God Bless America

"How YOU doin?," I said at 5 in the a.m. this fine 4th of July day. 

Once a year I wake up before the sun is up. ONCE and ONLY once!

But it's so worth it.

I love this tradition with our family and wouldn't miss it for anything!

The other thing is that our kids love it so much too. They never complain about getting up- it might as well be christmas!

So, we all met up down at the Hot Air Balloon lift off station in Provo and wait patiently to see if we would be the jinx to make the balloons NOT lift off for yet the 4th year in a row. 

They lifted off this year and we were so happy!!!!

 See, this is not a normal Lisa thing to do----be up when the sun is not yet.

Here's Max and I basking in the darkness that was 530 am.  Lookin pretty cheery if I do say so myself!

The whole gang a la early.

J & Chris

and the Brent bomb

 Karri &  Con

 Max took a breather in the stroller while I tried to warm the Fin up. She would NOT keep her blankie on, but she was content about it the whole time.

 It's fun to just be there and watch all the ballooners get prepared. To lay out their balloons, and fire them up.

 Mana, Conli, Sawyer, Mara

 Weird- the fire filling up the balloons, freaked Sawyer's freak so bad that she hung on to Brent for dear life the entire time.

Finally he worked it out so she would be safe and happy.

Cute boys

I just love Fin's squishiness in this

and how beautiful my baby is here

and i love that she totally looks like one of my baby pics right here. Some day maybe I'll compare- I know, you can't wait!

 TLA

Finley does not like Conli coming into her personal bubble....try as she might. But Con's smiling anywho.

always fashion fashion with Karri

and Mana

pretty shot of the preparations

and this is always the first balloon to go up.

They dangle the flag from the basket and play the Star Spangled Banner.

Then we all say the Pledge of Allegiance. 

It's a beautiful moment.

and fun this time because the wee lil couple that was in the basket this day, well, they got engaged while they were up there. She was super surprised, and intense make outs followed.

Max & J snuck and touched a balloon

Then Conli and Mana tried. I love her little balled up fist that was nervous :)

I don't know what happened here to Mar, but it's still cute.

FIRE IN THE HOLE!

Max & J! He was so excited that the balloons were going to actually go up this year!

and forgive all the pics of the balloons, but I love them....and it's my blog, not yours :)

And the traditional family 4th of July pic.  

We never got one of us all together- lame

After most of them had taken off, we headed back to the cars to go eat some grub.  Mana took us all to Village Inn for nummy breakfast.

Conli made us take a "fake walking" picture, because really walking wasn't doing the trick I suppose

then a fake laughing one.

And Chris needed in on some action too.

Well, after filling ourselves up to the top with breakfast vittles, we headed home and relaxed for a bit.

 Soy cooled off in the front yard

And Conli played photographer for our first 

-RAMEYRIDGEANOGOS-

4th of July WOD

We had to make up our own so we could still work out this day. So we did 5 rounds I think- of 

run to the stop sign and back

push ups

air squats

double unders

I don't remember how many of each, but it was a good'n if I do say so myself. 

I even did my push ups like a man.

Sawyer loves working out. She watches intently at the gym when she comes with me every day. She hates missing it. And she's hilairiously quite good at things.

Here she is warming up with me.

and a brisk warm up joggle

 Brent gettin his push ups on.

it was toasty out there at 2 in the afternoon

and I don't know why the pics won't center....driving my OCD out of control....

Twas great! Go Team!

The Alpine fire was all a rage that day, and  the cool thing was that the helicopters were loading up or something right by our house!  So, we went on a lil drive to see what was happening. It was really neat to see.

all a'blaze

'copter going in

Max's cool shot

 airplanes galore

so sad

but it was cool that we could see trees blowing up and stuff....it's crazy

A little real life "Always" for me and the dad.

 Some cute guy that lives right there and had been evacuated made friends with us. He'd snuck up to feed his chickens and take a shower :) So, he took a pic of us to remember the day :) 

Did I mention Brent got a new truck!!!!??? WAHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After going home we headed over to Mana's for a KFC dinner. 

Finger Lickin Good

 We'd gotten tickets for Stadium of Fire and planned on taking everyone but Finley, but after Sawyer's reaction to the hot air balloons, Brent convinced me to leave her too. Plus she was worn out and all types of crazy by this time.

So, we brought Aunt Karri instead!

and we ran into friends that we love

 the stage

 patiently waiting...or maybe listening to the cute country boy that won American Idol

Brent despises that I insist/beg/demand he come with us to this. He HATES traffic like I hate messes.  But, we thought we'd concocted the perfect getaway. We parked a bit away, in the perfect spot, right off Canyon Road and were going to high tail it outta there ASAP.

mas stage

me and my sweet Con

One of the best parts of the whole day is when these guys fly over to begin the festivities. It's sooooo awesome, and loud, and then they "speaker" in and talk to us all and wish us a happy fourth.

All Max needed to make his night complete

And my happy

Finally it was beach boy time. 

Who knew I knew every word to every song the Beach Boys played????

My daddy would be proud. 

It was sOOOO fun!!!!

Karri pulled out her glow sticks and we did not stop dancing the entire.time.

my aching feet.....

And my poor trooper of a hubster got thee worst headache and the most inopportune time....it was not quiet, nor sleepable there.

cool night stage

Conli knew the fireworks were going to heppen soon and was just being prepared.

 

poor chained up Max

I LOVE Karri in this

 Glow stick mustache mayhem

 Then, it was time for the real deal. The fireworks. What we'd all been waiting for.

I dare say it was the best bit of fireworks I've EVER seen. It was sOOOOOO amazing. Apparently it was the 50h anniversary of James Bond and so the fireworks went with each movies' theme song. And seriously, I was loving it!!! The Diamonds song....awesome fireworks. We were not disappointed.

 and i'm pretty sure there were about 4 finales.  It was awesome. We had left at one point to "beat the traffic" and couldn't keep walking because the fireworks just kept going and going and going! It was soooo great. I love fireworks, if you didn't know :) 

 It was the funnest day!!! I love the 4th of July!!!!