Welcome to the Manning Story

I love the Fourth of July! With bar-b-ques, fireworks, summertime, friends and family make this one of the most memorable holidays for me. This year was no exception! Yesterday started out with breakfast with Ty's cousin, his girlfriend and his other cousin. It was quite the feast and than we headed to the pool and played for about three hours all sorts of pool games. That was the only way to beat the 116 degree heat that we had. We even tried getting Marley to jump in but she would only go as far as the first step and that was it for her. Afterwards, he started Nacho Libre but were so wiped out from the sunt hat we feel asleep and took a nice long 2 hour nap. Afterwards, we headed over to a part that our friends the Picketts were throwing and it was a blast. They had a bar-b-que and we went swimming and the guys played a mean game of water volleyball and the girls mostly just cooed over all the adorable little babies everywhere. It was so much fun to be surrounded by such amazing friends. Thanks Picketts for throwing an awesome bash. We were so tired and satisfied with all our events of the day that we skipped out on trying to find a place to watch the fireworks and just went to bed feeling very blessed to be Americans and to have the family and friends that we do. While I was trying to fall asleep I was trying to think back on some of my most memorable fourth of Julys and here is what I came up with.
1. Almost all of my 4th of Julys as a kid were spent at Lake Powell where we would buy fireworks and have a big celebration until Ranger Rick would come by and we would have to quit until he left.
2. If we weren't at Lake Powell, we were in Provo Canyon with cousins and other family and we would have our own firework celebrations there.
3. Ty and I went to Rocky Point, Mexico for our first Fouth of July and that was a blast!
4. I was in Kenay with 20 other students my age when I was 15 for the fourth and because the Kenyans don't celebrate it (for obvious reasons) we celebrated it watching Wimbleton on a little t.v. at a near by bar. Hearing the hippos in the distance made it very memorable!
5. I was in Philly twice for the fourth while on my mission and that has to be one of the coolest places to be on the fourth because of all the history that surrounds it.
I can't wait for more fun fourth of july adventures!