Indepence Day!

The older I get, the more I realize I love the 4th of July. Fireworks and all of that were certainly exciting as a kid, but now as an adult, I love that we get to celebrate these amazing values and ideals--like patriotism, freedom, independence, loyalty, heroism, etc.-- that seem to be getting lost in our society somewhere along the way. We live in such an amazing country with such a significant history, with its fight for freedom and democracy, and our country has a divine destiny we're all a part of. God Bless America!

Now back to fireworks. That's all the kids cared about for days and days leading up to the 4th anyway. We stopped one night at a Black Cat stand and dropped some serious cash on our pyrotechnics show.

Tuesday morning we were up bright and early for our ward's pancake breakfast activity. It was at a nice little park right by our house, and the kids were so excited to see all of their church friends.

I love this little face! And she was loving her pancake!

A family in our ward participates in a Rodeo Drill Team, so they brought their team and their horses and flags and costumes and did a choreographed show to "God Bless the USA" and "Stars and Stripes Forever." It was actually so cool! The kids totally got a kick out of seeing those horses "dance."

Afterwards the riders were so nice and took all of the kids on a horseback ride.  

Zach-O my little cowboy! Looks like he's hanging on for dear life!

Miss Leah was so brave and tried the horsey out too.

Lizzie was not about to be left out, so Lucy offered to take her on her own ride. She is such a brave little baby and usually game for anything!

Next they had a bike parade for the primary kids to participate in.

Go Lucy on your scooter! Woohoo! I'm just glad nobody got trampled.

That afternoon we went swimming at the HOA pool to cool off. Later that evening we had a BBQ with some of our neighbors, and we grilled brats and burgers, had chips, watermelon, salads, red and blue jello, and sugar cookies and cheesecake for dessert. It was a 4th of July feast. 

We are so lucky to live in a neighborhood FULL of kids! There are probably at least 30 kids living just on our street/cul de sac, and in the evenings most are out riding bikes or playing games. We just had some new neighbors move in across the street, and their daughter Evelyn is only 3 months older than Leah and they have become fast BFFs. 

This is Leah's first real "friend"-- where she just talks about Evelyn all the time, and they can play for hours. They are really cute together, and it makes it hard to think about moving and leaving this awesome neighborhood someday!

Last but not least we celebrated our independence by lighting fireworks. There was a police-mandated fireworks ban for all of Douglas County because it has been such a dry spring and summer, but of course approximately nobody obeyed it, and us and the rest of Parker lit the fireworks anyway. We actually had a Parker policeman and a Parker fireman (both our neighbors) there watching our fireworks display, so we weren't too worried about it, ha ha.  What's the 4th without some fireworks, anyway?

Happy July 4th, 2017!

Cute kids bundled up to catch the last of the fireworks. We had some neighbors lighting mortars and roman candles and all kinds of crazy illegal fireworks, so compared to our fountains and sparklers, it was pretty exciting. We had such a fun day celebrating the US of A!