The Christensen Family: The Fourth of July

We have been going to Blanding for the fourth of July pretty steady our entire marriage. It is the best place for the fourth. I say that every year that I have blogged about it. We went down on Sunday.
That night we made pinatas with Grandma Julene. Monday we went canoeing. This was perhaps my most favorite activity. Scot got the canoes from the scouts and we played for a couple of hours. Gage was not impressed with actually riding but he enjoyed staying on shore. Zac and TR liked the canoe, but really liked exploring the "coast". Jenna loved canoeing. She also swam in the reservoir.

Uncle "Big Christian"

Gage and Roman

Steve and Brandon

Playing on the shore

Trevor and Kaiden BFFs

Gager getting brave...

Jenna swam out to the island.

Later that day we had FHE and played games. Once it was dark, the adults went crawdad fishing with Little Christian and Zac and Jenna. We left the little guys home with Grandma. This was probably the high light of the trip for Zac. He did stay out late after Lissa and I and the other kids retired from the reservoir. They came home at 11:30pm. They caught several. Jeff was probably the master, but everyone who wanted to catch one did and could. We netted several, and also used string with bacon tied to the end to catch them.

L to R: Christian, Steve, Jeff, Zac

Tuesday, Steve and Jeff prepared the crawdad boil. We have seen this on the Food network. Steve was very excited. I would say that this was the highlight of the trip for him. He boiled water, a seasoning mix, onions, lemons, garlic, potatoes, corn, shrimp, and sausage, then added the live critters. They quickly turned bright red. We ate this outside. We even poured it on the table as per tradition in Louisianan. It was pretty good. the claw meat was easy to eat because there was nothing to avoid or devein. The novelty of it was the best part of the meal. BTW, our kids all tried it and ate it. Zac blessed the boil. He was sweet. He was excited to eat it. He had fun.

Zac is proud

Later that day we went to the public pool which is a great pool.
Wednesday was the 4th. The parade started at 10:30. It was a nice parade that was a tribute to the veterans of war and those that protect our freedom. They did a tribute to Steve's high school buddy, Jason Workman- a Blanding native, that was a Navy Seal that died last year. There was also the regular candy throwing that is very irregular anywhere else. They aren't stingy. Also there were the water works, where the crowd gets sprayed by the fire engines. That is always a hit with Zac.

Honoring the flag as they went by...

Gage is digging for gold, I guess.

wet zac with his candy bag

Afterward we visited Steve's Granny that was home from the nursing home for the day. It was good to see her. That afternoon we played a game of baseball with Steve's cousins. That was awesome. Everyone who played had fun. Wednesday night were the fireworks. Despite the recent wild fires in Utah, the fireworks display still was held. Thankfully we got rain that day in Blanding and they were careful. It was a great display. All 4 of the kids were still going strong at 10 pm when the fireworks began. The band in the back ground, the booms and stillness lulled TR and Gage asleep. They were worn out.