4th festivities

Despite being daddy-less and totaling maybe 3 hours of sleep the night before, we had a really fun 4th of July. We woke up early to catch the hot air balloon festival. Love it!

The weather patterns weren't cooperating, so they decided not to launch any balloons (except for one that was tethered), but they blew them up for spectators to walk around anyway. That's the funnest part. Grace loved it.

After less than a half hour there was a big gust of wind that instantly blew all the balloons down. It was chaos! Scrambling balloon workers yelling at each other to pull down the balloons, screaming people as the balloons blew on top of them, bystanders jumping on the anchor ropes to help save the balloons - and being dragged in the process. It was quite the drama. All the balloons came down in about 20 seconds.

I love this next picture of Grace eating the strawberry. She loved this whole botched event. She had no idea it was botched. They played music over the loudspeakers and she danced much of the time, even after the balloons had all been packed up.

Then came the parade! Grace whole-heartedly cheered for all the firetrucks and police vehicles that kicked off the parade.

Here's a rare photo of a chubby pregnant Britta and Grace characteristically licking the frosting off a doughnut.
Attention: These next photos are for you Star Wars fans out there. Valerie, I took them especially with your family in mind. Wish you could have seen these.

The parade had over 50 Star Wars characters marching together. The costumes were seriously impressive (and must have been SO HOT).


The afternoon was filled with BBQ fun with my sister's family and her in-laws. Grace was so pooped out that she fell asleep just in time to miss fireworks. Luckily with the new Utah firework laws this year, I had plenty to see from my kitchen window late into the night after she went down.

Hope you all had a happy 4th!