Freedom Celebrations!

Happy Wednesday, everyone! We've had some {very} unexpected happening this month, so I thought I would share about what's been going on with us lately. First, though, I want to share about our Independence Day and the fun activities we were involved in surrounding that!

July 4th was on a Sunday this year. On July 2nd, my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, and I hosted a fun little party to celebrate that tremendous accomplishment. Jeremy, JT, and Mallory had joined us for that celebration, and left to go back to Tennessee on the morning of Saturday, July 3rd. We spent a nice day at home, and that evening decided to grill food and set off some fireworks. Chris was cracking me up lighting fireworks with a blow-torch, so I shared the photo below to Facebook. 

I'm so glad I shared the photo because my friend, Shana, saw it and commented that we should join them for their fireworks show at their house that evening. She followed her comment up with a text to let me know she was serious. We thought it sounded like fun, so we loaded the kids up and headed over to the Burkholder's house. They had quite a crowd there, and kids had a blast playing with friends and eating watermelon.

Quintessential summertime . . . eating watermelon on a hot July evening before enjoying fireworks!

Shana shared with me that she had sent me an invitation to their gathering on FB, but somehow I missed it. I'm so glad she didn't hold it against us that I never responded to the invite!

Zack and Bren

The show was incredible! Jason did an amazing job!

Daddy and Brooke

Momma and Brecks

The next morning, we went to worship services and had a relaxing afternoon. We had a fun evening planned and wanted to be ready!

All dressed in our red, white, and blue!

Brianna, Brooke, Brecklyn, and Brenson

After evening worship services, many of us stayed at the building to eat desserts and shoot off some fireworks. It's always a good time with our church family!

Hayden, Chloe, Brianna, Caroline, Brecklyn, Brooke, Sadie, Avery, and Brenson

The "big" kids :-)

The "little" kids 💓

Momma and the "middle" kid :-)

We had a few close calls with the small fireworks due to too many kids and too many elderly people trying to handle fire. Chris and I were thankful everyone was safe! It felt like a big accomplishment at that point, lol. 

Brookie

Brecklyn

Caroline

Sadie

Hanging with my girl, Tia

Waiting patiently for the guys to get the big stuff going

Andy, Vance, Doyle, and Dicie

Chris, Bren, Ross, and Russ . . . the ones in charge of the big stuff!

Bri and her sidekick, Caroline

The show was really good, and we all enjoyed it!

We found out the next day that later that night Andy fell and broke his ankle walking into his house. Poor Nelda had quite the time getting him to the ER and getting him help. AND - I'll write a whole post about this - but *spoiler alert* I fell the next morning and broke my ankle. That was definitely unexpected, and even more unexpected to be broken ankle buddies with Andy, lol. I'm glad we had a great weekend because you never know when "life" is going to happen!