Monday, we woke up and made red, white and blue pancakes. Lucy helped and she wanted to make the strawberries and blueberries we put in them look like fireworks, and Cov wanted a BB8 pancake. Lucy was so proud of her creations.
During the day, we lit off a few fireworks that are more fun during the bright hours, like smoke bombs, parachutes and rockets. New friends Ivy & Kenedy came over to help celebrate early. The kids loved running after them to see where they landed! Cov loved his rocket that we shot off. That afternoon, we hung out and relaxed, and colored some fun 4 of July themed pages. Emma helped me make some patriotic dessert, we did rice krispy treats and Emma made this cute flag design on them with Sixlets. We talked to the kids about what this holiday is all about. Emma knew quite a bit, but the other three weren't quite so sure and hopefully learned a few things.
Finally, it was time to go over to Jesse, Holly & family's home for our Independence Day celebration! He is our Branch President and dentist in town and she is the Primary president and great lady. They have been so good to us. We celebrated with them and another family from our branch. We had a great time! We had hamburgers and hot dogs with all the fixings and sides, yummy desserts including truly homemade frozen custard (with farm raised chicken eggs and cow's milk) and watermelon pizza. We sat and talked, the kids jumped on the tramp, and then started doing fireworks. We all joked how the guys never grow out of being a pyro. And they were saying how they were glad we have a new "pyrotechnic pro" in town...Dave! Haha! We lit off some small ones, then started doing some larger ones but it was way to close to all of the tall trees and so we went out to the football field and did the large ones there. They were great! We also had little light-up helicopters that the kids and adults were learning how to fly. We got attacked by mosquitoes though, even after spraying everyone down, which wasn't good with Cov and his recent luck with them. So even though we had a great day, we were glad to get home and cozy into bed. On the way back, we watched the town firework show put on by the Lion's Club. It was pretty good for such a small town!
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| I love Jesse and Holly's house. It is beautiful! |
I'm thankful to live in this free nation, but I wonder sometimes if we haven't come under bondage by our own carelessness, our own pride, our own boasting, our own forgetting values that mater and ultimately forgetting God. I love this quote by Ronald Reagan. It is my prayer that we can all turn to God and our Savior and in that, follow them and find freedom. There is so much uncertainty and turmoil in our world, but by remembering God, we can have peace, even if just in our little corner of the world. And I'm thankful that my corner of the world is in America!
