Two Months of Summer - Gone?!?

July is over and done with - gasp! 

Here's how we spent it...

Watermelon smiles

The Logan fireworks show @ USU stadium on the 3rd
that my Uncle (waving from behind, in the red shirt) started clear back when I was a child....and I've loved going ever since!

Summer nights sunsets...

Fireworks...

...and family rounded out our 3rd of July!

Neighborhood party on the 4th of July - shaving cream and cheese puff game!

Summer cockroaches - bleh!

The girls and I went to "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" that my cousin was the Musical Director for!
And then out for shave ice - the BIG Kahuna - afterwards!

Kyle went on a High Adventure Scout Camp in the Tetons July 8-11.

Farmington Festival Days!

Hooray for the full-time missionaries in the Farmington Festival Days parade! 

(Sister missionaries in the red convertible behind the Elders)

Matt caught TWO shirts that they were throwing out at the evening festivities in the park - Brookelle immediately donned it as her new dress!

We {heart} our Farmington Festival Days

Family Night activity - climbing to the top of a neighborhood tree.

Annual read-a-thon and pizza picnic in our family room.

Katelyn got her long locks cut off!

Katelyn fed her obsession got crafty making bracelets

Katelyn & Brookelle were in the Days of '47 Children's Parade in SLC

Fresh Lime treats!

When the school supplies hit the shelves, we jumped on it! 

(Haylee's back pack pick) 

Lagoon

The new ride, Cannibal!

It's description: Cannibal lifts riders 208 feet and plunges them into a 116° beyond vertical free-fall into an underground tunnel

We ALL survived, although there WAS some crying and closed eyes involved. We also rode it while it was raining, so we were privileged to get pelted in the face with rain drops during our ride; the ride that was not open by Lagoon's season opening day because the dummies were falling out on the test runs; the same ride we noticed, as we waited in line, had a swaying/wobbling inverted loop when the coaster went around that section of the track  - Oh, my!

 

Road trip to St. George in the EARLY morning hours, as the sun is just coming up.

Nothing quite like the hot days of Summer, standing by Port-a-Pottys watching a Pioneer Day Parade!

Hooray for the full-time missionaries (again!), singing, "Called to Serve," in this parade in Washington, UT

Kyle got the silver medal running in the 16 yr. old foot race (because he was the only 15 yr. old who wanted to race, he "ran up.") and won In-N-Out Burger coupons, too!

Sparklers & firecrackers in the street to finish off the Pioneer Day weekend.

(including the "grand finale" that sent many of us RUNNING & SCREAMING, like last year!)  ;)

4-Wheeling in the property behind my parents' house

Our Annual Movie Marathon.  This year's titles: "Penguins of Madagascar," "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb," "Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2," and "The Book of Life"

I attended the first day of this 2-day Women's Conference to close out the month of July.

[Mis]Adventures in Fireworks

As a disclaimer, let me set the background:
I grew up going to a BIG fireworks show every year to celebrate the 4th of July.  'BIG' as in Professional. Spectacular.  Awe-inspiring.  Impressive.  "Whoa!" exclamations inducing.  Large-scale display of fireworks.
That's the way it is when your uncle owns a fireworks company!  (As in he makes the fireworks himself, dons the fireproof suit and sets off the fireworks for the show himself, some years with the help of my aunt, in a football stadium at the USU campus!)

So, with THAT to compare to, I have always thought the store bought "fireworks" (If you can even call them that) were on the boring side.  BUT, these days, what used to be illegal is now for sale to the public, so the quality of "at-home" fireworks is improving -- slightly.

So, this year, it was announced that a 4th of July shindig was going to be held on the 3rd in our cul-de-sac for the entire neighborhood.  It was scheduled on the same night as the above mentioned fireworks tradition, but we opted to stay home and join in our local party this year.  We all brought food to eat and contributed about 10 bucks towards fireworks that someone purchased in our behalf.

We ate first, and were sitting around visiting until dark so we could start the fireworks......
at least that was how I THOUGHT it goes....
UNLESS the toddler-age crowd (who have an early bedtime?) is quite numerous amongst the group...
and then they start them at 8:20 p.m. when it is still light outside. 

Huh?!?   I've never experienced THAT.

This is how it went.

You'd hear the noise/boom.
You'd look up, following the fire ball up with your eyes.
You'd only see blue sky, and lose sight of the fire ball.
Then you'd see the ash &/or cardboard packaging debris fall back down to the ground.
No lights.
No colors.
No "flowers of fire" (that's how the Japanese word for "firework" [hanabi] translates into English, cool visual, huh?!?)
Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat.
Until all $200 worth of fireworks were all gone.
(Not the wisest use of money if you'd ask me -- but no one did!  haha)

So, on the actual 4th of July, Matt's family got some fireworks and came to our home to set them off since they aren't banned where we live.....BUT, we insisted they wait until DARK so as not to deja vous the night before.
We started out with smaller ones, and then moved towards the bigger ones as the night went on.
What was cool was that neighboring streets were setting them off, too, so we had our pick of displays to view.
We kept telling the kids to stay back on the grass and out of the road, but listening is not always their best attribute.....!
Along comes one of the bigger-ish fireworks and when it was set off, it did not seem to shoot up very high in the sky and the fire & lights were going off too LOW in my [semi-professional] opinion.  So, my survival instinct kicked in and I yelled, "Everybody get outta there!" (maybe a little unnecessarily?) and my outburst was followed by kids [actually listening!] running out of the road and my nephew literally leaping over the neighbor's fence!  (That was pretty admirable)
Then our neighbors drove into the cul-de-sac, returning home, so we took a break until their car was parked before starting up again.
For the "grand finale" we were setting off one that boasted 16 shots!
But, when it was set off, only about 5 went off, and it was kinda an anti-climatic ending to the 4th.
We were hanging around on the front lawn chatting for a while longer, not paying much attention to Matt's brother WHO WAS NOT SATISFIED with only getting 5/16 bang for his buck and was out there pretty much trying to dissect the dysfunctional firework and re-lighting it multiple times...... 
When all of sudden, mid-conversation, we hear a series of BOOMs and look up to see Matt's bro & dad running away from the firework as explosions started lighting up the cul-de-sac (it looked like slow motion running to me.)
Again, I screamed, "Hurry!  Get away!"  (but this time, NOT unnecessarily!)
THEN, the firework started going off sideways!!!
Right in the direction of our neighbors who had just returned home and were standing in their garage, emptying the trunk, just moments before!!!!
I had flashes of nightmare involving bushes, grass, & houses catching fire cross my mind.
(I think multiple people started screaming now!)
We were all thinking, Where's the next sideways shot going?  Towards OUR home and the 27 people?
Then almost simultaneously, we all got up and starting running for cover to the side and back of the house.

It was a reenactment of The Blob movie

Who needs Phoenixville, PA, we can do it right here in Farmington, too!

That's one way to clear a crowd, I tell ya - eveyone was gone within minutes of that!

It was very unsettling.

When I had sufficiently WATERED all remaining pieces of the fireworks, I was finally able to go inside to bed.

Hopefully, I can get my fireworks "fix" next week at Farmington Festival Days....my craving has yet to be satisfied this year!