July Update

Yes I know I am very behind and I apologize for that, things have been crazy but they are starting to smooth out a little. Thank heavens.
After girls camp it took me a good week to recover and a lot of sleep. I had a nice birthday, James brought me some chocolate and a beautiful hibiscus flower that we planted in a larger pot right away. A couple days after my birthday I got an edible bouquet with a balloon from m in laws. Avery LOVED that. She kept sneaking into the fridge to sneak a strawberry or grape. She was introduced to cantaloupe and honey dew. She didn't like the honey dew much but enjoyed the cantaloupe. Here in Utah the 24th of July is a State holiday known as Pioneer Day. It was on a Friday this year so it was fun to have James for a 3 day weekend. We didn't really have a lot of money to go to any of the carnivals that were going on and all the other fun things the city put on. So we decided to head out of town and take a drive. We have always wanted to go to Kanab UT and see the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. We decided to go the longer route so James could finally show me Apple Valley and so we could drive through the famous Colorado City in Arizona. Plus again we didn't have money to pay the toll to drive through Zion's National Park. :p Apple Valley was Gorgeous, Colorado City and Hill Dale was a Joke. Then we got to Kanab and both James and I fell in love. It is the cutest little town with all these fun rivers and trails and natural springs on the outskirts of town. We got to Best Friends and were amazed at just how big it really is. I knew it was big because I knew they had cabins and camping on their premises, but I had no idea just how big. The visitor center had this cute landscaping out front. There was a nice big Koi pond with some BIG koi fish in it and around the pond the landscaping was beautiful with grass and cute animal statues. As I looked closer at the flower garden surrounding the grass, I realized it wasn't a flower garden but an actual garden. I saw carrots growing and lettuce, it was neat. We had just missed the last tour of the day but they had a cat in the lobby that Avery was able to play with and pet. James and I got more information about the facility and said we would come back someday for the tour. We drove around the rest of the property looking for this trail that the lady at the visitor center told us about to go on a small hike. We never found it and Avery fell asleep so we headed back into St George. We had a little bit of cash so we got some little Caesars pizzas for dinner and $17 worth of fireworks. :p The guy at the firework tent thought it was very funny that I literally had $17 to spend and no more. The rest of the evening was nice, we had pizza and watch James set off the fireworks then we loaded up into the car to head to the over look to watch the city fireworks. After waiting for a hour though with no fireworks starting we headed home for beds. Come to find out later that St George does fireworks for the 4th and Washington does the fireworks for the 24th. :p Live and learn. I kept having interview after interview and finally the last week in July I was able to get an interview with Dixie State University FINALLY! Their dining services was hiring a new scheduling coordinator. I had intentionally had Avery in the hourly daycare longer than I knew the interview was so that after the interview I could have some quiet time and visit the temple. After I got out of the temple I turned my phone back on and found I had a voicemail from Bonnie asking if I could come back in the next day for an interview with her director. I called her right back to say of course and then went to Avery's daycare to see if there was availability for her to come in. So Tuesday I dropped Avery off at daycare a gain and headed to the interview. It went really well and I felt really good about the whole job and atmosphere and everything. I decided to go to Swig (a local gourmet soda shop) to get a dirty Diet Coke and a dirtball (chocolate sugar cookie) before I headed to the daycare to get Avery. As I was picking Avery up I got a call back from Bonnie (about an hour of less after the interview) offering me the job. HOORAY!!!! That's the best possible way the month of July could have ended. Or at least the best realistic way. :p So I got Avery's daycare all set up for the next week and we headed home to clean, do laundry and enjoy our last full days of being home together before work and school started. :)

 Avery can make friends no matter where she goes, she is this cute social butterfly. When we were lighting fireworks a family came to check on their grandparents house. (the condo at the end of our complex) Avery immediately made friends with the little girl and her brother and started to run around and play with them. Before they left the little girl gave Avery these cute snowflake shoes that light up. We tried to get her to give them back but the parents said it was really ok because they didn't fit their little girl anymore. So here is Avery showing off her new play shoes. :p

 I love Avery snuggles. :) The little stinker snuck into our bed and this is what I woke up too. :)

Girls Camp Pictures and Videos

Well here they are just like I promised. :) Enjoy!

 Capital Hair and Makeup

 Here's the Skit/Lip Sync

Love the end of this video where the 1st counselor in the stake presidency dances with Amber.

