4th of July in Idaho...

Finally after like 6 years I got to go back to Idaho for the 4th of July!! I have been looking forward to this day for like 6 years now :) I am such a sucker for fireworks & Idaho Fall's fireworks will always be instilled in my heart as "The Best of the West of the Mississippi"!! I have shared this belief with Mike for 4 years now & he finally got to enjoy them with me, but besides just the fireworks we had a really great time in Idaho this weekend.

First, it started with lunch w/ my dear friend Nicole Stucki & her sis Lindsey. It was so great seeing you again Nicole!! If I had a blog when we lived together it would have been filled with lots of random things & lots of stories of all the FREE stuff we got. We definately had a great summer together :) Then we headed off to the Menan parade. And let me tell ya Mike & Josh (Amber's husband) were extremely impressed! Ok, so maybe they totally laughed at it but it was so fun being there & the carnival afterwards brought so many memories back...well mostly because I ran into so many great friends that I hadn't seen in way too long. I totally goofed and didn't take pictures with anyone but I did get a pic of me w/ the Jones! I love that I can still talk to them like we had never been apart! They are such a great family :) Below is a little scrap page of some of the fun pics we took there (the baby in the pic is my adorable niece, Paige - they were too cute not to post & the cowboy is a great representation of what you will find in Menan - haha - ok he was in the parade but by looking at him you had no way of knowing what he was suppose to be sponsoring):

Then of course it was time for the fireworks! We got there at like 5 so there was plently of time to take the boys for a walk around the Greenbelt (I wanted Mike to experience EVERYTHING)! Again saw some good friends & then it was time to experience the infamous fireworks!! Of course they were awesome & Mike even admited they were pretty darn good, except he said that it wasn't the fireworks that stole the show, it was just the whole atomosphere which I would totally have to agree with. Although we took lots of pics of the fireworks below is a scrap page of pics w/ the fam since we got to spend a lot of time with the family this weekend. The only people missing were my parents & Steve & his family - hopefully we'll all be together next year!

Saturday we started off the day golfing. I, of course, just drove the cart but it was fun watching Mike, Josh & Amber play! And Mike won - Go Mike!! Then we had a long needed nap before we headed off to the Snell's for dinner. We can always rely on the Snell's for some good ol' cookin'!! (For those that don't know they Snell's they are long time family friends of ours that will never get rid of us) Afterwards we just played around & then a fun little football game developed & below are some pics of that fun!! In the pics w/ us are Nate & Becca Stander (Snell)

Then we made our journey back home on Sunday. It was a great trip!! Hopefully Mike will let us go back for the 4th many more years to come :) Sorry for such the long post w/ all the pics and pretty much an itinerary of our weekend but I wanted you to get a feel of what a great time we had!! also if you want to see more pics and explanations of pretty much the same thing you can visit my sister's blog (Amber Hammond)! She's much better than me at putting up cute posts quickly!! Thanks Amber, Josh & of course Paige for coming with us & Jennie for letting us stay with you!! I hope you all had a wonderful 4th as well!!! I LOVE our Freedom!!!

A Beautiful Idaho Sunset