Let Freedom Ring!!

I feel like there is so much going on right now that I could just write for hours! But... I will spare you. This last weekend Michael and I celebrated our first real holiday together as a married couple!! We started the fourth of July off with a red, white, and blue pancake breakfast then headed to the parade on the scooter with Michael's family. After walking around center street for a while and taking full advantage of all of the free samples available Michael's family headed home so that they could be back for church and work. We then hopped back onto the scooter and headed to Orem for Scera Theatre's Ellis Island Exhibit - it was so neat! We learned all about how the immigrants passed through Ellis Island, what their preconceptions were of America and how they responded to their new surroundings. We then walked around a giant star of flags and recommitted ourselves as US citizens. At the end there was a little citizenship quiz that we both passed (with the brief assistance of cha cha), allowing us to make an oath of citizenship. It was really interesting to remind yourself of what it really means to be an American. Freedom sure doesn't come free - we really are expected to sacrifice for the things that we have if the time comes.


After our pledge we joined a large group of people enjoying a freedom-themed musical production put on by a youth theater group. It was really fun - I really enjoyed learning a little more about Joan of Arc. We ended up leaving a bit early and heading to buy our necessary watermelon for the day at Buy Low! The problem here was that we hadn't contemplated the fact that we would be riding home on our little 2 man scooter and that a 20 pound watermelon is about as thick as a person! I clutched onto Michael for dear life as we sped down University in an effort to all get home in one piece! Our efforts were proven to definitely not be in vain, however, when we sat down to our picnic in the park with the puppy and watermelon. The rest of the day continued to be all-American as we played catch, ate ice cream while watching the fireworks from the Stadium of Fire, and accidentally set off illegal fireworks into our neighbor's front door. Even the crazy lady that covered our scooter in lipstick because she was mad that we blocked her view by parking our little scooters in front of her added to the spirit of the day. By bedtime we were both overwhelmed with the idea of having to reevaluate our declarations of our 'favorite holidays.'