Happy Fourth of July... Three Weeks Later

We love the 4th of July. Especially when its on a weekend. Especially when its on a weekend and we get to go up to Idaho. Especially when it's the weekend, in Idaho, at Tagg's 10 year High School Reunion. Ok, scratch that last part about the reunion, it was rather lame, but we did have a great time in Idaho... for the 4th... for the weekend. On Friday night we got up to Idaho in time for the yearly Archibald Spectacular Dinner which involved 2 pans of ribs, a plethora of baked beans, a literal vegetable patch of salads and a keg of Mountain Dew. Did I say a Keg? I meant THREE kegs of Mountain Dew in ASSORTED FLAVORS! I think there was even Diet CAFFIENE FREE Mountain Dew... you know, for Grandma Archibald who wants to kick back and party with the flavor but doesn't want to pay for it later that night.

After dinner we chit-chatted with my cousins ("So Chase, how's the sniper rifle collection going? Oh really?! I didn't know you could make your own rifles."), helped my mom climb a tree, listen to Grandma scream at my uncle for pruning the tree, helped my mom get down from a tree, and argued with Grandma when we said we're going to get a drink before the Fireworks ("Taggart there are three types of Mountain Dew INSIDE!!!"). P.S. My Grandma is an amazing woman, she's really not mean/crazy, it just makes for better reading. However the best part of the night had to be with my Uncle Larry, who is a far, far-right conservative Republican and has subscriptions to "Guns Monthly" and "Liberals are Evil Quarterly" and someone I like to have fun with. I brought up in casual conversation with Uncle Creed that I was really confused about who to vote for after Hilary Clinton had lost the primaries and was concerned that, without her in charge, I feared for the rights of abortionists and the future of gay marriage. I have never seen a mans face turn more red and sit up faster then my uncle. Creed, who picked up what I was throwing down, asked why I wasn't wearing my "Obama; Change we can believe in" T-shirt that I told him about. More confusion and rage in Uncle Larry's face. I kindly told Creed that it was in the wash after the Anti-War Rally. Ten minutes later, we had bandaged up everyone, collected the pieces of broken furniture together along with the shattered glass, re-hung the chandelier, cleaned up the fallen kegs, and finally convinced my uncle that I was joking. "You almost had me Tagg" was his response. I couldn't find Chase, who I suspected ran home to grab his guns (plural).

We decided to go to the Snake River water front to watch the Idaho Falls 4th of July Firework Spectacular. Now Katie is from Vegas and I have to be honest; Vegas blows when it comes to 4th of July. It always ticked me off because I love watching fireworks and I've never understood why Vegas spends billions on New Years fireworks but nothing on 4th of July. But anyways Katie has never really seen a good 4th of July firework show. Until this year. Thirty minutes of non-stop fireworks assaulted her at the Idaho Falls show. It seriously has to be one of the best shows in the western-Idaho region, nay, even in all of The Idaho.

Ten minutes into it she had to have started to wonder a couple things (1) "How is it that this small town can produce a 30 minute firework bonanza but yet can't figure out how stoplights work" (2) "How can there be so many rednecks in one place?" (3) "The whole state of Idaho must be here to watch this as there are thousands of people here" (4) "When will this couple directly in front of us stop making out" and (5) "what is that smell?"
The whole time I was thinking (1) "I'm really afraid of my cousin Chase and his homemade sniper rifle...I wonder where he is right now."

(The video isn't ours and it's only 2 minutes of the 30 minutes.)

The best part of the weekend was hanging out with the folks. We went and saw Wall-E and got there 30 minutes early and just enjoyed talking with my parents. We loved the movie and would highly recommend it and afterwards my dad told us about the new and controversial windmill farms in Idaho Falls. Seeing as how we were a "short drive" away we decided to go see them. Twenty minutes, three "over this last hill"'s, and half of my Coke later we got there and were impressed by how many there were. It's not California big, but it was impressive for Idaho.


Later that night I got Katie addicted to the original "The Thin Man" movies from the 40's and then the next day we grilled corn, chicken, and artichoke's for the parents for dinner which has become our new favorite meal. We had a great time and look forward to our next trip in September for the Eastern Idaho State Fair (be excited, be very excited) and loved every minute of our 4th of July... weekend... in Idaho.