What did you do on the 4th of July?

Happy 4th of July!! Here in New Mexico, Jennifer and I celebrated Independence Day by enjoying a cook-out at Casa de Campo with 18 other friends and family. Terry, Tricia and her entire family, (minus Jordan who is at BYU) are here, plus we were joined by three couples who live in the canyon and some friends of the Cox's who used to live behind them in Auburndale. As usual, we have been cooking for two days and the meal was consumed in twenty minutes--but we have yummy left-overs to enjoy for several days to come! Mommer's neighbors were impressed by the 'spread' and asked if she had to prepared it all--"No, my daughters did all the work!"

Aunt Terry worked her magic at setting the 'atmosphere' for the holiday by gathering some wildflowers and unusual items around the house to decorate with. I made the watermelon bowl for the fruit salad--it was supposed to have stars and stripes on the side, but it was hard to tell.


In addition to the main dishes of hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled chicken breast and grilled pork tenderloin we had three cold salads, Popper's baked beans, green beans, deviled eggs, the fruit salad, chips, and three kinds of dessert!

After the teenagers got finished eating, they were anxious to ride the ATVs, so off they went down the mountain. They hadn't been gone 10 minutes when it started to rain--then if poured!! I kept expecting those kids to come back right away, but they kept riding up and down until the sun came out again and they were done with their fun! They didn't get as muddy as I have seen some of you kids get in the past, but Chris still made them wash off with the hose before they could come inside. Jennifer doesn't like riding the four-wheelers any more (too many bad experiences), so she didn't get soaked like the rest of the kids.

Uncle Chris had talked about driving over to Taos to take their friends to see the gorge and then find someplace to watch fireworks, but none of the kids cared about seeing fireworks and it was getting too late to have good light for seeing the gorge, so that has been postponed until tomorrow. Instead, they talked Popper into setting up the zipline! Jennifer went down twice--once videoing the 'trip' with her own camera; our efforts to download said video may or may not be successful, so if we have to make another installment in another blog, she will.

Anyway, that has been our Fourth of July celebration here at Montoya's Casa de Campo! We hope you had enjoyable holiday, wherever you may be.

XOXO
Mom