Pioneer Day - 24th Of July

This is Jason posting. So in Utah we have an additional holiday called Pioneer Day. Like Independence Day, it is an additional day to celebrate the past as well as set off fireworks.  Nothing better than remembering our ancestors, barbecuing some great food with great friends, and blowing stuff up. We had three families over, 18 people in all, to celebrate and just enjoy each others company.  It was a blast... literally.  

We BBQ'd everything from chicken to salmon to steak to roasted pineapple and even bacon wrapped jalapeno poppers...  Yeah....  We ate like kings.  It was fantastic.  The kids played on the swing set out back and ran a muck with the dogs.

After eating we went out front to our setback drive and set off a lot of fireworks.  (See the pictures.) :) There are some really nice benefits to living on a setback: very few cars driving right next to our yard/driveway and having a great area to have a fireworks show without worrying about the next car to drive down the street.  There's nothing worse than lighting a big firework and then somebody driving down the street and wondering if you are going to hit their car...

We had a contest to see whose tank would go the farthest. Kai's ended up about a foot behind the line, which was hilarious. Ashley won, and everyone there participated, child and adult alike.

Between our festivities and LOTS of neighbors doing the same thing, we were able to have a fantastic show and and truly enjoyable time.  It was awesome and I wish we could do it every weekend.  Afterwards, we cleaned up, got the kids to bed and then 5 of us gathered in the kitchen to play board games.  You should have seen this coming if you have read much about us.  :)  To give you an idea of our game tastes, we played Hanabi and Family Business.  It was great.  To everyone who came, thank you.  You made our day.