4th of July 2009

One of the nice things about living in Colorado is that we're only about three and a half hours from Jay's family in Colby, KS. Our nephew Jason turned two in March and he grew up in our absence and we are just now getting to know him. It's hard to be far away and have missed so much of his development. We decided to spend our first holiday here with the family. We drove out on the 4th and spent the later part of the afternoon on into the evening at Jay's mom's house. Jay grilled some burgers and Mom's dear friend Marvena came to join our family and Jay's brother Eric and his wife Mindy and Jason. On the way to Colby, we stopped and purchased an absolutely insane amount of fireworks, only to find that Marvena had done the same. We must have shot off fireworks for about 5 hours. The kids had an absolute blast and (thankfully) no one was hurt! At about 10:00, we went into the front yard and could see the big fireworks from the fairgrounds. It was a spectacular show!

I just love the 4th of July. I am so blessed to live in this wonderful country where so many men and women have made tremendous sacrafices so that I can live in freedom and not a day goes by that I'm not reminded of just how precious my freedom is.

Jason's first experience with sparklers. He had a healthy fear of them.

Marvena liked setting off combinations of smoke bombs to make pretty colors.

Eric setting off some smoke bombs. They were Jason's favorite

Nicole, Kendall and Jay playing with fire.

This one is going to make lots of noise!

I love watching my man cook, even if it only happens outside over an open flame.

Vroom! Vroom!