There’s so much craziness going on with politics and terrorists and judges and state budgets, it’s depressing. Doesn’t make me feel super patriotic, to be honest. And it seems like a lot of people feel that way. But, like anything else, if we’re only focusing on the bad, we’re missing a lot.

We have so much to be thankful for! We have so many freedoms that others in the world do not, and it has been a long rough road to achieve that. Hannah asked what freedom is, and the best way I could come up to explain it was “It means we get to make a lot of choices.”

One of the freedoms we do NOT have in Johnson County is setting off fireworks, so we headed west. On July 3rd, we had a combined celebration of Father’s Day and the 4th of July at my parents’ house. Lots of food, fun, and fireworks.

Our neighborhood puts on an annual bike parade and cookout for the 4th, so on Monday we hung out with our pretty great neighbors. The girls had fun decorating the bike and wagon.

Yes, Violet is wearing a Snow White dress. She wanted to ride her tricycle in the bike parade, but her legs can only go about 2 mph with a max distance of two blocks. Total distance for the day was going to be over a mile. So we convinced her to ride in the wagon by telling her it was like a princess float in the Disney parade. Of course then she insisted on wearing a princess dress. No problem. Independence and all that. (btw, she was not the only one at the event in a princess dress)

We illegally brought smoke bombs and sparklers across county lines for a little bit of driveway fun after an all-American dinner of BBQ chicken, potato salad, and apple pie.

The weather was amazing both days, so we enjoyed the extra time outside in the “coolness” and very few bugs. A wonderful weekend to celebrate family time, fun time, our great country, and our great neighborhood!