Turning.

May 30th, 2017

 Having your youngest turn fifteen is not for the faint of heart. 
Each birthday has brought me pangs of angst 
from the time  he turned 5. 
His birthdays mark an end to an era.
In a kind of a melodramatic way it's like saying goodbye to each of my children-- 
I'll never have another 5 year old, 6 year old or 14 year old.  
See what I mean about dramatic?
It's not fun.
However, so far, this boy has welcomed his fifteenth year in a big way.
A high adventure trip to Lake Powell, a Pioneer Trek, 
and a stellar week at EFY have occupied June and July. 
He has loved it all.
He's becoming a fine young man.
I'll take that as a consolation prize for the trampling of my heart.
Drama queen. Sorry. :)

 Happy late birthday Will.
Love you.

Independence is Not for the Weak.

 Once upon a time about 4 years ago, we decided to pretend that the epic parade held in Provo each 4th of July, 

was NOT too stressful to go to, after avoiding it for years and years.

The main stressor is that 24 hours before the parade starts,

 people start camping out. 

That is enough to keep anyone away. 

We didn't want to take it that seriously, 

so we learned that if we just set our sights on the last leg of the route, 

we could get up a little early the morning of, 

and find a decent spot. 

It works like a charm. 

Even for parking. No stress.

And so we now love our parade.

And when I say we, I mean me, Will, and Grandma Tomi.

This year, Grandma Tomi was in the parade so others made an extra effort to go as well :)

 These three decided that they wanted to get up at 5:30 a.m. 

to secure a place for the 9:00 event. 

And so they did.

Therefore, we got a lovely spot with plenty of leg room.

In the pre-parade festivities, Will won Comic Con tickets by being able to name the next three Marvel movies to come out. 

Child's play for that boy.

After others showed up to help save the spot,

 he assumed his usual parade position. :) 

Gotta love a good book.

Yup, it's a motley crew.

A new fun element added to this 4th of July, was celebrating with a Brit....Michaela's friend Emily came across the pond just in time to see  what goes on as we commemorate our independence from her home country. She had no idea.

 And then, I turned the camera over to Will.

After deleting a lot of pictures of  garbage cans, people's ears,

 and other random things that a 15-year old would find interesting, 

it left me with about 4 shots. 

 Lots and lots of horse pictures.

Luckily, we managed to capture the main event.

  

  Grandma Tomi walked the entire parade route with the 

Provo and Orem missionaries in the 90 degree heat.

She was awesome.

And let me tell you, Provo loves its missionaries. 

They ignited the most spirited applause. 

It's such a great sight!

I think Grandma Tomi has still not recovered completely but to say it was a highlight for her is an understatement.

We finished the day off with an epic fireworks show at Angie's.

Our supply turned out to be meager compared to all of her neighbor's combined efforts, so we lit ours, and then sat back and watched with amazement everything going off around us. 

Truly awesome.

And Emily, bless her heart, 

got to light her very first Sparkler ever.

Happy Independence Day.