Happy 4th of July!

Today I feel blessed to live in a country that I love that allows us to have so many freedoms others do not enjoy.  It may be cool (73 degrees in JULY!) and rainy outside, but we are choosing to enjoy our day with friends and focus on what really matters today...celebrating our awesome country!  We had a lazy day until late this afternoon when some friends came over for a shrimp boil.  We had homemade peach ice cream, shrimp boil, and beer from America's oldest brewery while the kids had hot dogs and brownies.  Doesn't get much more American than that!

This afternoon I had a lot of help making my ice cream!  Nicholas was fascinated by the ice cream maker and loved helping!

 Michael outdid himself again on the awesome boil!  Best Summer meal we have!

As always, Nicholas and Tate had a great time playing together and it was fun seeing our good friends!

I say this a LOT, but we LOVE our neighborhood (we love it so much we plan to build another house here when the new phase begins in a couple of years!) and tonight was one of the fun reason why!  Every year we have a firework show that last about 20 minutes of professional fireworks. It is awesome!  No need to travel and deal with traffic when this is just down the street!  We went to our friends Scott and Jane's house and watched.  We brought our canopy and it was perfect!

 Nicholas got some popcorn and was so excited for the show to begin...

 Until it started and he wasn't sure about the loud noise!  He ended up watching from my lap, which was fine with me!

Nicholas got to have his first sparkler tonight and he did LOVE that!

Here are pictures of Nicholas celebrating the 4th of July, starting with his 1st one which was the day he came home from the hospital.  I love looking at how much he has changed and grown!

Hope everyone had a safe and fun day!  We are now in 100% pirate party mode!  It is Saturday afternoon, but I am in a slight panic as this is the forecast.  Looks like we may be moving our water party inside!