Girls Camp Fun Part 2

Thursday July 9, 2015- Once again we woke up to the possibility of rain. I was actually able to sleep in a little, and by sleeping in I mean I didn't wake up before 8:30. We were able to enjoy yet another wonderful breakfast before heading to the amphitheater for flag ceremony, prizes and to find out about the activities of the day. We also had to clean the bathrooms, which the girls forgot to do in the morning. So after the devotional, the leaders just decided to clean the showers so the girls could participate in the "Tribute Training" which was a variety of fun activities. They had a cookie decorating station. javelin toss (pool noddles through tires), building a shelter out of pools and a emergency blanket, sling shot training and many more. We felt it was important for our girls to participate in that more then clean the showers. So we took over. After the showers were done one of the other leaders (Brooke) and I just sat close to the field watching the girls and talked. It was nice; we hadn't had a lot of time to talk before that and we really got to know each other a little better. After the "tribute training" we headed back for lunch and also had some ward time, so our girls took the opportunity to practice their "lip Sync" for later that night. We all met at the amphitheater so we could get the timing right and so everyone could know where they needed to be. After that the girls headed down to the pavilion for a service project while the leaders stayed back to clean up camp a little and start dinner, as well as talk. :p After dinner our girls excitedly got ready for their lip sync and then headed down to the amphitheater. Their skit was to the song See you again by Wiz Khalifa, which is a song that was wrote due to the death of actor Paul Walker. Our girls where able to take it though and turned it into an excellent representation of the plan of salvation. It started out with Brynn Hart going to the grave site of her supposedly deceased mother while her mother watched her as an angel. Her mother (as an angel) watched her though her life events. Graduation, mission, marriage, child, old age and death. Then finally they were reunited in the after life. Then all our girls help up pictures of family members that had passed but that they will be able to see again. The goal for our girls is to get people to cry with their lip sync/skit and they definitely succeeded. Not only were audience members crying but our own girls were crying too, they did such an awesome job. I will post the video that the YW President filmed of it with the pictures in the next post. All the wards and stake did a great job with their skits/lip syncs. The last ward even dragged everyone onto the stage with them to sing and dance. After everyone had performed the Stake said they wanted to keep the energy going so they were going to have a dance in the pavilion. At first I headed to camp and didn't think I would go to the dance, but then I headed down there to just take some pictures and video of it and ended up staying the whole time and even dancing with the girls and with Merri. After the dance we sat by the fire. TO help calm us down we had a great ward devotional about making sure to keep our testimonies on fire within us. That has been the theme of the whole girls camp and every night we've been having wonderful devotionals about growing our testimonies and keeping them strong. After the devotional everyone was pretty tired, so we headed off to bed. Mel, Merri and I stayed up talking again for awhile, before we just got to tired and went to bed. :)
Friday July 10, 2015- Today there was a new kind of energy around camp. The bishop and his wife were planning on coming up as well as another member of the bishopric, which was one cause for it. The other was because it hadn't rained since Thursday morning and so our ward was going to get another shot at the lake...plus everyone was starting to get a little worn out and wanting to go home. I think 4 days may have been just a tad bit to much for quite a few people. As for me, I was quite enjoying myself. :) But I am a camper and since we haven't had a chance to go camping much lately I was seriously enjoying it. After breakfast we met at the amphitheater per norm for prizes, flag ceremony, devotional and to talk about the activities for the day. As long as it didn't rain, this was our wards day for the zip line and archery. We did zip line first, it was fun watching the girls get suited up and then watching the truck go up the hill and the girls climb up the mountain and then zip down the line. It was a long, high zip line. I had NO intention of going, but slowly I got talked into it. It wasn't until I was in the harness attached to this wire and having the Stake president and our own 2nd counselor Brother Yorgensen telling me how to break and hen to break that I started to get really nervous. It took me awhile to lift my feet and to start going, but once I did... It...was...TERRIFYING. You thought i was going to say something like fun or exhilarating didn't you. Yes it was those things as well, but first and fore most it was so scary. But I am very happy that I did it, I think if I hadn't done it I would be kicking myself and would have just plain regretted it. After everyone got a turn on the zip line we loaded everyone (and I mean everyone) into Mel's truck and headed over to archery. It was funny because archery was all quiet and then the 6th ward shows up (us) with our music playing and our girls singing along riding all over this truck (literally, there were three girls riding on the roof SCARY!) ready for some archery. :p I haven't shot a bow in a few years, it felt really good to shoot again, so good that I think I might need to talk to James and getting his bow out and going target shooting. We were also able to do a group picture...which I will post. :) After Archery we headed back to camp for some lunch. I was so tired and a little exhausted from being in the sun so long that when everyone was getting their suits on to go to the lake I decided I was going to stay back at camp. Sandi (the YW President) decided she wanted to stay back too. We had a really great time just the two of us, We talked quite a lot and found out about each other, we talked about the girls and what we were hoping to see happen as far s future activities and how we can help them. It was good stuff. It was relaxing too, just sitting there talking without being in the sun and with no agenda. We had one truck full come back with some girls who wanted to take a nap and some that sat down to talk with us before we got a game of cards going. I taught them how to play Speed and California Speed, when more and more girls kept showing up, Then one of the cute little beehives Janey taught us how to play a game called "poo head" It was actually very fun. The person who lost had to say really loud " I am a poo head", so I was glad I didn't lose any of the games. :p After that I opted out of the other games and went to sit and watch. That's when I noticed brother