Celebrating Indpendence Day!

Happy Independence Day!

Do you like my fireworks? :o) Significantly cheaper than the real ones! :o)

We celebrated Independence Day with a picnic with our friends, the R'ses. They have six children ranging from five years old to sixteen, so they're definitely a busy family! :o) We all had a great time though! :o)

One really special blessing was this package of plates--I needed twelve plates and I had this package plus one left from the previous weekend. (We had extra people at the MFK party, or I would have had enough for the picnic.) Anyway, as I was opening the package, I prayed and asked the Lord to put eleven plates in it for me . . . and He did!! I counted them three times!!! I was astounded and humbled! He cares about the smallest of details! What a blessing! :o)

It's nice to have room for everybody to roam! :o)

Hannah and Faith-Ann (their youngest) swam a bit before dinner.

After dinner, we all played "Corn Toss." It's a great game for kids! It's kind of along the idea of horseshoes, except that you play with bean bags (think safe!) and you're aiming to land your bean bag in the hole or on the board. It's great fun! :o)

The boys (8-1/2 & 10) definitely got into it! :o)

Dakota sunk the first bean bag in the hole. He wasn't excited or anything was he??? :o)

The little girls played inside for a while then came out to watch, too. :o)

It's nice having so many extra hands! :o)

Hannah was so excited about having Faith-Ann come over. :o)

And Peter appears to think that catching fireflies followed by homemade icecream and brownies make quite a satisfactory end to the evening. :o)

Praise the Lord for our freedom! We're saddened though to see so many of those freedoms being swiftly taken away. Stay alert--be aware of what's going on, pray, and do what you can to protect those freedoms that still remain!