THE FOURTH OF JULY
One of my best friends from high school (and junior high), Kim, and her kids came to visit for a long weekend over the 4th. We stayed busy by going to fireworks, the Cache Valley Cruisin' Car Show and parade, the Independence Day parade and the Willow Park Zoo. It was fun to have the kids together for the first time and they became pretty good friends! Here's a few pictures of our weekend.
(Our monkeys jumping on the bed!)
(Me and my little man at the fireworks... he LOVED them!)
(A.J. and Jessah at the zoo)
(Glaiden at the Car Parade... it was HOT)
(Brookie at the parade)
(Look at how small that car is!)
(Waiting "patiently" for candy!!!)Our weekends inbetween the 4th and the 24th seemed busy and long. There was a UFC fight with friends and David's family that came up, a wedding of a dear friend of mine in Layton, and just a lot of go go go. The 24th, however, seemed like the never-ending day!
The 24th of July (Pioneer Days)
In Utah, the 24th of July is a statewide holiday celebrating the settling of our state. There's usually fireworks and booths set up at local parks, food, fun, family get togethers and rodeos.
Logan put on a Jr. Youth Rodeo on Saturday morning and A.J. decided that he wanted to ride a sheep! David and I knew that there was a big chance going in, that A.J. wouldn't do it. He'd maybe get on, and if he did he wouldn't want to be let loose. But we entered him in anyway (hey, there's only one way to find out if he'd do it or not right?) Well, time comes to start and A.J.'s name is the first one called to ride (yeah right!). We put him on and.... yep, he cried to be taken out. "I don't want to Mom!!" Ugh, go figure. So I asked, "Why don't we let someone else go first and you can see that it's not so bad? Then you can try again." He agreed.
So a little girl gets on this little sheep and rides. Not bad. The sheep ran along the gates and someone lifted her off. A.J. got on another sheep, they open the gate and.... the sheep bursts through and a little more than 1/2 way across the arena, he has the clowns chasing him as he falls off! Stands up and comes over to the fence to a lot of people cheering and clapping for him and a score of 68! He looks at David and said, "David! I'm a Cowboy now!" I was the proudest mom there! (A.J.'s 68 held out for about 3/4 of the sheep rides, and then the older kids came along and won, but he was awesome for his first time!)
(My Cowboy checkin' out the arena!)Now for the fun.... or, I mean... you'll see.
After the rodeo, we went home for lunch, a nap, playtime and dinner. After dinner, we decided to head over to the park to check out the booths, slides and the band before the fireworks started. We had a couple of hours and after enough walking around, we parked it by the playground and sent A.J. and Jessah to go play. Having had enough stroller time, David and I decided to take the baby to the swings... 
We went to check on the other 2 (in the same playground area, but we had moved the stroller a bit so I wanted to make sure they knew where we were) and Jessah was MIA... not just hard to find, because, believe me... I looked EVERYWHERE... 3 times. I decided to wander just a little bit and I over hear a police officer asking if someone had been looking for their daughter! ME!!! Uh, yeah, excuse me... that's my daughter! She had been looking for us but because we weren't in the same spot, she kept walking. Someone found her crying and calling for Mama, and (thank goodness) they took her to the nearest police officer. I've never been so relieved in my life! I thanked the officer profusly, Jessah gave him a hug, and we decided to get a little further away from the jam-packed park. 
Oh, it's not over yet.....
So we went across the street where there was a much smaller park, no booths, no band, just blankets and chairs set up with people waiting for the fireworks. I played with Glaiden, Jessah, and A.J., took some pictures of my amazingly beautiful kids, and went and gave David the camera and a kiss. Go back to play with them and.... again! She was no where to be seen. I'm not kidding! I was turned around for 10 seconds (literally), and I couldn't find her, or hear her! I kept telling myself I was just paranoid, that I was still shaken up from the first time I lost her. But I looked and looked and looked. David got mad, (I'm pretty sure that's how he chose to be terrified) and we split up and went opposite ways around the play area. Really... there wasn't anywhere she could have vanished to! We looked for 10 minutes... yes, I timed it because I knew I was going to find her and I didn't want to jump to conclusions... I knew she wouldn't have run off again! I told David to stay by the park and I'd run find a police officer to help. (They were all across the street.) As I came up to the opposite park to find someone to help, the policeman spotted me first, pointed and said, "She's right there."
"What!? She came over here???" I asked. He continued to tell me that someone again found her yelling for Mama, and brought her across the street to the "missing kid station" (my nickname for it) I burst into tears as I picked her up and hugged her. They had given her some juice and a little piece of candy to calm her down until they could find me. I took her back to David and the other kids, we found our blanket and sat through the fireworks.
When we got home, got jammies on and ready for bed, I hugged each of my children especially tight and thanked my Heavenly Father for letting us live around such wonderful people. People who didn't take advantage of my daughter's innocence or trust and take her away from me to hurt her. People who did the right thing and took her to a safe place until I could be found. I was so thankful that she was home with me and not lost with some stranger and hurt. I love where we live and that Saturday assured me that this is an amazing place to raise my children.
We were able to spend time with my family for a couple of BBQ's for my brother, Kaesey, as he was home on leave before being deployed back to Iraq next month. It was good to see him, and fun to just spend some quality time with eachother.
That was our July in a nutshell.... in this crazy, tragic, sometimes almost magic, awful, beautiful life!
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