Our explosive 4th of July weekend!

* Play song, It's America with this post

This summer has been so busy, but SOo fun!! And 4th of July was NO exception!! Friends coming from far away (who we consider family because of the special connections we share in the realm of our wonderful kids!), family weddings, family moving :( And we celebrated it all!

First, Steve's sister Amber and her husband Kevin are moving to West Virginia for him to go to medical school. We are sad to see them go, but are so proud of Kevin (he's going to be a cardiologist, wahoo! One more specialist we can have look at Em once and awhile ;) 

So we had a "little" get together at our house on Saturday with Steve's family. Not only for Kevin and Amber, but to celebrate the recent union of Jeff and Crystal. Jeff is Steve's little brother, and they got married on June 25th in Seattle, and luckily we had the party the day they got back into Utah from their honeymoon ;)

So cute! Crystal holding Isabel and Jeff holding Crystal.


And some more from the party

 Looking at pictures from Kevin and Amber's recent cruise

 Em just chillin

 The Flynns (minus Ariana)

Oh there she is, with grandma Peters of course! 


Playing the Wii

Rachelle, Jeff and Crystal

Jeff, Crystal and Cory


We will miss you Amber and Kevin! And we're so glad to have Crystal in the family :)

Next was when the Hammonds came to town from San Antonio :) We first met them at the San Antonio Ch18 conference back in 2008

That's their daughter Emily (4 years) next to Emarie (who was 6 months at the time). We are so glad we got to meet Emily here, because not too long after she went to be with our Heavenly Father again. 


We have kept in contact with the Hammonds and were delighted when they said they'd be coming here for the 4th because Camille's dad was being honored in the Freedom Festival (he's helping run a tv station in Afghanistan. Quite amazing what he's doing, and to read more about him and the Hammonds, click here)

So our family and the Howe's met up with them on Sunday where they were staying at the Solitude resort

Camille and Robby with Emarie

 The beautiful and happy Howe family!

And the Peters, thanks Camille for taking this picture!

 The girls (Abby and Lily) loved looking at the fish jumping out of the pond (Robby is behind them)

 The girls on the chair lift (too hard to get a perfect picture!), looks like Em and Lily are having a staring contest!

Emarie playing with Lance (the newest addition to the Hammonds, he just turned 1 and is a doll!)

 Our attempts at getting a good pic of all the kids

Deakon, Abby, Lance, Lilly and Emarie

 Haha, 5 very tired kids!

And all the moms, Alisha, Jenny and Camille (so glad we know each other, thanks to our kids!)

Actual 4th of July

First a trip to the Wilde's that afternoon for some yummy pie!

 Grandma Wilde, my little brother Connor, Tank and Grandpa Wilde

 Noah, Grandma Jen and Emarie playing with Noah's old Blue's Clue's toy... Em loved it!


Fireworks

Em showing off our whopping display of $25 worth of fireworks... impressive eh?? ; P

Em was much more intrigued and a lot less scared this year! Too bad it still isn't dark by 9, but we didn't want to keep her up any later than that

Anybody else remember those cool flowers lasting a whole lot longer than about 5 seconds?? Really thinking fireworks are not worth the money!

 They were out of sparklers, so the guy talked me into these... and I'm sure glad I saw not to give it to Em since the sparks were burning holes in the blanket she was sitting on

 Some of the neighbor kids joining us when theirs were finished (that's Rachel, Lovely, and Abby)

The only one I would let Em hold was unlit ;)

Hope everyone else had a great Independence Day weekend!