Red, White and Blue

Happy 4th of July!  Ours was certainly happy.  We got the majority of our celebrating done last weekend in Granbury, Texas where we spent the weekend with Geoff's family.  Our celebrating involved going to the Granbury parade, neighbor's bbq party with swimming in their pool, watching fireworks and lots of play with cousins.

The weather was HOT for the parade, but that's to be expected for this time of year.  Fortunately, we found a spot in the shade that provided a little relief.  It's been a long time since I've been to a local holiday parade and it had a lot of charm to it.  All the local politicians came out and waved from old corvettes or antique cars.  The local high school band was there along with random local businesses passing out candy or flyers.  I don't think they had any qualifier of who could or couldn't participate.  It seemed like if you wanted to participate in the parade, no problem!  And I'm quite certain that every fire truck in the city of Granbury was in the parade.  We saw so many!

The Chick-fil-a "float" might have been our favorite and elicited some "moooo's" from Olivia.

The poor girl that had to wear this chicken costume.  I was sweating standing still in the shade in my shorts and tank top.  I'm sure the inside of that thing had to be soaked.

The baby cousins (Julie & Olivia) are finally getting old enough to play together and play along with Avalon.  Mainly the babies just followed Avalon around and did whatever she did which was cute to watch. 

So sweet - the cousins getting huggy with each other.  

We celebrated July 4th back in Houston.  We spent the morning at a blueberry farm north of Houston picking buckets of blueberries.  Olivia did not do any blueberry picking but she did plenty of blueberry eating!  They said that whatever blueberries you eat while picking are free.  However, I kinda felt like we were robbing the farm considering how many blueberries she ate.  For a while there, our picking couldn't keep up with her eating.  What hit the bucket quickly got scooped up and shoved into her mouth.  No pictures to share, but it was really fun and definitely someplace we will go back to next year when it's blueberry season again.

I've spent the last couple days thinking about what freedom means and the independence that our country is blessed with.  Our constitution sums it up:  "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".  So much has been sacrificed for us to have these Rights.  My hope though is knowing that our ultimate Freedom comes from Christ through the sacrifice that He made for us.  

Romans 6:17-18 - But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. 

Romans 8:2 - Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.