4th of July

We had a great 4th of July weekend. We started by going to the stake patriotic fireside. It is really cool. We have a choir and orchestra that plays and has a cool slide show of people who have been in or are in the military. The best part of the fireside is when they sing the songs that go with each of the military groups and those people who have been in or are in stand up for thier song. It's so moving to see some of the really old vets stand up.

After the fireside we came back to our house and walked over to the outside of our development to watch some fireworks. The city has a big celebration on the 3rd and shoot off fireworks from the field right by us. Several of our friends come over and we all watch the fireworks together.

Here is Mattison and Isabel with "Scotty" thier stuffed animal watching the fireworks.
Here is Meg with her friend before the fireworks started.
The next morning we surprised the girls at 5:00 in the morning and went up to Utah. We had been planning this for awhile, but didn't tell them about it. They really didn't ask many questions when we left because they were too sleepy. When we were almost to Cedar City Mattison finally started asking questions. Here is how it went

M "Where are we?"
K "We are going to get breakfast for Dad."
M "Why are we driving so far?
K "Because they have good McDonald's here"
M "Then are we just driving home?"
K "Maybe we will go to a movie too."
M "We don't have our clothes."

We finally told them we were going up to see Grandma and Grandpa and Nana and Bubba (that's Grandma and Grandpa Thomas for those of you who are confused).

When we got to Utah I gave them some clothes to change into-new Hannah Montana shirts. We went over to Matt's parents and then they got the tickets to the "hottest show on the 4th". Here they are being excited abou the tickets to the Stadium of Fire with Miley Cyrus.

Of course before we left to that we had a BBQ and birthday cake for Matt.

Here are the girls with thier cousins outside of the Stadium.

We had great seats (4th row) and so we could really enjoy the show. Thanks Nana and Bubba. The cool thing is their friends, the Faulkners, had seats a few rows behind us so they got to see them while we were there.
Here are the girls and their cousins rockin' out to Miley. It was a great night, but we were really tired by the time it was done. We didn't get home until midnight, but it was worth it.