The 4th of July

For the 4th of July, we went to the Mortensen's annual party.  Grandpa Mortensen turns his backyard into a mini water park.  The kids absolutely love it.  This year I was in charge of the cake.  I was so exited to try something fun.  I looked all over the Internet for ideas and of course, pinned them on Pinterest.  This is what I ended up doing with the help of my awesome hubby:

The boys and I made cake pops with the extra cake that was cut off when I leveled the cakes.  I wanted to have red, white and blue sprinkles, but I couldn't find any.  We even looked at two different stores.

This is what it looked like inside!

I made the layers by scratch because after baking along with the Tuesday's with Dorie crowd, I think it's a sin to make a boxed cake.  It surely would have been a lot easier, but not nearly as tasty.
 

That night, my parents watched the kids and Landon and I went to the Stadium of Fire.   It was awesome as usual.  The band was the Beach Boys and it was their 50th year reunion.  Their music is classic and is so much fun to sing along with and dance to.  We couldn't have picked a better year to go.   There were beach balls being tossed around while the music was playing.  I think it's great that someone thought of that little detail when planning this glorious 4th of July celebration.

Scotty McCreery, American Idol 2011 winner also performed.  I haven't been following AI lately, so I hadn't heard of him, but he was really good and fun to listen to.

One of the more striking moments was when we were singing the anthem.  At "the rockets red glare" they shot off some red fireworks and at the end four F-16s from Hill AFB flew over head.  I don't know why, but that really struck a chord in my heart and brought tears to my eyes.

The fire works were amazing as usual and lasted a long time.  This one little picture doesn't do the show justice.

 I love this country for the past several years I feel like our country is hanging in the balance.  Congress is out of control with their spending and our current president is just making things worse.  I hope we Americans wake up and can change things through peaceful elections before it's too late.

Zions

From Page, we traveled to Zion National Park.  On the way we stopped at a dinosaur museum.

 The first hike we went on was to Weeping Rock.  I loved going on this hike when I was a kid.

Photo taken by Jonathan

Photo taken by Erik?

We spent the night at the campground just outside Zions.  That night the boys got to play with the toys they got from the dinosaur museum.

The next day we hiked to the Lower Emerald Pools.  The trail from there to the Upper Emerald Pools was under construction, so we didn't continue on.

The boys found a little cave on the trail to the Lower Emerald Pools.

When we left Zions, we headed to St. George to visit my friend Amberly and see her new baby, Ella.   It was her birthday and a surprise visit too!

Her baby is so sweet and easy going.  Even though I felt awful and so sore all over it was a joy to hold her.

Amberly and I with our Ellas.

It was so good to see her and Kirt, and I was so glad that I could meet Ella while she was still a baby.

Page, AZ

 We spent the night in Page, AZ so that we could visit beautiful Antelope Canyon.  It was hot with red sand and cliffs.  It reminded me of St. George.

In order to go to the canyon, you have to take a tour since it is on an Navajo Reservation.  Before our tour began, one of the Native Americans did a hoop dance.

Here he is with the kids.  They thought that was pretty neat.

Our guide, Lennard, drove us out to the canyon it a safari-looking truck.  It had two long bench seats that sat about 15 people.  Erik, Ella, and I rode in the cab of the truck.  We drove over a dry, sandy riverbed that floods with water during heavy rains.  It's these waters that shape the canyon.

Lennard drove quickly over the sandy terrain.  We bounced quite a bit in the back.  Erik and Ella love it.  In fact, Ella started clapping at one point.  I, being a natural worry-wart, just kept one arm on each kid even though they were both in car seats.  Ella fell asleep before we reached our destination.  She fell asleep on the way back too.  I guess all that bouncing was soothing to her.  It was a memorable little adventure.

  Here are some pictures inside the canyon.  I wish I were a better photographer!

"Beam me up, Scotty!"
 

This is called the "Eagle."  Can you see it?

 This is called the "heart."  Our guide took this picture.

This is called the "wave."  Also a picture taken by our guide.

 We enjoyed Antelope Canyon.  The, before we left, we stopped by to see Lake Powell.