Happy Independence Day!

The Children's Bike Parade
First we rode our bikes from home to the tabernacle lawn. Then we enjoyed face painting and bike decorating. I got recruited to help paint faces and had a lot of fun, although I was bad at painting tiny flags on little cheeks. I thought the butterfly I put on Viv's face looked great, though. My friend accidentally painted "USU" on Elora's cheek, but she fixed it after we teased her about it.










It's always fun to see friends at the parade. Here's De Rietz, being a good sport at the USA's birthday celebration even though she's Canadian.




From the time Viv finished her face and bike to the time the parade started she was pacing around in a diva-rage about having to wait and kept demanding, "take me home!". This will seem funny later, right? I predicted that when we got started she'd get tired of riding her bike and have to be rescued by Grandma and Grandpa Ericksen's car, but I was so wrong. Once they opened the gate, she shot out and rode fast the whole way. Actually, I was the only rider to have trouble. I wiped out right at the end where the most people were gathered by getting my flip flop caught in the pedal-claw on Daniel's mountain bike that I rode because mine had a flat tire. It wasn't a little trip, either. It was all the way down with my whole body splayed flat and the bike still eating my foot. Now that was instantly funny.



American Beauties:
Elora and Passion Rietz

Grandma Ericksen, Naomi with a nice neat face flag
painted by some other mom, and the soon-to-be crash victim

Elora and her decorated bike


Naomi working hard on her spokes


Ellie and the neighbor friends, Daniel and Lia


Kate and Adri


Mad, mad Vivian and Sleepy Levi



Grandpa spent lots of time helping Naomi with her bike.





Here's Vivian later on when she was happy and posing with a 4th of July pie. I asked her to do it this way because a few years ago Naomi posed over another pie from another 4th of July and it's one of my favorite pictures ever.


Here's the shot with Naomi from 2007. It's her bright eyes that make it so beautiful.

Fun with the Grandparents

We posed outside the mall after playing at "The Fun Forest"

This is one to treasure for always. Elora and her patriarchs--firm roots of righteous heritage from which she can branch out and reach up to heaven.

We went glow-bowling! On the way home one of the girls asked why the grandmas and grandpas didn't bowl. We went down the list: Grandma Smith said Grandpa Smith shouldn't bowl, her hip was hurting, Grandpa Ericksen had an injured finger, and Grandma Ericksen had expensive fingernails. But we still had lots of fun! Vivian won the game, by the way. We used the kid ramp and gutter bumpers (which improved my score quite a bit), but it's still impressive!

Vivian gives her champion shove while Grandma and her expensive fingernails look on.

More Glow-Bowling

Dad and Daniel

Working on a dresser for Cristal and Rocky
Is it measure once cut twice?

Grandma and Grandpa with the babies

Getting ready for church. Levi had to borrow Quentin's shoes.

Grandma and Grandpa Ericksen