Our 4th of July weekend is over but what fun we had!

I love this country and the flag that represents it. We proudly post our colors at our front door and so do our children. I love driving along and seeing our flag flying. I can hardly get though 1 verse of God Bless America, You're a Grand Old Flag, or our Star Spangled Banner without getting choked up with tears of gratitude for our wonderful country.
It touches my heart as I drive around and see our Stars and Stripes dotting our country side.

Here is my 6 year old Claire Bear singing You're a Grand Old Flag for you. She is doing it without her music but I think you will enjoy it anyway.

E.J. who is 8 just started taking piano lessons. He did not want to be left out of this holiday blog.
Here he is playing Yankee Doodle Dandy for your listening enjoyment.



Our 4th of July weekend started out early at church where we attended an inspirational program and flag ceremony and then had a great pancake breakfast.

Later we all enjoyed a dip in the pool.... Mindy's kids even got Grampy to go in.... which is a rare event.

I won't spoil your day by showing the pictures of me and the kids in the pool (take my word... you wouldn't want to see that sight) but I think these are cute of Austin and Grampy..... Do you get a hint that Grampy doesn't like to be in the sun?

We had a b-b-q chicken lunch with corn on the cob and all the fixings.

Claire made and decorated this cute cake. To get the kids out of the pool we bribed them with dessert....... cake and 'smores'

Our pool and firepit are so happy when family or friends come to use them. ... So where are the rest of you??? .... Come on over!

Austin took his marshmallows roasting very seriously. His favorite treat of the day was definitely 'smores'

That evening we all went to an Angel's baseball game. E.J. was really excited since he had been a little league Angel this year. When we asked him if he thought he should go down and play with the team he answered "Yeah, probably". Luckily they won without him. We are very thankful to have Mindy and Ernie live close so we can often enjoy spending time with them .

We were excited to cheer for our Angels. (Please don't hold that against us Blue Jay fans.)

Baseball..... Hot Dogs ..... and Apple Pie.... what could be more American than that???

Wait a minute where is the apple pie????? ... Actually John brought in beautiful apples off of our trees but I didn't have time to get the pies made. .. too bad.

We all enjoyed the fireworks show at the end of the game.

Our favorite part of the fireworks was when they played Stars and Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa. I put this video in so you can enjoy a little of it.

That ended our wonderful 4th of July. The only thing we lacked was our sweet out of state kids and their families. We surely miss them, but we are sure that they were having a great day of their own.

This is how the parking lot and streets looked as we were leaving Angel's stadium.

To kill time we tried to convince the tired kids that the sea of red tail lights of the other 44,000+ spectators leaving the stadium was a part of the show.....They were on to us .... it didn't work.

I hope that all of you had a wonderful and save 4th of July weekend.

This coming week John and I will be celebrating our 43rd anniversary so I won't be doing much blogging for a couple of days. ...... and..... my Wednesday Awards may not get posted until late Wednesday or early Thursday. Somehow, I don't think my sweet hubby would be too pleased if I spent our anniversary celebration at the computer blogging....do you? So, I'll be back soon. Take care.