A Fantastic 4th !!!

The week prior to the 4th, my family deserted me to go to a family reunion. For me it was a lazy week, working overtime to make some extra money (11 hour days take a toll), and eating cheese crisps. I did get some stuff done around the house, but clearly not enough. At least I did not leave the house in worse shape than when the family left. As it turned out, I was sick the 1st weekend they were gone. By the time that I was going to drive up to meet them in Forest Lakes for the 2nd weekend, I was missing them terribly. I got off of work on the 3rd and braved the traffic up to Payson. It was smooth sailing until I got to Payson. There was bumper to bumper traffic from the outskirts of town until the turnoff at the famous McDonald's. A quick stop at the Safeway and I was on my way. Finally, I arrive and meet my family. Helena was first to greet me because she recognized the taillight on the van from far away. It was a nice treat to talk to her before the kids got to me. The girls were so excited to see me they came running and screaming out to meet me! It really hit me how much I missed them! We actually stayed in a cabin about a mile away from Helena's mom's house. It was a woodsy cabin, no phone, TV, or Internet. Card games seem to be a staple in settings like this. As of late, our family has been addicted to playing solitaire. Our favorite is either double or triple solitaire. To take a break from that, we would play games of go fish with Tasha. It was nice to get out of the heat and enjoy some cooler weather. As usual, it rained every day. It amazes me that they have severe forest fire danger signs with as much rain as they seem to get. The reason we like to go up this time of year is for the fireworks show in Heber. It is always on the Saturday after the forth. This year we got to the show about 7pm, two hours before the show was to begin. It is held in the middle of a ball field complex. We were able to set up our blanket and chairs and just hang out. Lots of people get there much earlier and set up camp complete with EZ up's and all the stuff that goes with it. There is a DJ who plays music and lots of booths to buy food. It is just a lot of fun to hang out with family and relax. I don't think there is a bad seat in the place. We set up less than 100 yards where the fireworks are set off. It is a pretty amazing show. It lasts about 30 minutes and has a pretty good finale. As we continue to watch the show, our kids cheering in the background, you can actually feel the paper ash from the exploded fireworks floating down. The show is good enough that by the end, you don't even mind paying the $5 "donation" to park. Everyone loved it and had a good time. We had a lazy day on Sunday, had dinner at Momo's, and headed back to the valley Sunday afternoon. Traffic was so bad at this point that it took us nearly 90 minutes to get to Payson from Forest Lakes. It is normally a 30 minute drive. It was also pouring rain the whole time. Twice Helena was sure is was hailing, but they were just huge rain drops! I am sure it rained more during that 90 minute drive than it will rain all year in the valley. Once we got to Payson, all the traffic went away. We are not sure where it went, we were just glad it disappeared. Back to the Valley, and back to real life. No more sleeping 9+ hours each night and no more sleeping in. All in all, we had a great 4th of July!