FOURTH OF JULY

Dear Family,

Another big family celebration is the Fourth pf July. We try to gather to our little place in St. Charles, Idaho for a family bash.

This time we had about 50 there with most of the Utah families in attendance. Bryan, Scotty and Heidi came from Michigan.. Emily and here family stayed with us in the farm house in addition to Cheryl's six kids. The others rented the log cabins next to the church.

Thing were pretty well organized with each family to prepare one meal and others assigned clean up. The yard was a hayfield and after that was cut, we had a large playing field.

>Mom and I did the first breakfast. On our large outdoor griddle, we did pancakes, hash browns, eggs, and bacon from the wild hog shot last month. . They went through four pounds of bacon in one meal. In addition we threw on some pork chops so it was a Cracker Barrel breakfast.

The girls prepared a lunch and it was off to the lake and beach. We got the Ski boat going and Paul H spent two days giving kids rides on the boat and pulling them on tubes.

>Late in the evening, we gathered and watched movies. We were watching Napoleon Dynamite. I mentioned that they filmed it in Preston, Idaho which was just over the mountains from where we were. The next day, two carloads wanted to go on a Napoleon Dynamite tour of Preston. Bryan did a Google search and got the GPS points for the sites.

This was not quite like the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg but was fun nevertheless. I was surprised that the grand kids knew this movie so well. They knew every scene and every line. Why can't they memorize scripture as well

So we went to Pedro's house, to the steps of Preston High School, visited Kings and the DI. We went to Napoleon's home and to the BJ Malt Shop (where time travel and relationships were discussed). We went to the Cuttin Coral where Pedro bought the wig. I could not believe I was doing this but the kids had such a good time and it was the high light of the trip to Bear Lake,

Here is the group in front of Napoleon's house and a picture of Catherine with her sideways pony in front of BJ's malt shop. We came home and watched the movie again and everyone hooted that they had been to that exact spot.

On the night of the Fourth, we had a huge fireworks display. We went to the St. Charles ward on Sunday. There must have been at least a thousand people there.

Then it was back home. What a great time we had with everyone. Emily and Rebecca helped so much with the food and the guys got all the equipment and toys started.

We will be in Spokane this next week visiting Rob and Eva and Jeff and Tammy.

Love, Opa

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