROWING the candy, Ryan enjoyed EATING the candy on the sidelines. 

He loved watching the parade.  He sat for a record length of time!

 

FISHING

My dad has always been a fisherman so he loves that we all enjoy coming with him.  We had two fishing outings this trip:

#1: One afternoon while I was in the kitchen getting dinner ready, everyone else [except my mom] went to a pond my dad discovered a few years ago to fish.  It’s a stocked private pond so it’s pretty much a guarantee that you’ll catch something.  Perfect for the kiddos.  They each caught two.

I have to mention how fabulous it was to cook in peace!  I don’t cook a ton . . . mainly because it’s not at all enjoyable with a screaming 1 year old pulling on my pant leg to be held.  But Ryan was asleep and the house was quiet and I tried lots of recipes from my new favorite cookbook.  It was great.

#2 was a pontoon boat on Panguitch Lake.  Papa, Sam & Wes got up at 6am to have a few hours on the lake fishing and the rest of us joined them later in the morning. 

 

This little boy of mine loves to fish.

Sam has always been the lucky fisherman in our family.  From birth, she’s always caught the most fish on every outing.  Things haven’t changed.  So I let her do the casting while I take a little rest and hold the pole that never gets a bite.

 

HORSES

There’s a few cowboys that bring their horses to Duck Creek for the summer for people to ride.  My dad usually takes the kids to at least say hi / feed the horses at least once a day.  This year they even got to ride them a few times.  Nate found “his” horse – Smokey.

 

 

Sam hanging out on the cabin car . . . waiting for horseback ride to end.

 

ASPEN MIRROR LAKE

One afternoon while Ali & Tripp were making dinner – Wes, Sam & I took all of the kiddos to Aspen Mirror Lake.  It’s a short drive away with a little dirt path that leads you down to the lake.  And out of the lake is a river. 

We walked around and looked at the beautiful scenery, threw rocks in the river, hung Ryan over the river . . . and just enjoyed nature.

Mr. Ryan was an animal.  He was either trying to climb up the mountain or trying to jump in the river.  Even though either Wes or I was right behind him the entire time, he literally started to jump in at least three times and we grabbed him by his shirt to stop him.  He loved this, by the way.

 

 

 

We got a little bit of rain when we got back to the cabin.  It’s pretty obvious these three live in Las Vegas – the rain was definitely something they don’t see very often!

 

SMORES

On our last night, we made a fire & had smores.  When Tripp was building the fire the kids insisted on wearing their fire hats.  Just in case the fire got out of hand? :)

Tripp taught the kids how to roast a perfect marshmallow.  Seriously, they were perfect.  A medium brown on the outside and pure mallow goo on the inside.

   

Ryan & an open fire are a bad combination so we went on a long cabin car ride and then he sat in a stroller for a few minutes while we finished up.  Ryan LOVES the cabin cars now and is even fine with his massive helmet.  Hallelujah.  That made it a little easier this trip to be able to take him out on rides!

While we were roasting marshmallows, this pretty animal walked right by us.  Nate said to me . . “mom, that deer is in our neighborhood!”

We had another great trip to the cabin.  It’s nice being up there with everybody – we’ve made some fabulous memories up in Duck Creek & we look forward to many more!  Oh, and I can’t forget many memorable nights of playing games.  It’s pretty comical when we’re all up past our bedtimes playing games!

[And just because it’s kind of comical, I’ll record our sleeping arrangements.  Ryan is still not the best traveling sleeper so we give him his own room everywhere we go.  The first night he screamed and screamed but then was pretty good the rest of the trip.  Needless to say, while Ryan is in his own room – Wes sleeps on the couch while I sleep with crazy Nate!  I think I’ll take the couch next time. :)]