Independence Day

Our Fourth of July didn't quite go as planned, but life is like that sometimes. :)

Kaylee went to a Stants family reunion with her grandpa and aunt and cousins, and had a good time. She got temporary tattoos on her arms, played games, lost a pie eating contest, and spent the day with even more extended family. She now really understands that her family is not really all that small after all. :)

We spent the evening sitting and talking and eating and enjoying company, and when it got dark we took our camping chairs and set them in the middle of the driveway. Some of us were facing north, some facing south, and we sat there and talked and watched the fireworks that were coming from all directions. The kids played, and the rest of us just sat there and chatted. It was a busy 4th this year for local fireworks, and they were going off all over the place! Next door, across the street, behind our house, all up and down the block, plus the bigger displays you could see off in the distance. It was a perfect, cool evening for it, and it made for a nice backdrop...the pop and sizzle and boom and whir and talking and laughing. Finally around 11 something p.m., Kaylee crawled in my lap and said "I want to go to bed now, Mommy." Words I've probably heard come out of her mouth maybe three times in her life so far. ;)

Well, appropriately enough, these are the quotes for my inbox today. Enjoy, and I hope you all had a wonderful, fun, blessed 4th of July...

"Freedom is the right to be wrong; not the right to do wrong."
~John G. Diefenbaker

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
~The Declaration of Independence

"The arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance, employ for the preservation of our liberties being with one mind resolved to die free rather than live slaves."
~Thomas Jefferson

"Whatever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will be America’s heart, her benedictions and her prayers."
~John Quincy Adams

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."
~Thomas Paine