Festivities of the Fourth

We had quite a fun time celebrating the 4th of July. In Logan, the city firework show is held the night of the 3rd so we actually spent 1.5 days commemorating the birthday of our great nation...that is how patriotic we Utahns are. Technically, we started preparing on Monday, when we drove by the grassy knoll to stake out our claim to watch the fireworks. There were already a couple blankets down, but we still got a great spot. I also baked a cake since it had to cool before I could decorate it.

Tuesday night we had friends over for a now-festive cake.



The cake was very tasty, especially the frosting which consisted of 4 ingredients: cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and powdered sugar. I absolutely love each of those items and with a little captain planet action their powers combine to form edible heaven. I do wish the cake was a bit neater though. The icing forming the white stripes was supposed to be piped with a cake tip but I couldn't see buying a bag and tip just for this one thing so I used a ziploc bag but it split half way through the process and I had to scramble to stop the icing for covering me and the kitchen. Also, it is hard to get strawberries to fit into nice neat lines. The original recipe called for raspberries and they would have been a lot easier to line up but the raspberries in town were expensive and didn't look very good. Plus, I like strawberries more than raspberries and when you are doing the baking, you get to make the decisions.

After cake, we drove over to our pre-claimed spot. Neither us nor the other couple had been to Logan's show before so we didn't know what a big deal it was. Everyone in town was there! A lot of them went to the actual show in Romney Stadium with it's local singers and color guard performance but we were both too lazy to sit in bleachers when we could lay down on a blanket and too cheap to pay $6 a person to do so. Obviously we weren't the only lazy, cheap people out there.


The show was a lot better than I was expecting from a town Logan's size. The traffic was also more than I would expect from a town this size. It took an hour to get home and we only live about 10 blocks away. In hindsight, we should have walked.

Tuesday was a little less structured but we still did sneak some patriotic activities in there. For example: We watched Live Free or Die Hard. This was the first Die Hard movie I had ever seen and I wasn't expecting to enjoy it but it was okay. Improbable, but okay. And since the story takes place on the 4th of July and America is saved from terrorists, I feel like it can legitimately be considered a 4th of July movie. After that, we waded in the river and collected golf balls, not because we have a need for golf balls but because we were hot and they were there. Finishing up the day, we picnicked at a local park and enjoyed a little shade and fried chicken. If fried chicken isn't patriotic, nothing is. Here are some pictures to round out my long post.


I'm not sure why Craig is making this face.


I'm looking relaxed, maybe a little too relaxed.


Again, why can't Craig just smile normally?


Where's Waldo?


Found him.