the four-day 4th

Salmon River Days is the biggest celebration in Salmon each year, usually on or around July 4th. Because July 4th was on a Monday this year, the festivities began the Friday before--thus making the July 4th celebrations last 4 days!!! It was the longest July 4th I ever remember celebrating. It seemed like late nights due to noisy fireworks would never end! For four days, we played all day, and stayed up late at night. It felt like the true beginning of summer! Here's a recap of our 4 days' worth of celebrations:

Friday, July 1:

THE PARADE
There were a lot of entries this year, and the parade on Main Street lasted nearly an hour!

The boys lined up with buckets in hands waiting for candy to be thrown their way.

 It's a mad dash for the candy!

The fire truck sprays everyone about half-way through the parade line-up.

It was a hot day, and the cool water felt good. Ammon got soaked!

Near the end of the parade, the entries were some of the demolition derby cars.

The boys were so excited to see them and hear their noisy engines! 

Saturday, July 2:

PLAYING WITH COUSINS

The Entrikin cousins and Beesley cousins were here on Saturday, and the kids all spent the morning and afternoon riding 4-wheelers on the driveway and road, riding horses in the yard, boating in the ditch, and playing outside together.

The ditch was so full of water that it overflowed onto the grass,

and the kids rafted down the overflow in the yard about 50 feet!

Then it got stuck, and they tried to move it manually. First they tried with the oars...

 ...then they all decided to lift and it budged a little!

They took turns between riding the two older horses around the yard and

riding the smaller 4-wheelers on the gravel road

(until Aysha crashed the 4-wheeler, and nobody wanted to ride after that!).

THE DEMOLITION DERBY
Attending the demolition derby is one of our favorite 4th of July traditions! This was the first year that we took Kanyon, so it was the first year that we've all gone together as a family! We enjoyed watching our neighbors, Brian and Zak, as they rammed their cars into others' and qualified for the final round. The boys also loved seeing the balloon bashing contest in between heats!

MALACHI's PYRO SHOW
Lots of fireworks and firecrackers and fountains were purchased for our viewing delight! Malachi set them all off for almost an hour in the front yard of Grandma's house.

In the beginning, we all sat and watched the show.  

One of the many fountains that we beheld:

Toward the end, everytime Malachi lit a fuse, the kids would run around the fireworks screaming!

It was hysterical!

Sunday, July 3:

FAMILY BARBECUE

After church, we had a big family gathering in Edward and Kathy's backyard. Tim and Barb, Frank, the Entrikin family, Gid & Lys, Malachi and his friends, and the Harris clan all came for lunch.

Edward BBQ'd hamburgers for everyone.

The company was wonderful and the food was delicious!

PINATA BASHING

Kathy got a pinata and stuffed it with candy and Edward tied it to a tree in the backyard for the kids. All the kids had a turn to try to break it open, beginning with the youngest. (Except Kanyon, who apparently missed out on the whole thing because he went up to our house to find a bucket to put his candy in, and couldn't find one. We didn't even notice he wasn't there until he came down after, saw it was over and done with, and started crying! Whoops....)

Jonah's turn hitting it with the golf club. It was Ammon who finally broke it open!

 The candy dumped out in one large pile, and it looked like a dog-pile of kids scrambling to get some of it!



BOARD GAMES

Whenever a group of people get together, I love to play board games! I brought down a stack of games we could play... for 3 afternoons, we played a few of them! I get super competitive during board games, but I have such extreme fun playing them, too! On Saturday, we played Blokus (I won!) and Apples to Apples. On Monday, we played Taboo and Oodles at the Harris'. And on Sunday, we played...

Cranium

and Balderdash!

My playing piece was the pink starburst. I got 2nd!!!

Monday, July 4:

FIREWORKS

By Monday night, everyone had gone home except Gideon and Alyssa. We all drove in two vehicles up to the Old Dump Hill, parked in our usual spot, pulled out the camping chairs, and watched the city's firework show. It was awesome! It only lasted about 10 minutes, but it was coordinated with patriot music that was playing on the radio, and I thoroughly enjoyed it!