Red, White, and BANG!

 No, this was not Memorial Day.  But it was a red-letter day, so we started it with a minute with Grandpa. Edna had picked up a beautiful bouquet to take up and leave at the cemetery.  
 

July 4, 2014
After the cemetery we took Brent's mom for a drive, beginning with breakfast (actually lunch) at Kneaders and then up the very crowded American Fork Canyon to Tibble Fork.   So crowded there was no place to park so Edna could get out for a minute, or so I could take a picture.  (Sitting in the backseat has some advantages, but taking photos is NOT one of them.) So, the only photos we have of that afternoon drive were those we stored away in our brains.    But it was fun.  Edna said she had forgotten how beautiful it was.  The best part was listening to her and Brent share the memories they had of doing things up the Canyon as a family when Brent was young - there were so many sweet memories.   It was a perfect way to spend the afternoon with her.
 
After a few hours of rest when we returned, we gathered up and headed out to Bill and Stephanie's for dinner and fireworks.  They had a pretty big gathering this year with cousins Sarah, Emily and Elizabeth and families, and some friends over as well.  We found everyone just kind of relaxing and enjoying the evening after a day spent poolside and having fun.  Bill was busy flipping burgers.  I brought my potato salad.  Pretty much typical fourth of July fare.   Tonya and Brian and Mike and Makinzee were with their other families for the day and Heather was working.  Sean and Linzy were celebrating in Baltimore and Dan was celebrating with Seth's family.   Not sure where Ann was, but we obviously managed to share her family for the fourth this year.  It was great!

OK, Big word of warning.  I have been doing more Photoshop learning.   There was a great sale on some actions which I bought and am now experimenting and experimenting and experimenting.  If some of these photos look a little strangely colored, it's because I didn't feel like redoing them.  Most were left mostly alone.  The one below of Emily's family was obviously not (yes, missing the youngest):

The kids made great use of the playground Bill installed earlier this year:

(Oops, forgot her name, but) this great friend of Stephanie's was so cute with her baby bump:

 Three Musketeers:

Aspen was fantastic with the kids, gathering them for group games and keeping them all busy while dinner was being set out:

And Kamryn moved from the slide to the swing. 
More Experiments.  I think for this holiday I prefer the second treatment over the first:

 Cousin time:

 More game time:

I'm going to include a couple of shots I shouldn't include because the rule is to NEVER show your bad shots.  But I love these photos, in spite of the fact that they came out a little blurry, so you get to see them anyway.  Sarah's gorgeous smile and the cheesy grin below:

 I caught the sun hiding behind a thin layer of clouds and so you get to see it, too:

The rest of these photos are from the fireworks later that evening.  The neighborhood, I believe, decided to compete with each other to see who could pull off the biggest shows.  We got so involved with them, we even missed the first part of the City Fireworks at Thanksgiving Point.

Glow Woman Kamryn!

Emily was drawing hearts with sparklers.  Cool!

(Ok, so really bad photos can turn into really colorful abstracts, right?)

 I always struggle with getting the kinds of shots I really want to get on the 4th of July.  This year I was focused on getting down the skill of taking the aerials.    Yeah, I still have some learning to do, but had a little better success than past years.  It's just that once a year isn't enough time to practice.  Brent was sick on the 24th so we missed out on getting a second chance.  I feel bad because all the photos I took of my own grandchildren turned out pretty blurry.  Next year I want to focus on getting photos of kids with sparklers, and kids watching fireworks, and all those kinds of shots.  Help me remember that's what I really want to do.

These are some of my favorite sky shots:

Glow in the dark necklaces, etc., lit up the ground, too.

Saturday, July 5, 2014

We had some leftovers, so we joined Bill and Stephanie for dinner again Saturday night.   These are a few photos from that evening:

Did you know you can make wild bubbles with dry ice and dish soap and water?

Bill and Stephanie's garden looks terrific!

 July 10, 2014

More evidence I don't know what I'm doing yet, but going on the philosophy that even a blurry photo is better than no photo at all, I'm including these few I took of Eric's swimming lessons:

He has been afraid to get his face wet and put his nose and eyes under water, so he was very brave on this day and achieved that goal!  Way to go, Eric!