July 4th

Happy Birthday, America!

Last night, the town I live in had their major fireworks display at Lake Mirror. I took these following pictures on my iPhone, and I don't think they're bad for being taken on a phone!

Today, I spent the afternoon at the pool and then headed inside to get to work on some festive 4th of July snacks to take to the party I was going to tonight. These ideas were of course taken from none other than....Pinterest. :)

I bought the ice-cream sandwiches, then added popsicle sticks and sprinkles. (I felt accomplished when I got the LAST container of blue sprinkles at Michael's Crafts on a busy holiday! Ha!)

This was messier than I had anticipated. By the time I got all of the ice-cream sandwiches unwrapped, the ice cream had started melting which made it kind of difficult to slide the popsicle stick in. Then, to try and handle the ice-cream sandwich as I put sprinkles on made it sticky. So, the final product wasn't what I had originally envisioned in my mind being all neat and pretty. Oh well.

American Flag made out of blueberries, watermelon and cheese. I would have liked to have used a white platter, but red was all I could find when I was shopping today.

At 7:00, I headed to my friend Michelle's house for a 4th of July party. We cooked out and hung out! I even played a little Dance Central (I think that's what it's called.) {And I am NOT good at it.}

Michelle lives on a corner lot in a nice neighborhood and on the left side of the house is a huge pasture. It's really beautiful scenery! So we took some pictures with the sunset.

Far-away

Closer-up

Some played cornhole...

In the pasture are some cows and horses. Michelle feeds them carrots. I was amazed that she was courageous enough to feed the cows and horses from her hand. I could NOT handle having their huge, wet, nasty, sticky tongues touch my hand.

...and that's my 4th of July, 2012!

I think the older get, the more I realize what this day really means. I'm truly so thankful to live in America and am so appreciative of the men and women who have fought for, and are currently fighting for, our nation's freedom. Day and night, these selfless people fight for our freedom, out of pure dedication to our country. We have so much to be thankful for. It's awesome that we have a day each year, Independence Day, in which we can celebrate our country and its freedom, and also the men and women who have played, or are playing, a major role. God Bless America!