Dear Family and Friends,

With the 4th of July falling on a Sunday this years it seems like the celebrations have increased. Thank goodness for naps and Sunday morning sleeping in! Friday we went to the pool with some friends in tow and then went off to a baseball game followed by fireworks. Robyn was more interested in the churros and the playground but everyone else enjoyed the game. Then Saturday we rousted out of bed at 5:30 to go down to Provo to see their hot air balloon festival. Jeremy was in photographer heaven as with Spencer and Allison in tow he got to go inside a balloon as it was being inflated and help with the set up and take down. Because of wind there were many false starts and only 3 balloons ended up launching. But it was still a lot of fun followed by french toast at the nearby Kneaders. Then everyone came home and crashed with naps.

Jeremy had a long photo shoot with a friend's extended family up in the canyon Saturday evening. The kids and I camped out at a nearby field for the city's fireworks show. Then we all met up to lay on the grass, eat popcorn and ooh and aww together. Tomorrow we are doing our Neighborhood of Fire so our kids will definitely get more than their fair share of fireworks this year. Tonight is just stuffing ourselves with BBQ food (BBQ peaches and vanilla ice cream - wow) with Jason and family and having kids run around and swim in the hot tub. Life is pretty dang good.

Lots of summer activities this week with friends coming along for the ride most days. Taylor had 3 days of school this week including a dance which I heard he loved. Robyn had her two last games of t-ball. Thank goodness for a patient coach as the parents just laugh at the kids and visit while he runs herd on the chaos. Got my hair done and Allison informed me that it didn't look any different! Guess that is a good thing. I give Jeremy a hard time about his gray hairs and he points out that I wouldn't even know if I had any as they are just colored over!

We took our annual kids outing to BYU this week. Kids ate a picnic on the quad, tramped all over the art museum (Spencer's favorite) and the Bean animal museum and then ended up at the creamery for ice cream cones. Always a favorite excursion.

Monday night Robyn was determined to have her training wheels off. Allison and her friend Alena were all set to help her and cheer her on. Things were going great except for a tendency to steer towards the curb when three little girls scream and run away from our yard, yelling "snake!". Spencer runs towards the snake yelling "cool". A very boy vs. girl moment. It turned out to be a garter snake, "Vincent" who has taken up residence in our front yard. Kids spent a long time with a patient Jeremy teaching them to get over their phobias and they all thought it was very cool. We have seen Vincent a few times since, hopefully eating all our bugs and spiders for us.

Love to you all and hope you enjoyed some fireworks and BBQ too!

Heather