6th Annual Casa de Fuego

As I was saying, Provo LOVES the 4th of July and every year, they go all-out with the Freedom Festival celebration. I already mentioned the parade, but they also have a hot-air balloon event in the morning (which is one of my favorites) and then the Stadium of Fire that night. Because we happen to live so close to the stadium, we always have ourselves a little celebration to listen to the singers perform and then watch fireworks. We used to call this little party of ours "Casa de Inferno" before we realized that actually means "House of Hell"... so the name has been changed to "Casa de Fuego", but the party is still the same and just as fun. We invite friends over, make a ridiculous amount of food, camp out on the front lawn to eat/play, lounge about on the grass, and then watch the fireworks display. Its one of my favorite holidays! Anything that involves friends and food is always a winner in my book.

Freedom Festival Parade

This year for the 4th of July, we were lucky enough to have Chad off for the whole day! As his work schedule usually stops for no one and no holiday, we were very happy that his day off (Thursday) also happened to be Independence Day! Provo is an awesome place to spend the 4th... they seriously go all-out. In the morning, we attended the Freedom Festival parade, which is way more fun with a one-year-old. We got up and got all the bikes out, rode to the parade, stood behind a tent belonging to some crazy people who had camped out there all night, and enjoyed all the floats, marching bands, and even the army tank coming down the street. It was awesome and Ryder man LOVED it. His favorite was the bagpipes. Whenever any marching band came down the street, Ryder would start jumping up and down/pointing/"oooh"ing and "ahh"ing. LOVED it.