Our Fourth of July...

This Fourth of July was bittersweet, it was happy, but sad...let's start at the beginning...

  On last Friday evening (I think it was) we had a storm come through and it ended up also leaving West Virginia with a lot of people out of power (as well as some people in our county and state). Saturday my husband had to work due to power outages in the area. Then, Sunday he left for out of state, he traveled to West Virginia to work storm damage to help with power restoration. We were so hoping he would be back in time for the holiday, as well as our planned vacation for this upcoming week. I already have the upcoming week planned for vacation and scheduled off from work and I can't change it once its scheduled so I have to go ahead and take it as scheduled. Well...unfortunately my husband was not back in time for the 4th...so I became determined to share our family's Fourth of July with him anyhow...we both have cellphones and the ability to text, so why not text him pictures of our day throughout the day and share with him what our kids were doing during the day right?!?
Anyhow, I decided as of the evening of July 3rd I was going to go and get my Mom so that she could celebrate the 4th of July with the kids and I. She stayed the nights of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th with us and we had a great time with her here (from going out and having lunch and shopping to playing games such as cards and, yes, even the 4th of July was fun, even though I wish my husband could have joined us).

Okay, the Fourth of July consisted of...

My breakfast: Apple Butter toast, from a local Amish store, I really like Apple Butter, and I really like a lot of the Amish food, but I was surprisingly not really that crazy about this Apple Butter.


   Later in the Day...around Noon: We met up with one of my friends and had a cook out. There was a shed at this park and Troy just loved playing in the creek!! I also played this game, (I think) its called Corn Hole, and it was fun, but I wasn't the greatest at it. There was lots of tasty food as well!! Hot dogs, potato salad, and more.  Might I say, the green beans were so yummy!!

  We also had to have watermelon...Mom kept making the comment throughout the day of how she wanted us to pick up a watermelon and us have it for a treat...so...


  Then...later in the evening for dinner: Pizza at a nearby pizza restaurant.

And....after it got dark: ....Fireworks!

  Random Photos throughout the day...some are posted below as well as included above as described as well and some are included in the Members Area (the banner the kids made for their dad telling him "Happy Fourth" and since he was not able to be with us on the 4th I took a picture of it and texted it to him, I painted my toe nails this cute color, Breann fixed her hair all festive like with the ribbon for the 4th, Breann made me this cute banner that says "Happy 4th, Happy Birthday" because my birthday is shortly after the 4th, Troy with his glow in the dark necklace, Breann with her face painting, family snapshots of me, Mom, and the kids):

     My husband (which absolutley brought me to tears) was at a laundromat during the night on the Fourth of July washing his clothes, out of state (in West Virginia), and watching the fireworks from the laundromat, as he got ready to help with power restoration the next day. He works so hard...I thought he deserved the evening to be able to enjoy the fireworks, after it was dark...it made me so sad, and even more so that he was not here to spend the 4th with us.
I am happy to say, however, my husband is back in our home area!  While he is still working storm damage, power outages have increased in number in our area (although we are blessed at this time to still have power and it is a bummer that some do not have power), so they called my husband to return to our home area to finish the power restoration efforts and then hopefully he will be able to enjoy some of the upcoming week's vacation with us.

More Photos are in the Members Area!