Independence Day

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July! We had a busy and fun holiday. We went to the North Salt Lake fireworks on July 3rd. It was a fun time, Arden had a great time playing in the sand trap at the golf course and playing with Grandpa, Manda, Matt and Val while waiting for the fireworks to start. By the time the fireworks started, Daxton was already fast asleep, and slept through the whole thing (if he can sleep through Arden every day, a few little fireworks shouldn't bother him at all!) Arden wasn't sure about the fireworks at first, the loud noise scared her a little. But by the end of the show, she was naming the colors and saying ooooh and aaaah like the rest of us.

The next day we went to the Riverdale parade with my family. My sister recently moved to Riverdale and had heard that a lot of candy was thrown in the parade and that the parade itself was pretty short. Short parade, lots of candy, sounded perfect! So we headed down there and were not disappointed! Arden scored a TON of candy (with the help of Preston, of course) and the parade was short enough that she didn't get bored or too hot. Then we did the BBQ thing, first at my parents' house and then at Preston's parents. By the time we got home Arden was tiiiiiiired. Here is a slide show of some of the pictures we took:

The next day we kind of laid low and relaxed in the morning, and then headed to our nephew Matthew's 1st birthday party in the evening. During the day, I was running on the treadmill and trying to find something to watch on TV (we don't have our satellite TV in the basement so I am stuck with network stations). I ended up watching a show about Medal of Honor winners. With all the rushing around and eating food and watching parades and fireworks, I hadn't had much of a chance to really think about how lucky we are to live in this country and to really appreciate all of those who have given their lives so that we can enjoy all of the freedoms that we all seem to take for granted. Forget Batman and Hancock, those guys are the real superheroes. I am so glad that there were and are people like them who are brave enough to give their lives for our country. I really doubt whether I would be brave enough to do anything that those men and women have done, and I hope I never have to find out!

On another note, the potty training is going pretty good. After the first few days, Arden is finally getting the idea, and even went #2 in the potty this morning all by herself. Preston found her sitting on the potty doing her thing, she didn't even have to tell us she needed to go, she just went all by herself. Hopefully things will keep getting better and we will have this whole potty thing perfected in another couple of weeks.