I had a glorious Independence Day extended family weekend! I celebrated Independence Day all week actually. Here’s what I did plus some patriotic videos.

I had to miss the annual Patriotic Devotional that’s held in BYU’s Marriott Center every year, because of my commitment to serve a shift a my local FamilySearch center. This was two Sundays ago, on June 29th, 2025. I was so bummed because Dr. Hank Smith was the main speaker. Two of my sons went to it though and shared what he said.

Here’s a video of one from a previous year, below. Anyway, for this year, my youngest son said he saw Charles Mully sitting there on the front row in his cowboy hat. He came to Provo UT to receive a Freedom Award from America’s Freedom Festival in Provo. I blogged about Mr. Mully in the posts listed over here. His story is so incredible and inspiring! What a true hero with such a generous father heart! I’d love to meet him and his wife some day.

I love what Tad Callister has to say below about the role of religion in maintaining a free people. (More from Brother Tad here.)

On Tuesday I decorated my front room. I discovered how I can decorate with my American patriotic picture and chapter books, and not have them in the way. See over here! So fun!

Wednesday night I babysat my grandsons and read aloud to them this book below. My daughter is taking a childbirth class with her husband in preparation for the birth of Grandbaby #4. So I get to babysit every Wednesday night. (It almost seems like yesterday when my mom babysat my oldest for DH and me when we attended our Bradley childbirth class when I was pregnant with the same daughter. Almost.)

They are 4 and 6 years old so I condensed some of the words. After it was over, the oldest one said, “That was a fun book!” That just warmed my homeschooling mom/book-loving heart. I showed them pictures on my phone of Mt. Vernon, Washington’s home (mentioned in the book), from my “National Treasure” tour 6 years ago.

On Thursday I met up with my sister, Emily, and her family, visiting from Maine, at BYU. We got to tour BYU with each of our sons. This is probably our third tour of BYU together. Maybe our boys will end up being roommates at BYU in just over two years. Our first tour together was 8 years ago, over here.

Then I went to the parade for the Freedom Festival on Friday Independence Day. I helped pass out flyers educating about the dangers of having an Article V Constitutional Convention. At the parade, I saw some young men decked out in patriotic garb. I loved seeing the cape with the Ten Commandments.

As this screenshot from the video above shows, happiness, according to secular philosophers and religious authorities, comes from virtue. Following any of the major religions involves cultivating virtue. For Christians, that means following the Ten Commandments.

Here’s the video with a guy from Hillsdale College explaining the Declaration of Independence.

More shots of the parade below.

I just love it when people dress up in red, white, and blues, as shown above and below.

After the parade, my youngest and I headed up halfway up a mountain to my parents’ cabin, to have a mini-reunion and dinner with extended family, including the sister visiting from Maine. The blue skies were gorgeous! For various reasons, my husband, daughter and college son didn’t come.

It was fun to see my grandsons playing with their second cousins, grandchildren of one of my brothers. It thrilled my board-game loving heart to see them playing Kingdomino, above. Then it thrilled my crunchy mom heart to see them playing outside in the dirt with rocks and leaves. Who needs the shiny plastic toys inside, after tiring of board games?

The whole group of us with so many great-grandchildren (12 out of the 13), including two tiny babies, was loud! It’s been a while since so many of us have been there at once. My brother took a family photo of the whole group with his drone, above.

We had a grand time visiting and eating. It’s so wonderful to have times when we can hang out together. The sunset that night was so beautiful, as seen from the front balcony of the cabin.

Emily and I played the Jane Game that night. She won! I am a bit rusty on my knowledge of the Jane books. I still thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s elegant and fun.

Some of us went home that night, then others of us spent the night at the cabin and went home the next day after packing and cleaning. I stopped off at a thrift store on the way home (of course, after all, it was on the way, and I’m looking for jeans for my husband) and found the following goodies, but alas, no jeans. I had just been telling my sister and married daughter at the cabin that I was on the lookout for Anne of the Island, which is #3 in the Anne of Green Gables series. My sister said maybe she had it. My daughter said she remembers it missing when she was a teen, reading through my set. Guess what? I found it! The same edition, with the swooping 1980s font of the title!

I also found another beautiful Christmas picture book, telling the story of luminarias used for Christmas. I was thrilled to find those, plus Bowling Alone and Religions of the World by Spencer Palmer and Roger Keller, two BYU professors. They wonderfully explain different religions of the world. You can read it here. Bowling Alone I wished I had had last winter when my college-attending daughter had a research project. That book would have totally helped. I wanted to borrow it from the library but all the copies were out. Now I have it!

After coming home and unpacking, we met up with Emily again and my mom at my parents’ home, to play Gardening Scrabble. I had wanted to play it at the cabin but we ran out of time. My sister became enamored with it as much as I am. (I talked about it here in my post about my favorite thrifted items. Yes I found this game thrifting! Who would give it away?! Blessed me!) The photo below shows how far we got before my BYU-attending son showed up with two of his cousins to visit with us, plus the husband of one of the cousins. We sat outside on the lawn with Grandpa and Grandma to catch up on the lives of these young adults. Then sister Emily brought out sparklers when it got dark. We never did finish the game. Emily agreed we’d play it again the next night after our last extended family dinner together.

The next day my nephew and his wife had their baby blessed at their church. While preparing for the celebration dinner, my oldest who has just moved to Ireland, and his wife, called me to touch base. It was great to hear from him and his wife and find out what it’s like living there. I hope to visit them in the next few years! Then we had another big family dinner at my brother’s place since nephew’s home is small. It almost felt like the old days, when most of us all lived in Utah, and would gather at brother’s home when all the grandchildren were still in the respective nests. It’s so amazing that a new generation, of great-grandchildren, comprises the “little kids” running around, as the grandchildren are now having babies. We topped the evening off with Emily and I playing a new game of GS. This time we also had playing my married daughter and her cousin, another cousin and his wife, both sets as teams, against Emily and me, who weren’t on a team. This game is so fun! With the special seed packet powers, the game is a lot more fun than regular Scrabble. One team scored 84 points in one turn with using only one tile! All because of a special power from a seed packet card. So fun! Then it was time to go home. Sleep felt so good after such a jam-packed family, holiday weekend.

God bless America! Here’s another great patriotic story!