Graves (the 1st counselor in the bishopric) who showed up with another priesthood member. He said that the bishop had an emergency and couldn't make it. Amber Graves was so happy to see her Dad, she's this cute girl with down syndrome. She sat right on his lap and started telling him about all the things she had been doing at camp. It was SO cute to watch her and him, she is such a daddy's girl. :D The priesthood provided dinner for us that night, they made us dutch oven potatoes and BBQ chicken it was SO good, and Brother graves was able to bring up some ice cream so we had ice cream sundaes and banana splits for dessert. Sandi's daughter Sam got into a food fight with Mel and ended up dumping half a bottle of ranch on her. Mel retaliated by dumping the maraschino cherries on Sam. Sandi  was NOT happy, especially with it being so close to the time we had to be at the amphitheater for closing devotional. Both Mel and Sam took a quite "shower" in the faucet right by camp, washing out the bulk of food from their hair before heading to the tents to change. The rest of the girls started heading to the amphitheater for the special guest devotional. After the flag ceremony and a devotional by the 4th ward we had a musical number by all the different priesthood members there that night. It was really cute to hear them sing their little song. Our guest speakers that night was the musical group Heartbound. There music was so beautiful, I felt the spirit so strongly, especially their last musical number, they showed different pictures of the Savior and sang my favorite hymn "How Great Thou Art." I was so overwhelmed with love and gratitude for the Savior and for what he has done for me and how he has been there in my life to help me and guide me. I love him so much and I am so glad to have a great personal relationship with him. After that wonderful program by Heartbound, our Stake President got up and thanked Heartbound and then they thanked all the girls for attending camp and all the leaders who help put it together. He also talked about the importance of testimonies and knowing for ourselves if the gospel was true and to reach out to the Savior and to our Heavenly Father. It was the perfect ending to a very spiritually uplifting night. We all headed back to camp after to get ready for our ward testimony meetings. After the girls had gone potty and were all seated around the campfire it was pretty late so we bypassed our ward devotional and decided to start the testimony meeting especially with how strong then spirit had been. Testimony meeting started out great, but unfortunately we have a young women who has been through a lot in her life and I guess she didn't really understand what testimony meeting is and what its about. She started out ok but then it turned into more of a group therapy for her. I sadly felt the spirit leave. I was very touched however when one of our girls Hallie said she was there for this girl and then got up to give her a hug, then another girl got up, and another. Pretty soon all 17 girls where in a big group hug. It was so touching for me to see all these girls get together to support each other like this. After that though this poor girl wouldn't stop unloading her emotional and traumatic baggage on everyone. I know most of us leaders can handle it, but it just wasn't the right time or place. We were able to slowly ease her down thanks to the help of Michelle Graves, until finally we were able to get back on track. Unfortunately we never really got the spirit back as strong as it had been. I still felt like I needed to bear my testimony about how important the gospel is, not only that its true, but that it is the way to return to live with our Heavenly Father once more. I shared quite a bit that I felt needed to be shared; but although i felt like I had done and said the right thing, we just couldn't get the spirit back. We even had girls standing up multiple times including the one who was using it as a group counseling session and we had to kinda reel her back in again. After testimony meeting was over a few girls stood warming themselves by the fire before heading to bed. Merri had to work so she had gone home earlier that day, so it was just Mel and I. We stayed up talking and laughing I think longer than a lot of the girls did. We had some great conversations as well as some goofy ones as well. and just when we were starting to doze off, my bladder struck. :p SO I headed out to the bathroom and found three of the Mia maids, Brynn, Faith and Sam packing up their stuff and putting it in Mel's truck. They said they wanted to have it done so they could try and get everyone to leave early tomorrow and they were going to sleep in the truck. the four of us headed to the bathroom. After saying goodnight it was off to bed for a very early morning.
Saturday July 11- Everyone was so excited to get home that day we were all up by 6:30 and we had camp broken down and packed by 7:30. At 8 we headed down to the amphitheater for last prizes, songs and big thank yous to everyone. The stake said they had a continental breakfast at their camp for everyone, but our ward wasn't really interested. We had muffins back at our camp and wen the stake signed off on our camp site being clean and we could leave everyone started heading out....except us. :p Sandi's poor van wouldn't start so we had to flag down someone to jump start it. The first person we flagged down helped but it didn't work, so we went to find a bigger engine. The Stake counselor had a truck and brought it over to jump start us. It was a great opportunity to teach the girls how to jump start a car. Luckily it work, after many thanks for helping us and then a quick prayer of thanks we were on our way. The ride down seemed slower than the ride up, but I did get car sick and had to ask Sandi to pull over a few times. They were all really nice about it and felt sorry that I was sick. Well we finally made it off the mountain. We took the girls in Sandi's van home first since they lived on the outskirts of St George and then we headed into St George to meet everyone at the church. Sandi found out her girls were already home so she was kind enough to take me home after I got the rest of my stuff from Mel's truck. James and Avery were so excited to see me. I was excited to see them too. Avery looked like she had grown so much in those 4 days. It was so good to be home, but I was definitely tired. I took a good long shower before sitting with Avery to watch a show with her. I ended up falling asleep, James woke me up to tell me I could go upstairs to take a nap. I ended up taking a 4 hour nap and still got a good 9 to 10 hours sleep that night.
Sunday July 12- By a miracle i made it to church but I was still so tired, and I wasn't the only one. :) everyone said that they pretty much slept the day away from when they got home. After church I took a nap and again slept the day away. It felt good though. It took me almost a week to recover completely from camp, but it was fun and I wouldn't trade it for anything. :)

