Fourth of July Fun!!

We had a such a FUN 4th of July yesterday!!  We started at the crack of dawn(well almost!) and went to our ward's pancake breakfast at 8am, Elizabeth and I sang America the Beautiful with the primary, then we had an absolutely amazing program!  It was so touching...there were very few dry eyes by the end, it definitely put you in a patriotic mood!  The food was of course very good, and we enjoyed visiting, but we had to leave as soon as we were done eating to get up to Layton where my parents were saving us a place for the parade.  Elizabeth naturally announced she had to go potty shortly after we got on the freeway...so we made a super quick stop at a nearby gas station, and got there a bit later than we planned but it was all good!  Elizabeth has been begging to go to a parade for a week.."cause that's a fourth of July thing!" so she was quite excited to finally be seeing one!  Devin did so much better than we though he would!  He actually enjoyed the fire trucks and police motorcycles, and for a while just sat up on Tony's shoulders and just watched it!  Elizabeth enjoyed seeing the floats and got really excited when she saw one with a temple!  She also loved that there was candy thrown for her to get, and she loved watching the cheerleaders do their tricks, and dancing to the bands, and seeing horses!  It was all she was hoping for and more!!  Then we found a nice shady spot under a tree and got lunch at the little carnival at the park...it was lots of fun!  Then we went to my parent's house, Eric and Jen were there waiting for us...we put Devin down for a much needed late nap and visited while Tony and my dad made the kiddie car wash(for the family party on Saturday) Elizabeth was in and out for most of it.  After they were finished with it Elizabeth put on a swimsuit my mom had(that was a wee small as it was a size 24 month...but it worked) and went out back and tested out the kiddie car wash...and she had such fun with it!!  Sadly while she was out she got stung by a wasp on her left hand, which swelled up really fast so we took her to the Instacare, but it had already closed, so we went to Walgreens to see if there was something we could give her or put on it.  The pharmacist said it looked like she was having an allergic reaction and told us about a 24 hour pediatric office we could take her to, so we went there just to find out they don't take our(crappy)insurance, but the nurse agreed that her hand didn't look good, so she let us do self pay, which isn't ideal but a whole lot cheaper than an ER visit.  By the time the doctor looked at it the redness was starting to go down which he said was good but her hand was still pretty swollen, so he told us to give her benedryl and watch her...he also gave a a prescription for an antibiotic just in case the redness got worse again or the swelling didn't go down.  Luckily the benedryl did the trick!  So now we know, Elizabeth is allergic to wasp stings.  By the time we got back to my parent's house dinner was ready.  My dad got a new fancy grill for his birthday, so he smoked baby back ribs and they were good!  He had cheesecake birthday cake, the best kind! :)  After dinner we had some "wi-fi time", then Elizabeth and I did some fun 4th of July papers...she did a word match, a dot to dot, a coloring page  and a star streamer craft!  Then we went out front(after assuring Elizabeth the wasps were gone) and tested out the fun DIY games my parents made for the party, and they were a blast!  Everyone was able to enjoy them in one way or another! ;) Devin showed off his little Linus self and as the sun went down the fireworks broke out all around!  We had picked up some pop-its and sparklers...Elizabeth didn't like the pop-its at all, but Devin seemed intrigued by them, and she was hesitant at first about the sparklers.  She told us, "you blow out fire...not play with it!"  She is a smart girl!  But once Tony, Jen and I showed her how much fun they could be she gave it another go and enjoyed it a bit more.  Devin was once again totally enthralled by the fireworks going off above him, and we sat on the lawn and watched them going off all around us.  It really was a great 4th of July!

Here is a video of Elizabeth dancing at the parade!


This is a video of Devin playing the corn whole game, and Elizabeth, Tony and Jen playing the plinko game!