Happy 4th of July!

I love holidays. It is so exciting to have a day that is set apart from the normal day-to-day and celebrate in a unique and fun way. I really enjoy the 4th of July because it is a day for family, friends, fireworks and festivities! (I did not realize I was going for alliteration when I started that sentence but I'm just going to go with it) Half of the fun of the day is the preparation that goes into it, I think. I've been pretty excited to be able to decorate for holidays now that we have a little more money and space for it. Also, I love not having a job and can use my time to get a little more in to crafts.

I found this wreath on Pinterest and really liked it. It was pretty easy to make (hint: you wrap yarn around a straw wreath until it looks like this) but, as you can imagine, a little tedious. I still enjoyed it but the best part was being done and proud of what I had made.

Here's another craft I found on Pinterest. This was pretty much completely free. I took a bunch of paint chips from our local Home Depot, stenciled letters on the back, cut them out and hung them on some fishing line I had. The only cost to me was how embarassed I was grabbing thirteen paint chips unashamedly while others looked on. Anyway, it helped our house feel a little more festive.

I think we celebrated the day better this year than last-- where we hung out at home all day until we had a short barbecue with some friends and then got lost for like half an hour trying to figure out where the park with the fireworks was and then parking... yech. Anyway, this year we decided to go to the Boise Liberty Day Parade in the morning. Here is our view of the capital from where we sat-- I love the way that building looks.

Here we are, waiting for it to start. We went with our friends from the ward and played Idiot while we waited-- it was a lot of fun!

And so it begins.

Some pretty sweet unicyclers. Do you see how tall that one is? I would be terrified! I can't even stay on a normal unicycle! Bryan is pretty good, though. He has one here at our house-- he should totally have been in this parade.

I loved how they had someone barbecuing on the back of this float. I said more than once yesterday that it's probably illegal not to eat meat on the 4th of July. :)

Boise loves old cars for some reason. Last year we biked into downtown and happened upon this big old car show.

This car is made of wood. Wood. 

Gotta love those old colonial sunglasses from back in the day...

Chickens riding bicycles-- an American tradition. (There were some random marketing ploys going on here...)

This part was really cool-- I enjoyed the bagpipes a lot. I wish they'd had a marching band as well.

Boise also loves fancy cars, I guess. There are enough Miatas here to have formed their own club, apparently.

I get really riled up by politics lately (I guess it could have something to do with it being an election year...). In case you can't tell from the party I elected to include, I'm a proud Romney supporter.

I like these cool, old fashioned firetrucks. 

Of course I had to get a picture of this one!

Oh hey, Ben Franklin and Daniel Boone...

Okay so this is pretty cool. Boise is super bicycle friendly, obviously. If they weren't a a pub I think  it'd be pretty sweet to participate.

And finishing off our parade, Miss Boise. 

We got there maybe an hour before it started and got really good spots (minus the fact that we didn't bring anything to sit on) at the front of the parade. It wasn't too crowded so that made it even more enjoyable. After it was over, we headed back to the car and ran through an empty spot in the parade a block down... did I mention I was in a parade? 

Our friends invited us over to his parents' house for a barbecue and it was a lot of fun. It was just super relaxed and pretty much the perfect weather for the day. I even felt comfortable enough to play a little no-rules baseball with them and it was a lot of fun!

After that we went home and I crashed on the couch for two hours out of nowhere. We had some hotdogs for dinner and ice cream, just the two of us. A month or so back, we had found this nice street that had a view out over the valley looking into the city and around it. We decided we'd take our chances and go there to look at fireworks. There were people there but it was definitely not crowded. The only downfall was that there were some trees in the exact direction of the main fireworks and sometimes we only saw the top half of the fireworks. It was awesome because we were able to watch those fireworks plus all the other ones being set off around the valley. It was really a beautiful view and Bryan and I kept talking about what a nice street it would be to live on. 

Okay, so this isn't an actual picture from my camera but this is like what we saw. I love fireworks-- especially the shimmery ones. I wish I was a better photographer because I'm not able to catch nearly as beautiful as what I saw with my eyes.

This is the best I could get with my camera. Seriously though, they were gorgeous fireworks. 

Well anyway, another blog post where I still refuse to post pictures of our new home. Aren't I mean? We just ordered our new duvet cover so once that comes and I get it all set up I promise I will! I'm pretty excited. I think I'll take a video with my phone as well.