Girls Camp Fun Part 1

Well I don't know why but I have been putting off writing about girls camp. I guess just cause there was a lot that happened. This post is probably going to be a little long. Just a warning. :)
July 7th- I spent the first half of the day cleaning the house and packing up. Once I knew I had everything I ran to the store to pick up a few extra items and some goodies for James and Avery while I was away. Then I got dinner in the crock pot for later and I made little notes for James and Avery on sticky notes and put them around the house for them to find later. Some had instructions on what to do (dinner done by 6PM) stuff like that. Other were small bits of encouragement and love notes. After I was all ready I loaded up my gear and Avery into the car and headed to my friend Crystals house to drop Avery off. Her and her daughter were kind enough to say they would watch her till James got off work. It was really weird dropping her off and knowing I wasn't going to see her for 3 whole days. Then I headed to James work to say bye to him, give him phone numbers of people who might have service in the mountain in case of an emergency, directions to Crystals house and to swap cars so he would have the car seat and air conditioned vehicle. :p Then I raced to the church to meet everyone. I was kind of panicking because I was 15 minutes late, but when I got there we were still waiting for quote a few people, so I didn't feel so bad. When everyone finally arrived we had a prayer and were off...sorta. A few people didn't prepare early so they needed to stop and get gas. Then the branch president decided he forgot to have a meeting with his girls. (Our ward combines with the deaf branch.) Why he couldn't do that at the church BEFORE we left rather than in the Maverick parking lot was beyond us. We finally got on the road, but we did make another stop at another Maverick, but this was just to make sure we had everyone in a caravan before we headed up the mountain. We left so late because there was road construction and the road was suppose to be closed until 4PM. We figured if we left by 3:45 that we would be up the mountain in time for the road to be back open. Since we didn't actually leave till about 20 minutes after 4 we figured we would be gold. NOPE! We had a 35 min wait on the mountain road till the road was re-opened. But it was A LOT cooler in the mountains than it was in St George, so we didn't mind. We just turned off the car opened the doors and sat and talked about books and movies with the beehives (12-14 year old girls) we had in the car with us. When we finally got up to camp we headed to rein in the girls to help get the trailer unloaded so we could get tents up before it rained. It didn't work.:p We had a downpour right as we were trying to get the tents up. Luckily we got the big 10 man tent (the beehive or younger girl tent) up quickly so it didn't get wet inside. Same with the Mia-maids (14-16 year old girls) tent and a couple of the leaders who brought their on tents. However the Leader tent where I was going to be staying we had no such luck. The last time the tents were used all the stuff didn't get put back in the right place. So we didn't know that we had the wrong poles till we were sitting with a soaking wet tent that was suppose to be standing up had it had the right poles. Luckily the Lord was merciful and the rain stopped long enough for us to find a different tent and get it set up and all the leaders beds set up too. Dinner that night was a "sack lunch" meaning bring your own. :p After we got all the tents up, the kitchen set up and all the cars parked and everything organized it was time to sit down to eat and have a welcome to girls camp devotional. Then it was time for bed, right as the rain started again. I was in the leader tent with Melanie Hart and Merri Braithwaight. We didn't talk a lot...that night ;) I think we were to tired.
Wed July 8th- It rained quite a bit more in the night, but we were able to stay dry and warm all night. The next morning I was on breakfast detail. So at 7AM Melanie poked her head in to remind me, which was more like letting me know because I didn't know. ;) It was fun helping out with breakfast. After we all headed to flag ceremony where we got to meet with the rest of the wards. We did roll call where all the wards got to do a cheer. We also had a flag ceremony with a devotional and then the Stake gave out prizes. Girls camp theme was Hunger Games- Girl on Fire. The Stake Leaders and YCL (Youth Camp Leaders) was the Capital and then every ward was a different district. Our ward was District 13. The Stake Leader were all dressed up like the people in the capital. :) They did a "reaping" and drew names out of a glass jar and gave out prizes. It was funny because the lady would always stand up and say "May the odds be ever in your favor." Just like Effie Trinket in the Hunger Games books. After the prizes the Stake leaders told the girls about the activities that were going to take place that day and then excused them. I went down to where they were doing Capital Hair and Makeup and took a couple pictures before heading back to camp. The rain had stopped and the sun had come out. It