4th of July Festivities!!

So what to do? With so much of Colorado on fire (we are up to 13 active fires at present), new fires in WY, ID and UT, what happens? They ban all fireworks even in Wyoming!!!!  This is the stiffest fire ban we have ever witnessed where they won't even allow you to use a chain saw bacause it might spark a fire, but who ever heard of banning fireworks in WYoming!!???!
Well, the tradition of gathering in Wyoming will continue despite not having much fire power. :)

All in all, we had anywhere between 32 to 38 people in the house and 22 of them under the age of 16!!! Wow! What a household.  We had such a blast even with the chaos!!  Nerf gun wars with 15 Nerf guns in active use, homemade marshmallow guns for wars, tons of food, stories from Grandpa in the evening, Olympics tryouts to cheer for, dance recitals, more food, shooting, rock hunting, a little drama, smores, arm wrestling, hiking, family pictures,  the list goes on and on!!!

Its hard to sum it all up, so here it is in picture form!

 Tie dye fun T-Shirts for everyone.  They were so much fun to make!!

 Three very handsome men preparing lunch!

 Up in the Green Hills where the fireworks would normally have taken place, we hunted for agates, treasures, did some target shooting and investigated a sheep skeleton!

The massive sandbox in the back yard is still being put to good use!

 

 A truck load of food to feed some many people. Kevin and I were lucky enough to have the task of preparing most of the meals for everyone and we loved doing it.  Lasagna, garlic bread, Thai Peanut chicken kabobs, french toast, hamburgers, etc etc.

We had a small talent show where the grand kids got to show off some of their amazing talents!!

 Nathan and a couple of M&M boys!

 
 Grandma Pete, Aunt Peggy and Uncle Mike visited as well and kept us all laughing and full of hugs.

 Just a 'few' pairs of shoes!

 Tackle time was a very prevalent part of the trip!  Here is Brendan getting attacked by two blue M&Ms!

 Family Picture time is always an adventure.

 The magical mermaid provided all sorts of fun prizes in the fishing game this year.

There's something a little fishy going on here!

 Boys and a computer. ... a natural magnet!

A little bit of 'girly' time between Papa and the grand daughters!  Very Lovely!

 Nerf gun or marshmallow wound!

 Marshmallow Guns quickly turned into light sabers!

 

Bedtime stories from Papa.  Most of them true tales of an adventurous childhood.

 Hiking around a lake, smore time, cousin time!

 A little "off roading"?                                                                         Arm wrestling anyone?

4th of July Celebration

We continued the Cottrell Tradition of celebrating our country by blowing up tiny bits of it at a time! We headed to Wyoming where all the family members made it except for Stephanie, Mike and Family, and Danielle's husband. Pretty good for an impromptu reunion.




















Last year I thought we went a little over the top with fireworks, uh, this year, they doubled it!!!!Between us all it was a ton of fireworks!!!! But it was a great show! We went up in the hills behind Kevin's house to the natural corrals so we had a beautiful rock backdrop for the show to take place. Shawn even built a 8x8 foot platform as our staging area, complete with adjustable legs!




















It was the perfect place to let the kids run and climb around and then settle in for the show! Spectacular. We did have a visitor: a helicopter did a fly over with a spot light on us twice, but I guess he figured we weren't a threat because he didn't come back. It gave us all a bit of a fright though!


We visited Kevin's Uncle Wayne's ranch and spent the afternoon petting his goats, sheep, chickens, dogs and seeing what his latest projects were. This man is pretty amazing: he builds massive BBQs large enough to roast a whole pig, creates amazing leather saddles, cures and smokes his own meat, and who know what else, all while working full time!!
















Wayne also showed us his sweet gun collection and I even got to shoot his M-15 which I quickly fell in love with!!! (yes, I know that in the picture I am holding it wrong, but it was kinda hard to concentrate while balancing on one foot!).


We also got to spend some time with Grandma Pete which is always a special time.