****The 4th of JULY****

Aaron and I had a very special fourth of July celebration with my family. The only down side was that Todd, Ariel and Megan weren't with us. A few days before the fourth...my dad said that maybe we should go see the big firework show in Logan. I know he was remembering the fun times we had many years ago at the USU stadium. I told my mom what he had said. Obviously my dad is very weak right now and thinking about driving him to Logan and getting him into a large stadium was out of the question. My mom suggested that we go up to the golf course in North Salt Lake, we had done that in previous years. He said he wanted to go. Early in the day my mom drove a car to the golf course and parked it on the street next to where we would sit, so my dad wouldn't have to walk very far after the show. She found an area that had the smallest hill to climb and was as flat as possible. She put blankets out to save our space, which can only be done in Utah.

A lot of the family came over to my parents and we had dinner together. Jon was in charge of the firework show out front. The kids loved that. Stephen provided an endless supply of pop-its, the kids were very excited about that. We had a great time visiting and being together. My dad got a new fire bowl for the back yard recently and it came with an extra bowl for drinks. He wanted us to take that up with us and fill it with ice so people could have cold drinks.

It was a big effort to get my dad to the firework show. It has been almost three weeks since he has eaten any food. He was very sick and very weak. We had to take camp cushions and lots of blankets to make a bed for him to lay down on. My brothers got him out of the car and carefully got him to where we would sit. They helped him lay down onto the bed my mom had made. We covered him with blankets. The kids had fun eating treats and playing with their glow necklaces while we waited for the show to start.

The show was a spectacular one. We lay on our backs with giant fireworks exploding right over our heads. It was beautiful. Lily thought she might even be able to catch a few of them. My dad seemed like he was sleeping through most of it, but I know he was grateful to be there. When the show was over we gathered up all of our things and my brothers carefully lifted my dad up off the ground and helped him back to the car. Before the rest of us headed to our cars, which were parked a distance away, we hugged each other and shed some tears...we knew it would be the last firework show he would ever see.