Proud to be an American

July has always been my favorite month. It's host to my second favorite holiday and my birthday! This year it's great for 2 more reasons: The N family vacation and the H family vacation. My family's vacation coincided this year with the 4th of July weekend. We loved every second of it! We started it off Thursday night at Boondocks with laser tag, go carts and arcades.

Mr and Mrs Smith, er... H:



Papa and Trev:



Like father like son:



The 4th started out with watching Katie Marie in the Kaysville parade, barbecuing at the cabin, and ended with the best rodeo this side of Texas - The Oakely Rodeo! It doesn't get any more American than that. Enjoying (I use this term loosely. As many of you know, I'm not a fan of parades. My kids will be so deprived) the parade:



Before the rodeo began:





A rogue sneeze caught me by surprise right smack in the middle of the rodeo. Nelson's are known for their sneezes (Thanks Grandpa Joe) and this one did not fail to impress. In fact, it was so powerful it started a bloody Old Faithful gushing from my nose. Something a little quirky about me is that I get crazy bloody noses. It is not over exaggerating to compare it to a geyser. Seriously, the amount of blood loss from these things are staggering. So, I felt it start coming, and since we had no tissues, all I could do was lean over, cup my hands, and let it pour. Yee haw! Talk about trying to tame wild beasts. Who needed the rodeo? Within a few minutes I had people offering me maxi pads, baby wipes, grapefruit hand sanitizer, water bottles, etc... Wow. I felt like royalty. I was finally able to get it under control without any clothing damage.

Not sure how I managed to get blood under my eye though (look closely. or not):



Deke and his sidekick:



The next day we made the greatest new discovery (Thanks Greg and Katie!): Smith and Moorehouse lake. This gorgeous lake is only 5-10 min from the cabin. We decided it totally looked like an L.L Bean lake:



The purpose of this excursion was to teach Sadie, Trev's 8 month old lab, to swim. Mission successful! (new favorite thing is the Sadie bum shake)

Deke braving the ice cold runoff water to help Sadie swim to where she couldn't touch:



Soon Trev, Greg, and Dad ditched their shirts and joined in the (freezing) fun. Kudos to Dad - he was wearing long Levi's and was the only one to put his head under!:



The time at the cabin was great! Between the player piano, Deke and Greg serenading us, Home-made raspberry ice cream, tick finding, treat munching, 4 wheeling, and late nights we had quite the party! For those of you interested, my mom laid in bed for ten minutes after watching Batman Begins contemplating the stated movie. She raced into the room I was sleeping in to let me know she figured out who Robin is. For those of you who know my mom, this is hilarious. Please let me know if you'd like to get her number to discuss possible outcomes, scenarios and characters in The Dark Knight. :)

My favorite look-out from the loop:



Taking a break from 4-wheeling:



Deke's great camera skills with our mediocre point and shoot (please disregard the no make up look):



Thanks Mom and Dad for the greatest weekend! We missed those in the fam who weren't able to make it. Hopefully next year! We're looking forward to the H Lake Powell trip next week. Wahoo!!