a sweet 4th

We had such a sweet 4th today! I'm so thankful for our nation, our freedoms, and our sovereign God who is leading our country. We celebrated in style, starting first with an early-morning, soaking-wet parade (hah! for real, it rained like crazy!) and then an old-fashioned cookout with family and friends. Everyone, I believe, then napped during the late afternoon and then we did the poppers and sparklers during the evening. So sweet!!

Something that's a bit strange to me is that fireworks are legal here in GA (they never were in ohio!), so lots of neighbors are shooting off lots of fireworks this evening. It was so exciting to me that I woke Jasper up and took him out to the backyard to watch them with me! I think I had more fun than he, but I can't blame him since I woke him from a dead sleep. hah! Anyway, it was a wonderful 4th!

Also, in random other news, Jasper told his very first, real-live joke today; Dad Meade got the honors of being the recipient of it. I feel like I'm entering a whole new stage of life... the stage of endless knock-knock jokes... here we go. ;)

preparing to leave for the parade...  

staking out our spots 

look at this poor car's sign. it was sweetly pathetic, falling off due to wetness. 

mom was such a troopper! (I think she may be trying to seek shelter from the rain amidst the pine trees) 

The poor parade folks, they were such troopers! 

J got LOTS of candy! There were very few ppl to throw to along the parade route, so I think he got thrown extra candy! 

I was bag lady  

Brody did great! He was totally enthralled with the parade, plus we kept feeding him endless candy, so I'm sure that helped, too.

Our sweet family pic. :o)