Fireworks & Thunderstorms

I absolutely love Independence Day & all the patriotism that the holiday brings out in others. Wednesday I was able to get my Activity Day girls together & discuss with them how blessed we are to live in such an amazing country and how grateful we should be for the rights and freedoms we have been granted & our responsibility as citizens to help uphold those rights justly. ...then we played patriotic hangman because 8 to 12 year old girls can only focus on things that deep for a limited amount of time.

Our 4th of July kicked off very early with Kellan getting up at 6 am to run off to the Parade to go fundraising with his Boy Scouts. The heat was sweltering but there was a huge turnout & the floats were beautiful...or so I've been told. We had stayed up extremely late the last few nights & I unfortunately missed most of the parade by sleeping in. I felt pretty awful about it because I'd been so excited to go but getting that extra bit of sleep was super helpful.

I tried to makeup missing the parade with a fantastic dinner & went back to my Southern roots for an All American feast. We fixed up some fried chicken in Kellan's beloved cast iron skillet (he says he feels like Flynn Rider when he uses it), baked beans & I wanted to make broccoli with cheese sauce but Kellan said it was getting late & we already had too much food. Party pooper.

I felt like Minny from The Help, frying up chicken; only it was definitely not as easy as she made it look in the movie. Oil got everywhere & it took forever. The end result was yummy & looked nice, but it was no KFC folks.

The only thing I was thoroughly pleased with was the Peach Cobbler. Just making it is summer-time perfection. It makes the whole house smell so yummy I could just die. Topped with old fashioned vanilla ice cream & it just doesn't get any better than that. 

We ended the day watching the Fireworks set off from the Stadium of Fire from the comfort of our own home & popped in Armageddon to top of our patriotic day. Nothing says Independence Day like watching Bruce Willis save the world. 

Friday was rough because we still had work but the day was saved by the arrival of our new coasters I had been waiting for!

Talk about an upgrade! The top sad coasters were ones we'd picked up from Home Depot right after we got married because we needed something, anything, to keep our coffee table from getting rings on it. I absolutely love these new ones, but I still find myself using our old ones because I can't bear to cover up the cute design. 

Friday also brought wonderful thunderstorms to the valley. Kellan & I both felt reminded of the South & the beautiful summer storms so common there. We're counting down the days until we head out to Florida! 

& speaking of countdowns, the clock is almost up for our trip to Lake Tahoe for Kellan's family reunion!

THREE.MORE.DAYS!!  

We are beyond excited to see everyone & can't wait!