"Oh Say can you see by the Dawns early light"

This fourth of July was pretty dang amazing! I had the chance to fly up to Portland and spend it with Thomas and his family! And if you were defining a vacation as relaxing then I would say this was not a vacation. But if you define it as adventurous, awesome, amazing and fun than this definitely would be called a vacation!

Wednesday I flew in and got to chat with one of my favorite girls Annie! Loved getting to see her! We picked up Thomas' old roommate Ian and his girl Jenni and were off to Thomas' house for the party! After a mean round of miniature golf and buying a few more fireworks (I learned, you can never have too many fireworks!) the barbeque had started and then the fireworks! I have never set off fireworks myself but I think it was more amazing then seeing them at a show! His entire street was setting off the fireworks! It was amazing!

Jenni teaching Ian all her golfing skills

My hard hits!

Ice cream after! Anything better than that? I think not!

Watching the fireworks

Setting off fireworks

Sparklers

The fireworks!

Hanging out on the tramp at the BBQ

Thursday, Thomas and I woke up an insane hour of 5:00 am to go get doughnuts! There is this place that is called VooDoo doughnuts and from what I had heard, I had to get some! So, in order to avoid the lines, we woke up early and headed into the city to get ourselves some delicious doughnuts! They were pretty good and creative. After, we headed out for some white water rafting!!! Another first for me! We went about 13 miles and hit about 6 big rapids! It was so much fun!

Five in the morning with our doughnuts!

Before rafting!

Being "candid"

He is a cutie!!

Thomas' family excited for rafting

We survived!

Friday, we got up even earlier at 4:30 AM!! Ahh! And we headed up to St. Helens to conquer that Volcano. Quite the amazing adventure! The trail was pretty much straight up the mountain, we went up snow and rocks! And the way down, we pretty much sledded down the entire mountain on our bottoms!

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Shadow shot of trekking through the snow

We made it!!!!

The whole group at the top! It was freezing up there!

Saturday was a nice and relaxing day just hanging out with the family and taking pictures and early Sunday morning I was heading back to Provo. Short trip but so worth it! The latest I slept in on this vacation was about 6:30. But that was okay with me! Happy Fourth of July to everyone! I hope it was a great day for you all just as it was for me!