The Fourth

The Fourth of July has become one of my very favorite holidays. I love that it is a chance to get together with family, is generally warm, yummy food is involved, and it is a holiday without a lot of added pressure in the form of buying gifts, etc. We always go to Idaho Falls and have a great time.

This year, the boys and I went up a few days early so we could spend some time in Idaho Falls before heading up to my parents' cabin. It felt like I hadn't been "home" in a really long time and it was so fun to go and stay awhile.

I took the boys to their first ever drive-in movie with my sister-in-laws and their kids. We saw 'How to Train Your Dragon 2' and the boys thought it was so awesome. Bode only made it through about 2/3 of the movie before falling asleep :)

We also went to the zoo with cousins from both sides of the family!

One of my favorite things to do when I am in Idaho Falls is take walks with my mom. We walked over to Tautphaus Park one night and let the boys play around the fountain. I love that park.

It wouldn't be Fourth of July without a ride in the Model T!

Our families have started doing fireworks the night before the Fourth and we had some pretty fun ones this year. We had sparklers nearly as tall as the kids and some awesome aerial ones Emily and Dave picked up in Utah.

We made it to the yummy annual breakfast on the Boulevard.

Parade time!

Carson and grandpa

That pretty girl in the middle is our niece, Riley. She's on student council for Bonneville!

After the parade we packed up all of our stuff and headed to Island Park. We had a big bbq and watched the fireworks at Island Park Reservoir while also watching a private fireworks show at one of my parents' friend's cabins!

The weather in Island Park was perfect and we had an awesome time hanging out with everyone.

Bode's love of four wheeling is still going strong!

We got a bit dusty on one of our rides :)

There were s'mores...

...and lots of time to hang out with cousins.

We also took a hike to Coffee Pot Rapids one afternoon. 

It was so beautiful!

These two little troopers hiked the entire 4.4 miles.

On our last full day we spent the afternoon at Hebgen Lake. We took the kids to a little black sand beach my parents used to take us to when we were growing up. The scenery was awesome and the kids had such a great time. It was fun being there with kids of my own. 

 We had such a great trip. We're already looking forward to going back soon!