What a Marvelous day!

"o'er the land of the FREE and the home of the BRAVE!"

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Happy 4th of July Memories!!





We started the day being LA-Zee! We just took it easy for the morning and after lunch, we mozied on out to the pool!


I snapped this picture of myself before getting wet, because I figured it would be the only one I would end up being in!


The neighbors came over and jumped in the pool, too! Everything was going GREAT, until Ike looked over and noticed the big "wall" cloud coming over the horizon. Amazingly, within like 20 minutes....the cloud grew, our beautiful sunny day changed and the city tornado sirens were going off. Everyone jumped out of the pool and ran it as fast as we could! Can you believe that?!

Sure enough a tornado touched down about 15 miles from our house. And even more scary, there was a tornado that formed (and Ike's station got it on camera) about 5 blocks from our house! (it did not reach the ground...the funnel formed and then went back into the sky.)


Then, it rained off and on for the next 3 hours or so! Talk about a damper on the day!!!!




When the rain began clearing around 5:30....we started getting all the stuff over to the neighbors for our cookout!



<-------- This is Cary....he's excited about this firework!

I had to get a pic of it when I saw the missles said....

TNT!!!!


Hilarious!!!!

Of course, this is Big Daddy.....with one of his 9 million bricks of firecrackers he loves so much!! (Why does this holiday make grown men act like a bunch of children?????)

----->
Too many of these...

<----- Make the princess do this! Poor baby hated it!

I failed to get a pic of the food spread Kelly and I put out, but I can tell you it was good! (and I behaved myself, until this----->)

This concoction is Kelly's homemade ice cream which is FANTASTIC!!!! It's seriously delicious!!!! So, anyway, during the cookout, I measured everything and brought my own "lowfat" chips and my own whole wheat bun for my turkey burger that Kelly measured out for me. I did realllly well.
But then, I had the 1/2 cup of 7-points worth of homemade ice cream with the "measured" 1-point worth of fresh strawberries and blueberries. But, ultimately, I could not resist. And eventually, I had a second 1/2 cup of Kelly's fabulous ice cream. (this time without any delicious berries!)
THANK GOD FOR FLEX POINTS~

I really enjoyed watching the children play and enjoy the day!

This is me and my friend Kelly....she's fabulous! I'm really glad she's my neighbor and I'm even more glad she's my friend!!!

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Logan.....dancing around in
"smoke bomb" smoke!

<---- Happy Birthday, America!!! From an American Princess!!!

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Look at this American guy and the beautiful sky in the background....eventually, the sun did come back out and then we were treated to these fantastic colors as the sun went down!

<----- A true American CUTIE!!

And finally, the fireworks.....turns out I have no idea how to take pics w/ my new camera of fireworks.....

So, this was all experimentation....coulda been better, but could been much, much worse!!!

Hope your day was *fantastic*!!!!