Celebrating our first Fourth of July together was so memorable and fun!  Since the actual holiday was on a Tuesday, the celebrations started the weekend before.  Saturday evening we went to watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks at the MTC field with my parents and it was a great time.  We played cards and games, and Michael Jay and Carla were also there so that was fun!  We then watched the fireworks but left a little early to beat the traffic rush.  When we got to Chantelle and Austin’s (where we’d parked) we realized though that we could see the fireworks better from there and we could even hear the music!  It was great so we watched the end of the show and then drove home, thankfully still beating much of the traffic.

Monday we had a party with the Turley family to celebrate the holiday and everyone was there.  We hosted at our place and it was such a good time!  We had a barbecue and lots of yummy food, and afterward we played games in the backyard, roasted marshmallows, ate homemade ice cream, and then had a fireworks show.  Grandpa even taught Liza how to light the fireworks, and a random dog showed up for the fun!  It was a great night!

Tuesday (the actual holiday) started with the parade… We were going to run the Freedom Run but ended up sleeping through it!  We then met my parents at the parade and they had Liza and Emma and it was cute to see their excitement with all the floats and entertainment.  Because of how popular the parade is, our parking was quite a ways away, but that way we were able to get in the steps that we didn’t get in during the run! 😉

We then decided to spend the day enjoying this beautiful country and state we live in, so we went up to Sundance and hiked Stewart Falls.  It was GORGEOUS!  Thankfully it wasn’t too busy and we were able to really just enjoy our time together. We were also able to get in a lot of steps, so we felt good about that!  At the end of the hike, we saw some people running through the waterfall.  It appeared they were running behind it and not getting too wet, so we thought, why not?  We ran behind the waterfall, and by behind I mean through!  There was really no behind, and we ended up getting soaking wet!  It felt good though on the hike back and actually kept us nice and cool.  We even found a heart-shaped rock where Tom wrote “T+T” — he’s so wonderfully sweet!

After the hike we went home, took a shower, and then went to the store to try and find Tom a shirt to wear in the photo shoot we’re having later this week.  We then grabbed dinner at Taco Bell — one of our favorite guilty pleasure spots! — and then went and walked around where we’ll be having the pictures taken.  It was beautiful!  The sun was setting and we were able to see some fireworks, and it was a really great ending to the day!  As we drove home, we realized we could see even more fireworks across the valley and it was actually quite amazing.  We drove up to the hills behind our home and had such a great view.  It was a wonderful holiday and of course the best part was being together!