was warming up and was starting to look like a beautiful day. There were myself and a few other leaders at camp it was nice to just sit and talk. Slowly the girls started trickling back with some pretty wild hair and makeup. After the hair,makeup and tie dying shirts, all the girls came back for lunch and then was ready to head on up to repelling and kayaking. Which us leaders thought was kinda funny that they had the girls get all "glammed" up just to go jump in the lake. :p As soon as we got to the lake though it started to get cold and windy. It wasn't raining, but it was threatening. We had an hour at the lake and then we took the girls over to do repelling that wanted to go. Right at the end of repelling it started to rain. We piled all the girls in the two trucks and headed back to camp...in the rain. :p The girls all huddled in their tents and under the two different awnings trying to get out of the rain. As we ate dinner it again cleared up just in time to head over to the amphitheater to meet up with the other wards for more prizes, a devotional from the 3rd ward and to retire the flag for the day. Then we had the chance to listen to an awesome guest speaker. First we were able to hear from the speakers wife. Which I cant remember her name. Then we heard from Carter (again I cant remember his last name) who talked about his mission and meeting his wife and their sons. He then talked about how despite all the wonderful things he has had in his life he has also had a hard life where Satan was whispering to him and make him feel shame. He explained how Shame and guilt are two different things. Guilt is the feeling that I did something bad, but shame is because I did this I am bad. He said that guilt can be good because it can lead us to repent, but Shame is a tactic that Satan uses to bring us down and make us miserable. He then told us a story about when he got into a car accident that caused him a lot of physical pain. His doctor had prescribed him some pain medicine. He said the thing about the medicine is that not only did it take away the physical pain but it also took away the shame as well. He told us about how he turned away from Heavenly Father and how he got addicted to pain meds. He told us about going to the bank to empty out their kids college funds and their boys mission funds. He talked about how on the way to work one day he prayed to God for the first time in years and how on that day he was arrested for drug abuse. He sat in jail and knew things needed to change. He talked about going into the 12 step program and how because of that program he was able to pray and actually talk to Heavenly Father and also because of that program and help from his family, bishop and therapists he was able to feel the love the Savior and our Heavenly Father has for him. He said that after he felt that that he was able to go through rehab a little better. He said it wasn't easy in the least, but because he knew that God was on his side and loved him that he would be ok. I REALLY loved listening to his story and I love how he continuously told the girls that they are loved and that they are enough. It was such an emotional and spiritual fireside, it was truly amazing. After the guest speaker we headed back to camp where we had our own devotional from our camp director genie Sampson before it was time to call it a night. Some stayed up by the fire talking for a little bit but a lot of the girls just headed to their tents to tell ghost stories and talk and be teenage girls. :) Mary was in bed early and Mel (Melanie) and I were trying to be as quiet and incognito as possible. We were talking a little when Faith Nixon (one of the mia maids) came to talk to us. at first she just talked to us standing outside our tent but then she stuck her head in and talked for a little while before Mel said she looked like she was trying to re-do her birth experience. Mel and I started to laugh and say things like "come on Faith push, push you can do it. After awhile Faith just rolled her eyes and started to zip up the tent. But made the mistake of saying " you guys are dorkeses" Kinda the wrong thing to say to a former animal science major. I exclaimed that she did NOT just call me a whales penis, and Mel burst out into fits of laughter while I heard Faith say "EW WHAT? GROSS!" The Faith poked her head back in the tent and asked me what I had said. I explained that a dork is the scientific term for a the male reproductive organ of a whale; a penis. Faith then said we were gross and she was going to bed. Mel asked if that was really true which lead into a long conversation which kind of jumped everywhere. We were talking about the importance of family and how the supreme court ruling of same sex marriage was going to effect society and even our girls. We had a lull and because the conversation was of a heavy nature I started a "game" of fun facts and told Mel that Mules are sterile. After I told her that it was quiet and then I heard Mary say "did you just say that mules are sterile." Mel and I started laughing again and Mel told Mary that we thought she was asleep. She said she was but she heard that part of our conversation. What an interesting thing to wake up too. :p

