a PATRIOTIC day in the life of me...

This wonderful day started out yesterday. Last night University Avenue came ALIVE. People came out of the woodwork to stake out their claim for the parade this morning. My ward decided to join in the fun. After an insane 13 player game of UNO, some of us decided that we needed to join in the biker brigade - yes there were about 25 bikers parading their stuff down the street over and Over and OVER again. Thankfully, one of our buddies had a scooter and the fun began. During my turn we found ourselves in the middle of a "real" bike brigade. There were probably 30 bicycles riding together which was cool, but this was the best part - attached to one of the bikes was a HUGE speaker system. We decided that a car battery was running that thing. They were blasting music and rocking out with all their might. We joined them during Miley Cyrus' song "Party in the USA." THROW YOUR HANDS UP!
I crashed at 1:30am and woke up in time for the parade to start - it definitely couldn't have started without me. :-) We had some air force fly overs, many marching bands, floats, many royalties, veterans and boy scouts. It was a great parade.

The pipe band from a local high school. It was great!

My friend Desirae and her darling, 2 year old, Kale. I joined up with them for the second half of the parade. He LOVES me and that makes me smile!

My friend Des and I rockin' our hats. Nothing like a good "get up and go" look for the 4th of July parade. I just love her! Her husband was the photographer or he too would have been in the picture.

After the parade a group from my ward decided that we needed to have some more fun. We packed up our towels, swim suits, food, water and games and headed down to the swimming hole in Mona, UT. They had 2 tree swings so of course we had to go for it. This is me prepping myself to get up and go. The BBQ was delicious, the water was cool and refreshing, the rope swing was just high enough to be scary, and the sun was almost TOO hot.

So as I'm waiting in line for my turn the girls in front of me were having some ... um ... let's just say difficulties throwing themselves off the tree into the water. Now as it got closer and closer to my turn I realized why they were having these difficulties - the tree was very FAR from the water. I turned to the guy behind me, some random stranger, and said "if I start to stall up there, you have full permission to just push me in!" Oh did his eyes light up! hahahhaha. He then told me that it was easier to get to the rope if you hold on to the person's hand. Not true. It was easier to crawl, but he wouldn't let go of my hand so that I could finish getting myself across. In the end I was able to get to where I needed to be and thankfully I was able to throw myself off the tree before he could actually follow through with my request.

OH YEAH!!! so fun!