Celebrating the 4th of July.

There is a musical called "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown" that is about 102 years old.  Well, not really, but musicals have come a LONG way since that one was around and I doubt it would draw much of a crowd on Broadway these days - but I remember a song from it called "Happiness."  A few of the lines that I can remember go:  Happiness is two kinds of ice cream ... finding your skate key ... telling the time.

But the line that I remember the most says:  Happiness is anyone and anything at all, that's loved by you.

Ever since we celebrated the 4th of July, that song has been playing in my head. I think it had to be one of the best Independence Day celebrations EVER ... I loved everything about that day, which started by having my cute little Libby show up in her red, white and blue bedazzled self!!!

We headed off to the park early, got our pick of the grass for the day's festivities ... we leisurely walked around the vendor tents and had some insanely yummy, freshly made mini donuts sprinkled with cinnamon sugar just before we walked to "Chik-fil-A" for dinner, which I had never had before and was delightfully surprised at how chow the chicken was.

We had a front row seat to a rather entertaining parade ... I got more than my fill of taffy which was thrown our way a.l.l.  t.h.r.o.u.g.h.o.u.t. the parade.  We laughed when Libby ate her way through the paper around the taffy as she waved her little flag!  (So cute.)

But by far, the best part of the celebration was the concert later that night.  There is just something about an outdoor concert under the stars.  Especially when the entertainment is billed as "Utah's Premier Dance/Party Band."  And they totally lived up to their billing.  That band rocked the crowd and I'm pretty sure all five thousand of us danced that night (well, maybe all of us, give or take a thousand) .

As a mother, it made my heart happy to watch my two teens, the two that seem to have a love/hate relationship, get a little wild and crazy with each other and dance their hearts out.  The band had announced they would be playing for another 30 minutes after the fireworks so to stick around if we didn't want to fight traffic ... we stuck around, we didn't want to fight traffic, and we were some of the very last to leave the party! 

It will definitely go down as a great, fun, memorable 4th.