Happy 4th of July!

Oftimes the weather here in Washington on July 4th is less than ideal - today however it is absolutely gorgeous.  It is about 74° and quite sunny:)  Last night (July 3) we went to some fireworks down at Bush Park off Yelm Hwy and it looked like the whole county showed up - it was a great show for 18 minutes and then most folks got caught in a big traffic jam - Marcie T played it great and started driving away just as the finale was blasting away and we made it home in 15 minutes - some ward members we talked with today took over an hour to get home!  Here are a few of the pictures we've taken - some last night with the clear moon and fireworks and a couple today at our ward breakfast/flag ceremony which was very nice.  We are very grateful for the freedom's we enjoy and for the men and women who protect those freedoms.

Utah:)

We spent a wonderful long weekend in Utah a few days ago - temperatures at one point hovered near the century mark - we left and came home to a 50° Washington!  We were able to attend our nephew Scott's wedding in the Mt. Timpanogos Temple to his lovely bride Melissa and spent some time with many members of Marcie's family - which is always great fun.  We were then able to spend a few days with Scott's Mom in American Fork and had a wonderful time as well.  Here are some of the highlighted pictures:

Scott and Melissa leaving the temple

Mt. Timpanogos Temple

Scott and our great niece Avalon

Matching vest and shoes

We visited the Provo Tabernacle which was gutted by fire some time ago - and will now be re-built to become the 2nd temple in Provo!

Mom and Scott outside of our dinner venue

A trip to the Bluffdale cemetery made Father's Day complete

A great weekend with these two wonderful ladies that I love!!

Power Washing!

Last year we bought a power washer and Andrew helped us inagurate it by helping clean up the patio.  I guess we didn't get it out again last year - but we have so far this year.  I cleaned up a portion of the backyard sidewalks - not all yet but we will!  You can see from this picture what's been done and what hasn't:

Well thinking that power washing is kind of an art (I know that may be stretching it a bit) I suggested to Marcie T this morning that she ought to try it out on the front sidewalk since it might need a little more of a delicate touch.  So she did:

She actually quite enjoyed it - can you tell by the look on her countenance?!!!

Make this picture bigger to see the detail better:)

Philadelphia!!

We recently returned from a Wednesday - Sunday visit with Brigg, Havalah, and Luke in Philadelphia and had a marvelous time!  We were quite thrilled with how close New Jersey and Delaware are - we drove to Wilmington Delaware one night for dinner and crossed the Ben Franklin bridge into Camden New Jersey (home of Rutgers U) so we could say we'd been to New Jersey - actually we took a wrong turn onto the bridge but wanted to visit that state anyway!!  On Sunday we found a very nice branch of the church to attend, the Widener Branch, who were having only their 2nd Sunday in their new meeting place.  They were very gracious (they were hoping we were moving in!) and even when they found out we were just visiting were so friendly!  It's wonderful to go to church where ever you might be in this world and you get those same great feelings.  We visited Valley Forge, downtown Philadelphia with the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, Logan Circle, Franklin Institute of Science, Reading Terminal Market, 4th street fabric row where we had the biggest Reuben sandwich ever at the Famous 4th St. Deli, went swimming several times, and much much more.  I honestly think Luke had as much fun looking out of our 5th story hotel room at airplanes coming in and big trucks and buses going by!  We'd never been to this city of brotherly love before and neither had our kids, so we decided instead of going to Morgantown we would meet in Philadelphia - and we're so glad we did!  Here are a few of the many pictures we took.

La Conner, TULIPS

We spent the day in the Skagit Valley today drinking in the beautiful colors of the tulips and daffodils.  One of Marcie's FAVORITE activities.  So glad Scott indulges me in this!!

It was a beautiful, clear day in the 60's.  We could see many of the mountains, this is Mt. Baker. The other previous pictures are of the bay in Mukilteo where we spent the night. (I don't do this blog very often, these comments were supposed to be under the previous picture), This picture is just the parking lot of the fields and grounds we were going to see.

The beauties of the earth:)