Details Details

We had a fabulous 4th of July weekend! We did so many things and had a blast doing all of them! I better break this down by days because there is a lot to cover.

SATURDAY, JULY 3RD

We started the day bright and early with a breakfast with Jake's parent's home ward. They do this big ward breakfast every year with a flag ceremony and everything. They always have really good ham which is my favorite part so it mostly makes the 7:00 am start time worth it. :-)

Unfortunately, Jake and I had to head to work after this. Fortunately for me, I only had to work 1 hour. Jake had to work from 9:00 am to 5:30 pm. :-( Sad!

After piano I went to my little sister's place to make a bow for Abrielle for the 4th of July. It was important that she had a 4th of July bow! :-)  So cute!

My Grandma and Grandpa Troff always have a huge 4th of July party at their house each year. And I am not kidding - it is a HUGE party. They have giant, inflatable water slides and 4 pools and 2 kiddie pools and 20+ water guns, and then they fill up water balloons! We have a giant barbecue with hamburgers and hot dogs, salads, every kind of fruit imaginable, and LOTS of drinks. AND to top it all off - we have a huge fireworks show complete with smoke bombs, flowers, tank wars, and a huge box of assorted fireworks. And we always have doughnuts during the fireworks. It is quite the spectacular event and Abrielle just loved every second of it! She would have spent all day in the kiddie pool if she could have.

SUNDAY, JULY 4TH - Happy Independence Day!

Once again, we started the day early. My newest cousin, Carter Isaac Dunford, was blessed at 9:00 am. We had a wonderful light lunch following the blessing and it was fun to get to be with my family. We rushed Abrielle back home for a nap because she wasn't dealing well with the early morning business and then we headed over to Mom & Dad Bentley's house for our 4th of July celebration. We had Fiesta Chicken and I made roasted cabbage and Brazilian lemonade. Everyone loved the lemonade and a lot of people loved the cabbage, but we had some picky cabbage eaters that didn't prefer it. My sister-in-law Vickie and brother-in-law Henry baked a cake that we topped with whipped cream, strawberries, and blueberries to make a very festive cake. It was even more delicious than it looked!

To finish of the fun day we had "reverent" fireworks. And yes, they were reverent. We laughed so hard making fun of how reverent they really were. But $10 just doesn't get you a whole lot these days and we had a really great time visiting with everyone and laughing together.

MONDAY, JULY 5TH - it continues....

Again... we started early. Not as early but my sister-in-laws Vickie and Beth crashed at our place on Sunday night and we met up with my brother-in-law Steven for breakfast at IHOP. It is a tradition for us to go out to breakfast on the 4th of July. We had a buy one get one free entree coupon and breakfast was still over $20! I spent the morning trying to focus on the experience and not think about how much we could have made at home that would have been bigger portions that tasted better. (Not to toot my own horn or anything....) But it was the experience that counted and we had fun with the family.

After breakfast we spent most of the remainder of the morning and early afternoon playing games. We are borrowing Guitar Hero from my sister right now and it is a lot of fun to play.

After a quick nap once they left my sister, Alyssa, and her husband, Matt, and their baby, Serenthia, all came over for a barbecue and MORE fireworks! We had SOOOO much fun. Matt bought Abrielle some poppers and she loved them so much! I have a video of her doing them with my brother, Zachary, on Saturday but I think she really got it this time and just had so much fun. We had a great dinner of brats and sauerkraut and barbecued pineapple that Matt does so well on. We had tons of sparklers that Abrielle and Serenthia weren't so keen about but we had these awesome Monster Balls that took the firework cake! They would explode in a sudden burst of pops and lights in a big radius and we would inevitably jump every time. We had so much fun and I am so grateful that we can have such great friends in our family members.

I have included a very few of my favorite pictures of Abrielle from the festivities. I was just taking them with my phone so sorry if the quality isn't that great.

We hope you had a fabulous weekend and that everyone is well and happy!

Love, Shayla, Jacob, and Abrielle