4th of July

Dad asked Caden if he could eat an entire bowl of ice cream, and Caden insisted over and over that he could. He was not very impressed with the bowl presented to him :)

Jer and our great Arizona cousins were here over 4th of July so we got to do a few things with them. We got up at 5:30 am on the morning of the 4th to go to the balloon festival in Provo. We got there just in time to see the first balloons lift off. It was a very amazing site ... and we did it once, so I don't see any reason to wake up at 5:30 am on the 4th again :) Davin was particularly thrilled with all the balloons.

Then we wove our way through CRAZY amounts of traffic to get to the parade, where we met up with Jer and fam. It was very fun, but the heat and walking and early morning had us all tuckered out the rest of the day!

Later we headed to Amber and Dave's for a 4th of July barbecue. I painted the kids faces in the patriotic symbols of their choice, then we ate a delightful smorgasboard, then the man-boys decided to play long-range catch with a football and make the kids cry because they wouldn't include them. We went to the Pleasant Grove fireworks and by then we'd had enough of celebrating and it was time to hit the hay!

But no, the fun does not end there! The joyous day continued to visit, starting Sunday night when Tessa threw up every 20 minutes (it was uncanny how punctual her barf was) from 9 pm to 3:30 am. Monday morning saw Tessa feeling somewhat better but me, Dave and my mom all feeling rather queasy. Then I get a call from Amber saying about 90% of the people at the party were throwing up and had diarrhea and we had gotten food poisoning. The worst, worst feeling is being on the border of throwing up and then having a baby kick you in the gut. Oh. My. Word.

Tuesday we were feeling better though still not quite right, but I got a babysitter so we could go out for Betsy's birthday dinner with her. When we got home at 9:30 we discovered that the sitter had put the kids to bed but Caden had thrown up from the top bunk so all the kids were up while she did her best to clean up (what a trooper!). Tessa's bed was hit a little by the falling barf and she told us she didn't know what was going on and thought it was raining. How gross is that?!?!?!

So then I got to spend the whole night awake again with Caden, who didn't throw up as regularly as Tessa but was still at it until about 6 am. And his was way stinkier for some reason. My mom left that same morning at 7 am, and Dave had to drive her to the airport because I hadn't slept and was starting to not feel well again. But I still got to get up with the kids at 7. Then I got to spend all morning worshipping the porcelain goddess once again while grumpy, sleepy Davin screamed his head off for no apparent reason. I finally called Dave bawling and asked if he could at least come home so I could take a nap. He came home for 2 hours and put Davin to bed so I got about 3 hours of sleep in and felt soooo much better.

So yeah, 4th of July is not my favorite holiday. And not just because I'm Canadian, either :)

The sickies