Utah Holiday-Pioneer Day, or Things Go BOOM!!

The girls.

The guys.

This is the kids attempting to protect their ears during the fireworks.

Kids. So cute.

Jack! Quick-cover your ears! No, your EARS, not your hair!! Oh well......

Watching the ceremonial, patriotic lighting of the firework.

The beautiful people, meaning the wives and the kids.

More beautiful people. Ok, its the same ones, but another shot.

Hmmmmmm! Me zombie! Me hungry! Me eat your brains!

Just kidding! I not zombie, I husband!

Hey, lets get a close up.

Blurry and out of focus?

Of course!

Patriotic magic in action! I can feel my love for my country growing by leaps and bounds!

Waiting for the action.

So, it Utah, the 24th of July is a state holiday, celebrating the state's pioneer heritage. Or if you are a Native American, it is a commemeration of the take-over of the state by the white man. Anyway, July seems to be the month of holidaze in Utah. It starts off with the local "________ days" and then there's the 4th of July, which is big. And by days, I mean Strawberry days for Pleasant Grove, Steel Days for American fork, etc. It seems like every little town or city has their own summer festival/fair, and they all seem to happen around this time. It all seems to culminate on the 24th of July, celebrated as Pioneer Day, complete with a Days of '47 parade.

Great thing about having a 'twin,' he can double for you in pictures. So, is this Mike or Jason? Maybe it's Mike, maybe it's me-I'll never tell! Ha ha ha!

Burn baby, burn!

Jack has a healthy fear of fireworks, as Heather said, or is a wuss, like I said. This is the sparkler Jackers refused to hold.

Pioneer Day in Utah, '09. We were at the pool, but Heather (secret fact about Heather and her dad-both closet pyro's!! Who woulda thunk? now you know...) insisted on getting out. Guess she like to see things go boom.

Twinner? You decide.....

Some of you may recall my telling you about a 'twin' that I have for a neighbor. I told a story about his daughter confusing me for him and jumping into my arms at the pool....anyway, this is him.

The girl on the right is his daughter, Riley, the one that got confused at the pool. I feel bad for the kid, and wonder what she thinks of me. I swear everytime she looks at me she's either still a little bit confused/hurt/or angry with me-no matter what, it feels like it's a dirty look. I don't realy blame her.

I asked her to smile for the camera-no dice. Like I said, she's still mad at me.

Mike, (my twin's name) told me that he thought the people at our church were SOOOO friendly, but then he decided that people must have just been confusing him for me. Ha!! We have a lot of good laughs witht his whole thing; I guess I gave a really great talk in church a little while ago. I get tired of correcting people that I don't anymore, I just say thanks and smile. Evil, I know. I also really freaked out one of the kids in my Subday school class when Mike popped his head in to say hi during my lesson.

So, what do you think? Are we brothers from different mothers or what?

Bless his little heart, at least he's trying.

Sometimes Bubba gets so anxious to go outside, he tries to put his own clothes on.

As you can see, he's not quite ready to strike out into the world on his own yet.

Hey, one-for-two on pant legs isn't really that bad.

New Paint!! & Big Boy Bed

As promised, pics of the new paint in Bubba's room.

I think it looks lovely.

And, our little boy is in a big boy bed now, and sorta doing alright.

Yes, about the water. A few months back, our water got shut off. For our ENTIRE 12 building condo complex. Something about construction, blah blah blah. So I decided water storage was in order, make a trip to wally world, and now, yes, I keep it under Bubba's bed.

Seattle Shout-out

This is an attempt to say Howzit?? to our peeps in Seattle. Enjoy!

You're killin' me Smalls.

Hey, you want a s'more?

Some more of what?

No, do you want a s'more?

I haven't had anything yet... so how can I have some more of nothing?

You're killing me, Smalls! These are s'mores stuff. Okay, pay attention.

First you take the graham. You stick the chocolate on the graham.

Then, you roast the mallow.

When the mallow's flaming, you stick it on the chocolate.

Then you cover it with the other end. Then, you stuff.

Summertime

Tastes like

ice cold water from a hose
salt on your upper lip from sweating all the time
warm fruit, picked off of the tree-nothing like it in the world
hot dogs with ketchup and mustard hamburgers
ice cream you have to eat fast because inElPasointhesummerstuffmeltsfast
June bugs (like dry shrimp, but crunchier) fajitas paletas
raspas watermelon

Please-please-please-please can I have some Kool-Aid ? ? ?
Well…es mucha azucar, mijo (it‘s a lot of sugar)…ok.

Kool-aid
Popcorn, pickle, Raisinets, and Dr Pepper at the movies…..ah,…. air conditioning
fair foods
turkey legs grilled corn-on-the-cob more paletas and raspas
popcorn tamarindo sal de limon
camping food
MRE’s pork’n’beans rotisserie chicken

What will summer taste like for Jack?


Dairy Queen at Gramma McEuen's house in Sant George.

Lunch at Zions.

Animal crackers.

Apples.

Bar-B-Que.

Chocolate cake at Tuscano's.

Fresh fruit.

Yogurt hair.