4th of July activities

So I'm a little late in getting around to posting about our 4th of July, but here it is anyway.

Brodie quit his job on Friday.  Because the 4th of July was Monday, he wasn't starting his new job until Tuesday.  He felt a little lost without a job over the weekend, and was a little nervous about starting a new job.  But he was around for the day so we wanted to do something together as a family.  We've never really had a solid tradition of something to do other than lighting off our own fireworks, so we decided to try out the festivities Sandy City was putting on down at the South Towne Promenade.  We started the day off making Fifi's French Toast (from Spencer's Jr. Cookbook), at Spencer's request.  We also decided Clara would be happier with a morning nap first and we didn't want to spend money on lunch, with Brodie being weekendly unemployed and all, so we set out right after lunch.  We parked up close and upon entering saw the Fire department and Police department all set up.  The Police were letting the kids sit on their motorcycles for pictures, but there was a line, which Spencer's allergic to since Legoland, and Tessa was too frightened of.  So we went towards the fire truck.  Tessa was once again frightened (if you know how small she is you may understand why big things scare her) and Spencer had "been there, done that".  He reminded me he's been in a firetruck when we dressed him up as a fireman for Halloween when he was almost 2, at preschool both years, and again in kindergarten.  It had lost its appeal for him.  So on we went.

Where we entered the "festivities" there was a stage with some girl singing.  She sounded fine and all, but my kids didn't know the songs she was singing and really didn't care.  We walked past quite a few booths of people selling things we didn't need or want.  Then we were hit with a bunch of yummy smells and some yummy food vendors cooking all sorts of delicious eats.  But we had just eaten lunch for the sole reason of avoiding buying food, so it didn't really matter.  At the end of this were a handful of inflatables--a bouncy house, and a few slides/mazes.  Each one had a person collecting tickets--that you had to buy.  I've paid for these things a few times in the past with my experimental child (that being Spencer--the firstborn) and decided it's not worth it.  They set their stop watch for like 2 minutes on the bounce house and you only get to go down the slide once per ticket.  It's never been worth it before, so I didn't even bother finding out how much the tickets cost this time.  I'll take them to Classic Fun Center later.  We walked down the other aisle of vendors, past the stage, and back to our car.  The kids were confused and asked why we came.  We were wondering the same thing...

With a whole empty day ahead of us and some disappointed kids we tried to spontaneously think of something else fun and different to do, but I'm a planner who didn't have a Plan B.  Brodie decided on the Jordan River Walkway and we drove out to the entrance South of 7800 South.  We parked the car and put Clara in the stroller and started walking.  Well, it was something different for us.  Once again we had confused children wondering if we were going on some sort of an adventure.  I tried to explain it was more like a nature walk...but with the sound of cars in the background.  I'm sure this would have been an enjoyable walk if we had explained to the kids first what to expect, but we started out the day all hyped up that we were going to have so much fun!  This wasn't the kind of fun they had imagined.  Nonetheless, we have imaginative kids and a good family who found fun in the walk anyhow.  We looked for butterflies, hid under the trees from the rain, and found a bridge and some dead sticks to play Pooh sticks with.  It's a game that stems from a Winnie-the-Pooh book I read to my kids.  Tessa usually won, but I think she always let go of the stick when I said "Set" not when I said "Go".

The Jordan River Walkway is quite lovely.  It's a nice place to take a walk or bike ride away from the feel of a city.  We ended up quite enjoying ourselves even being a little bit on the wet side (except Clara who had the stroller canopy).  I guess with the weather we've had I should be grateful we weren't snowed on.

On our way home we passed by an elementary school and decided to stop and let the kids play at the playground--more the type of "fun" they had probably envisioned earlier that day.  They had a blast, as they always do on playgrounds, and came home with very wet butts.  With the sporadic rain falls throughout the day, some very large puddles had accumulated on the bottom of the slides.  Quite to the surprise of the kids!  Tessa had to change as she doesn't like to be dirty or wet, but Spencer didn't care (very fitting if you know him).

Later that evening we had some neighbors, and very good friends of ours, come over for a BBQ.  We had Dave & Roxane and 3 of their 4 kids:  Jeff, Sierra, and Chantel.  We grilled some burgers and dogs along with some leftover grilled pineapple (from when we had a young man, Nate, over for Brodie's backyard smoked ribs the day before), carrot sticks, chips & drinks (courtesy of our awesome neighbors), and a patriotic dessert.

Then we headed out front for our yearly fireworks.  We've never taken the kids to a show as they are quite ornery if they stay out too late, plus we enjoy the people in our circle who usually end up congregating during the evening.  They kids brought out their foam couches to sit/lay on.  Tessa had attached herself to Chantel and stayed close by.  Jeff was also fun for the kids, but Sierra had disappeared by this time.  We started with the parachutes, pops/snaps, and sparklers.  At first Tessa was frightened of the sparkler, but after I got her to hold the first one she went through half a dozen more.

Then we started with all the ground blooms, smoke bombs, and little fountains.  We had bought a $70 pack and a $20 pack from Costco and split them up for the 4th and the 24th.  Then our neighbors brought some over as well.  Throughout the evening a few other neighbors stopped by for a little bit to say hi or sit and watch a few fountains with us.  By the time we were onto our finale, the largest fountain, it was actually dark.  The family that joined us just in time for this fountain had bought some of the more expensive aerials that are actually legal this year.  We decided to head up more in the circle where there was more room and let the kids watch these as well.  The first one really frightened the kids, being so loud and close above them.  But then they really enjoyed the rest.  I thought it was a lot of fun to look around the valley and see so many fireworks going off!  I really enjoyed both the fireworks and the company.  We live in a great circle!  We finally got the kids in around 10 as the city and other places were doing their shows, scaring the kids and the dog with the loud bangs.  Eventually it died down and we got the kids to bed.  Now they are looking forth to the 24th.  But will we do the fireworks on Sunday, or Monday?  Any thoughts on whether that is breaking the Sabbath?