24th of July

This was probably the first year, since I have moved to Utah, that I have actually remembered that the 24th of July is a holiday. And it was awesome! It is like two 4th of Julys. Fireworks, day off of work, parades, and picnics. Wonderful bliss.
At Overstock, the 24th is a floating holiday along with your birthday, and typically Ethan takes his birthday which falls right next to the Labor day weekend thus allowing a SUPER long weekend. (Just as a side note, we have gone to Phoenix and Las Vegas during these long weekends for the past two years. ) This year because we will be at school for Ethan's birthday, he took the 24th off.
I have been begging to go to the Red Butte Gardens and luckily for me they are free on the 24th. I don't think I would ever pay the 12 dollars to go to the gardens, but man for a free day, they were GORGEOUS!!! To make it more gorgeous, it was a cool 85 and overcast. PERFECT! 

This was an arbor with FRUIT TREES growing up the side! My dad would have LOVED this

These flowers totally reminded me of the flowers on the hill behind our Spokane house before they built the houses.

Oh Smooch face! We love you

 Okay, this was easily my favorite part of the whole thing. It was a giant gazebo with a roof made of this bright green plant and hanging flowers. Of course the picture does not capture how cool it was, but it was awesome. My second favorite part was probably the herb garden because it smelt like spaghetti sauce

 We let Kelsey crawl around the wild flower garden which was a huge mistake because she did not want to get back in her stroller!

 Herb Garden. Seriously this place smelled AMAZING!!

 Cute little "cave" in the kiddy gardens

 I had to fight 5 kids for the head of this lizard. They (and their parents) were not pleased

 After the gardens, we tried to find the Salt Lake Cemetery but parade traffic discouraged us from being so adventurous and so we turned around to go take a  nap. In the afternoon we went down to Provo to look at a potential house (it was a spitting image of our very first home which if you had the privilege of visiting tells you much about the house) and while we were looking, Jed and Andrea watched Kelsey. They played dress up while we were away and although this picture is blurry I love it. Andrea put Kelsey in her cross country singlet and Kelsey looked adorable!

 From Provo we made the long trek up to Bountiful to see Aunt Kay and partake of a delicious BBQ and smores! The new patio was a huge hit and although it was literally roasting outside, it was still fun to make smores. I mean who doesn't love a good smore!

 I made Kelsey a mini non toasted one, and she took it apart layer by layer, but it got her to stop eating the rocks so I can't complain.

This pic pretty much sums it all up

 Wing Ladies who were present

 Wing Gents who were present. 

(It was shortly after this photo that Reo epically told us all that Julie married a Gale and not a Peeta)

We only get to see Aunt Kay about once a year and this visit did not disappoint. 

So here goes my tangent: Aunt Kay was one of the very first extended Wing members that I met. She was kind enough to come to our wedding reception and the following summer she came to visit Grandma a lot and we would go see her every visit. Its safe to say that I had met Aunt Kay at least 7 times by the time we had been married 6 months, give or take. When Ethan and I would go visit Grandma Wing while we were living in Provo, and an Aunt Kay visit was around the corner, Grandma would ALWAYS ask "have you met Aunt Kay? You would just love her" I mean ALWAYS!!! She asked me that for about a year. And the cutest part was that she was dead serious. I would always remind her that I had in fact met Aunt Kay several times and she would just start laughing, "Oh that's right. I just don't remember like I used to."

In Grandma's memory, whenever Aunt Kay is coming to town, at least 50% of the Wing families asks me "have you met Aunt Kay?" and when Aunt Kay sees me she often says "Its nice to finally meet you!" Oh Grandma Wing. Thanks for still making us laugh!
Wing Family bookends~

Smore faces...

Fire starters

The loot that had not been eaten yet

 This was my second favorite moment (next to Reo telling us that he was like Gale). Julie wanted to Instagram a pic of the smore night, but she didn't want to upset Reo's one Instagram a day rule. He bent the rule for smore night and they then took like 5 min posing for the perfect instagram pic! It made me laugh because I totally do stuff like this all the time. I mean you gotta have the perfect pic right?!Plus their commentary was hilarious

 Enjoying the new patio

 Believe it or not this was meant to be a serious picture...

as was this!

And there is was, the first 24th of July that felt like a holiday! It was a great day and although we only saw fireworks on the drive home, I'd say the holiday was complete.