Talk about your revolution:

it's Independence Day!

Chuck and I started dating the end of May/beginning of June of 2003, and we both fell kinda hard kinda fast, so I was psyched about accepting his invite to head to his hometown - Elko, Nevada - for the 4th of July weekend and (gasp!) meet his family. Chuck, his roommate Barry, and I drove the windy canyon roads to Elko and I then discovered that, in true Chuck fashion, my brand-new boyfriend had neglected to specify to his parents and siblings that one of the "friends" he was bringing down for the weekend was, in fact, a GIRLfriend. They were naturally a little surprised, but we had a way fun weekend getting to know each other. Since then, we've made it a point to be in Elko every year for Independence Day, although we missed it in 2004 - we had just been there in June for our wedding open house and couldn't finagle the time off, BUT we've rocked the holiday there every year since! The Izatts meet up at the park with the extended Wills and Dickenson families (the men folk get up EARLY to reserve our shady spot) and we party all day long, eating, playing games, sports, readying for the annual water fight, chatting, and waiting for the fabulous fireworks put on by the city. This year's highlights included our first time playing Apples to Apples (Chuck was ridiculously good at it), my staunch political rival Dick Wills admitting that he's voting for Barack Obama JUST LIKE ME! (it's better for his upcoming retirement), and, of course, delighting in a country where we are allowed freedom of speech, press, worship, gathering, and so on.

And now for the photographic evidence that we had buckets of fun:

We arrived in Elko pretty early on Thursday, so we had Grandma Izatt and the house to ourselves. We sent Grandma and Clyde on some errands and Chuck and I took the opportunity to de-hippie-fy our younger son. That's right, at the ripe ol' age of three months, Will got his first haircut. Above is the 'before' shot, and below is the 'after' - my child has ears, who knew?

We also made time for naps; Chuck and Will slept pretty contentedly until Will got hungry and I scooped him out of there. I came back a while later only to find a different son in the same position:

Clyde slept there for quite a while, but Chuck continued his nap after Clyde got up and left. When Chuck did wake up, he had NO IDEA that either boy had napped with him at all - he's a pretty deep sleeper :)

Chuck's dah-ling sister Amanda decided to bike down to the park for the festivities, and Chuck opted to tag along. Unfortunately for him, the only bike available was of the female variety (not a big deal) and had problematic (read=essentially non-existent) back brakes (apparently a big deal).

Here's Chuck showing us what happens to a biker who can only brake with front brakes . . .

and here he is riding down the hill calling back "I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die!"

He managed to arrive without incident, and we followed shortly after. Clyde loved flying a kite with Chuck, but really wanted to hold the string himself.
My little red, white and blue baby was not a huge fan of lying in the grass . . .

The founding fathers . . . of our party: Ron Dickenson, David Izatt and Dick Wills!
Chuck and Clyde braved the water fight, and despite making faces like this whenever he got wet, he signed "more" whenever Chuck tried to take him aside. Goofy boy!

Here are the boys drying off with a little Ultimate Frisbee. Clyde was such a daddy's boy all day!

We played at the playground a bit, and Clyde got bored going down the slide the regular way, so he tried going down on his tummy and going down backwards - such a daredevil.

It started to get dark, Chuck's mom broke out the glow necklaces and bracelets - a definite favorite every year. Clyde sported them on his ankles and wrists so that we could see him running in the dark. Then we watched the AMAZING fireworks - Clyde loved them. Baby Will slept through it all, but Clyde stayed awake until right BEFORE the big finale. He woke up to everyone cheering :)

The next morning Dave, Kevin, and Chuck took the older kids to shoot off pop bottles and go to the parade while the gals put on a sweet baby shower. Here's Clyde setting up the Coke bottle and then scurrying away.

We were setting up for the baby shower, but baby Will and Lilly were getting fussy, so Aunt Amanda tried to take on both of them at once with the help of Melissa's baby sling. She was doing fine until Will got hungry and gave her a hickey on her arm!

It's been a very reproductive year for the Izatt family - Melissa and Kevin welcomed Lilly on January 20th, Chuck and I had Will on March 26th, and Lee and Aleesha are due July 26th. Melissa, Amanda, Terri and I took advantage of all being together in Elko to host a baby shower for Aleesha, and we had lots of fun! Aleesha's such a doll, I'm glad she and I married brothers!

All the sisters! I kinda stand out with my non-reddish hued shirt and my non-flip-flop foot apparel, eh? But aren't we cute?
Happy, giggly girls!