4th of July

The Fourth of July is an important holiday for our country. First and foremost its a holiday to celebrate the freedoms that we all have. We have these freedoms because of so many strong and courageous men and women from our past and present. These men and women have made the unselfish choice to join the armed forces to protect us and the freedoms we all enjoy everyday. It is safe to say they, along with their families, have all made sacrifices to do this for every one of us. I am thankful to and have great respect for all of them. I am proud to say that two of those strong and courageous men are my uncles, Bob and Mike along with Mike's wife Debbie and their six kids. My Uncle Mike is over halfway through his one year assignment in Kabul, Afghanistan. We think about and pray for him and his family every day and will all rest much easier once he is home for good at the end of the year.

We started our Fourth of July by going to church and aftarwards headed up to North Branch to spend the day with my dad. It was a nice relaxing day spent eating and visiting. Rowen and Papa played a couple of games of darts and possibly broke a couple of Mike's darts (Sorry Tio!)

We stayed for the North Branch fireworks. We got our camping chairs out and sat in dad's driveway to watch them but then me, being the impatient person that I am, thought they had already started them but we could not see them so I suggested we drive over to the schools and watch from there. Dad knew otherwise but I did not want Rowen to be dissapointed if we were in fact missing them so Angel, Rowen and I got in the car and parked in the elementary school parking lot. As the fireworks were starting Rowen said "Wow, Papa shoulda come!" We had a great view and he loved the fireworks. He actually sat through the whole show! Of course when we got back to dad's he confirmed for us that he could see the whole show just fine from his front sidewalk. Oh well, next year we will stay and watch from Papa's house.