Celebrating the Fourth on the Third, Fourth and Fifth

I love the Fourth of July. It is one of my favorite holidays. It is a time for us to ponder on how blessed we are to live in a free country and on the many men and women who have paid with their lives to ensure that it continues to be free. It is also a time for overeating and blowing stuff up... that is my kind of holiday!


This weekend I have experienced more fireworks than I have in the past 10 years... probably combined. We began our experience on Saturday night. As we live in the heart of Mormonville, the fireworks display in Idaho Falls was held on the 3rd so as not to disturb the sabbath day. A little strange for me but alrighty... it just means that I can enjoy the fireworks a day sooner!

In Idaho Falls they shoot the fireworks up over the river. As Outback steakhouse is also right by the river, we decided to eat at Outback a few hours before the show and then relax on their grass to watch the display. Many of our fellow ward members had the same idea, as did our bishop. The fireworks were very good. We could feel the explosion rattling in our bones as we laid there watching them. Literally the second the fireworks ended our bishop drove by waving goodbye. Man, he sure got out of here fast... we all thought. We looked around, seeing the thousands of people all around us, we too booked it to our car to hopefully beat some of the rush.

The Fourth itself was looking to be a pretty tame day. The plan: watch The Phantom of the Opera. What really happened: We heard about a fireworks show down in Pocatello and booked it down there. We crammed into Ryan's little car and drove down to Pocatello to meet Stacy's brother and watch the fireworks. We made a pit stop in Fort Hall(the Indian reservation) for Stacy and Ryan to pick up some mortars and other various explosives.

We then continued on down to Pocatello. The fireworks show was pretty good. Their fireworks seemed to be a little bigger than the ones in IF but they weren't constant and the show still did not last as long as the ones on IF. So... IF:1 Poci:0. We then blew up some of our own fireworks to keep the celebration going followed up by a midnight run to Dennys.

I realize that this blog post seems never ending but that is how the celebrations have felt this weekend! Today we are having a barbecue at the park... because you can't truly celebrate this great countries independence without grilling up some hot dogs. Tonight is going to be quite a bit of fun. We have quite a few of our own fireworks to set off. A few of them may be a little south of the legal border, so lets hope we don't get busted! ...but if we do... I am sure anyone reading this blog would know long before I could post it on here!

Anyways... long story short... America is awesome as is this weekend.