Happy Birthday to the land that I love!

Happy 4th of July! I absolutely love celebrating this holiday. I feel so warm inside to know that I live in a country where I am free to live my life in the way that I have chosen. I am so grateful for the brave men and women who are fighting to make sure that I maintain that right. I am so proud to be an American! We had a wonderful and eventful 4th of July, and I took so many pictures that I am just bursting to share with you all! I began the day with a preemptive RUN (in anticipation of the huge amount of calories I was sure to consume!). I ran six miles at 7 AM, and it was already gloriously sunny! The perfect way to start the day! Then, I came home to a still sleeping house, took a shower and shook everyone out of bed! Time for the annual ward breakfast! It was awesome, as always! Good food, great friends, and to top it off, this year they held a bike parade for the kids! Olivia decorated her bike the night before and loaded her basket with goodies to throw to the onlookers!

After the good ole breakfast, we headed to buy our fireworks, the K-mart $9.99 variety, which, luckily Olivia is still thrilled with! Then, we headed home to let the babies and their dad nap, before our next fun adventure, which was:

Swimming with the our friends, Phoebe, David, and children! Our friends, invited us up to their condo to swim on this 90+ degree day! It was so great! The water was the perfect temperature, refreshing but not bone-chilling. Olivia swam like a fish with her friend, Henry, and Max and Molly had a good time playing in the water with Mom and Dad. They are slowly warming up to the idea of water, last year they screamed at the sight of a pool! Progress!

OH, and just a side note: Olivia learned how to tie her shoes today! She was so excited for her accomplishment. I have included some pictures of her proud moment! Out with the velcro, in with the laces!

After the fun at the pool, we headed home to get ready for the Luau that we were invited to by some friends of ours in the ward that are from Hawaii and Samoa. We arrived to find them pulling the pork out of the ground after 12 hours! They marinated it at 5 AM and then wrapped it in banana leaves, and then foil before putting it into the hole and covering it with wet burlap sacks. It was so cool! They unwrapped it, shredded it, and then we had the most amazing feast of island foods. Peter made coconut bread, barbeque chicken, pork, yummy pineapple with a secret sauce, and raw fish salad (which I unwillingly tried and LOVED). Bonita made sticky rice with seaweed. I ate so much! Then, top that off with a beautiful flag cake that Che made, and Jon practically had to wheel me out of there! Oh, how I long for the islands!

As if the feast were not enough, Bonita gathered the women together and tried to teach us how to hula. I am afraid I am a lost cause. I have the hips, but I am hopeless at shaking them! Peter worked on the guys, but Jon got out of it, because my little Max wasn't feeling well, and he only wanted "daddy." To top this all off, Peter did a fire dance for us, which was absolutely the most amazing thing. We had a great time! We are so thankful that we were included in this awesome adventure. I have always known, that besides the pale skin, Hawaii is my native land!

We headed out a bit early, to put Maxers to bed, poor guy was burning up and just miserable. Olivia couldn't wait for the $9.99 fireworks show, so even though it was only 9:15 and the sun was still out, we lit it up! This is the first year she has been brave enough to hold a sparkler, and she just LOVED the cheesy assortment of TNT that our package included. One of these years she will want to stay up late enough to hit a "real" fireworks display, and she will realize that we have been ripping her off all of these years! But, until then........ignorance is truly bliss. And of course, right after the "fireworks" were over, true to form, Olivia looked at us and said, "I'm tired, I want to go to bed." OH, HOW I LOVE THOSE WORDS!

We hope your 4th of July was as fun-filled as ours was!