Easy listening from the 1980s

I'm sure many of you are familiar with Toto, and you've probably seen the video posted below. It starts of soft, quiet, and rather mundane, but wait for the thunder.

Enjoy "Africa"

Bastille Day

So I thought I should add a little addendum to Chase's post for Bastille Day on Tuesday. To celebrate, we decided to eat French food all day long. It was so tasty! For lunch, Chase made crepes and we ate them with fresh fruit and whipped cream. It was nice on a hot day. Then for dinner, Chase made a steak recipe that was simply divine. Let me just say that involved garlic, shallots, butter and cream. Need I say more? We just had green beans to go with the steak which was my contribution to the meal. Then to top it all off, Chase had made cream puffs. Tuesday was such a delicious day. Can we move to France?

Joyeux Quatorze Juillet

In honor of Bastille Day, I thought I would post the words to the french national anthem in both French and English. Some call it violent and xenophobic, but I enjoy it. The English isn't perfect, but lets me honest, the song was written in the 18th century, and 18th century french can be hard to translate.

La Marseillaise

Thoughts from Henry David Thoreau

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

“In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.”

“Men are born to succeed, not fail.”

Happy Independence Day!

Today I went to the Freedom Festival here in Provo. It's just this fair they put on with carnival food, a few rides and tons of local vendors. It's not amazing but I just love going for some strange reason. The festival also has a stage where local artists perform so I sat down to listen to the concert. And of course, one of the songs the guy sang was "God Bless The USA". Most of you will remember that song because it was constantly played after 9-11.

Anyway, I was thinking about when Chase and I were in DC last summer for the 4th of July. I don't think there is a more amazing place to be than our nation's capital. We were even fortunate enough to go to the concert on the Capital lawn and to see the fireworks over the Washington Monument. There was just something incredible about celebrating independence day so close to many of the monuments that are dedicated to the people who protected our freedom.

And I have to mention that we also visited Valley Forge and Philadelphia last year which was even more representative of the people that fought for our independence from Britain. I know I'm a little overly patriotic but I am grateful that I live in America and that I have the freedoms that I do. Plus I love having a reason to shoot off fireworks every year and to have a big parade and listen to Sousa marches and dress in nothing but red white and blue. I just love it all! Here are some pictures from last year's festivities:



This is Independence Hall in Philadelphia where the Declaration of Independence was signed. I thought I should include it too.





This was my favorite float in the parade. It's a replica of raising the flag at Iwo Jima.