4th of July Weekend

Friday July 3rd was the last day of Girls Camp for me, I had a lot of fun but I was really tired! I ended up having to take a 2 hour nap that afternoon to be able to go watch the fireworks that night. Ames is kind of weird in that they do their fireworks on the 3rd of July, but all of the other celebration items are still done on the 4th.  We first tried watching the fireworks at Friley Hall, but we thought that some of the buildings might get in the way. We then tried down by Maple, Willow, Larch dormitories, but we ended up not being able to see anything, so we drove over to the stadium and finished watching them there. In terms of fireworks show, Ames is pretty sad. The entire show lasted about 15 minutes, with the grand finale being about 30 seconds (and not that grand).

Guy's comment about the fireworks was, "we waited around for this?! This is the worst show I've ever seen! The time it is taking for us to get out of traffic is longer than the entire show!"

On Saturday, we left in the morning for Waterloo. We got there about 10 and then went with Morgan, Melissa and family and Ginny on a bike ride. We rode about 17 miles. It was a really nice day and there were several other people out riding. We stopped for lunch at a Mexican restaurant that Morgan really enjoys. The food was good, and I enjoyed being able to have a plethora of cilantro (Guy doesn't like it that much).

Morgan had recently purchased a new gun so later that afternoon Morgan and Guy went shooting. About 15 minutes after they left, Pete, Emily and kids showed up. The women stayed back and chatted while Pete went to go catch up with the brothers.  Morgan grilled burgers and pineapple brats for dinner that night.

The original plan was for Melissa to stay home with the younger kids while the older ones all went to the fireworks, but everyone was pretty much wiped so we just stayed home and watched the PBS National 4th of July program from Washington DC that was on TV.

That Sunday, all of us traveled to Manchester, IA to attend Jonah's (Shannon and Kyle Griffith) baby blessing. It's a cute branch with a fairly new building. The sister teaching the RS lesson was shocked that we all filled the RS room, and had to take a picture to prove it. It was a beautiful blessing and we were glad that we were able to attend.

After church we all went to Kyle's parents house to have lunch. His parents made pulled pork and grilled chicken, while everyone else brought sides or desserts. It was nice to sit there and chat with everyone before Shannon and Kyle continued on there move to the DC area.

Poor Guy didn't sleep well Saturday night and then had to drive the whole way back. I wasn't much help since I slept for over half the ride! Still trying to recover from camp I guess...