4th of July

I know this is late, but I hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend. We had the chance to have Bob and Ilia down for the weekend, which was a lot of fun. The first night they were here we had some freak weather though. It was in the 100's and higher most of June. On July 3rd after they got here it started to hail and then down pour. I told one of my YW girls that I would take her to work and driving to her house, then her work and back home was like driving in rivers most of the way there was so much water. Avery, James and Bob happened to be outside when it started coming down. Avery was so excited to show Bob how she rides her new bike. But after the rain and hail started she came in with big crocodile tears. Scared by the thunder, lightening and hail and sad because she couldn't ride her bike anymore; it took us a while to calm her down and console her. Luckily it cleared up just in time for Bob and Ilia to go to the Tuacahn; which is an outdoor theater (amphitheater) here in St George. We spent out evening enduring the intense humidity. :p
For the 4th of July we had mentioned to Bob and Ilia that the site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre was close by. So after the boys went to pick up food for a picnic Ilia and I went the outlet mall so she could pick up some cute clothes for her little boy that we will get to meet in December. After shopping we headed out to Mountain Meadows. This place is always so peaceful to visit and it wasn't very hot too which was nice. Avery enjoyed spending time with her uncle Bob and aunt Ilia.

After mountain meadows we headed up to Pine Valley Reservoir for  picnic. We packed our swim suits just in case, but by the time we got up there it was raining slightly and the ranger said that we could fish but no swimming. I was sad I didn't think to bring my pole and fishing tackle. The rain helped to keep everything nice and cool and even though it rained on us a bit; after the heat of St George we really didn't mind. Sitting by the lake and having our picnic and then exploring after wards was so peaceful. I was sad when James said we should get back, but I knew he was right. We still had to go home and make dinner and then there was a rodeo we wanted to try and get to.

For dinner I made BBQ dutch oven chicken, corn on the cob with rosemary butter rolls and a blueberry cobbler for dessert. By the time we ate and was home relaxing no one really wanted to go back out to the rodeo. So we decided to stay home and just light off our own fireworks. between us and our neighbors we had a really fun time and an impressive firework show to watch. We came in about 10PM and our neighbors were still going strong with their fireworks.

 We did have a small mishap. I was watching Avery very closely with her sparklers and we talked about how hot they are and not to touch them. After the sparkler went out I looked away for just a second and that's when Avery dropped her sparkler but then went to pick it back up and picked it up wrong and burnt her pointer finger and thumb. I felt so horrible. My poor little girl. We treated her burn and got her an ice pack; for the rest of the fireworks she sat in my lap and would occasionally whimper. It was so heartbreaking and I felt so horrible that I couldn't do anything more to help her or take her pain away. Despite her burn she really enjoyed watching all the fireworks and was very excited and happy when the aerials would go off.
Bob and Ilia had to leave early Sunday morning to get back in time for their church because they had a lesson to teach. So we said our goodbyes to them that night and by the time we had woken up Sunday morning they were gone. Avery was so sad that they were gone and kept asking where they went. Despite Avery's burn we had a really great 4th of July. We were especially excited to be able to share it with Bob and Ilia.