Independence Day

On the Sunday before the 4th of July we were singing the Star Spangled Banner in Sacrament meeting. I have sung this song a thousand times in my life time but I have never really payed attention to the words of the last verse. As I was singing it on Sunday and really thought about the words in the third verse I found myself crying. It is beautiful.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

I feel a little sad to think that our founding fathers and those who first fought to obtain the freedoms we now enjoy were God Fearing people and now so many people in this country are not. I am so grateful for the men and women who risk their lives daily to protect our freedoms but I know that it is God who made this country and as the song so beautifully says "Preserved us a nation." I feel like sometimes we get a little prideful and think that it's us, it's our people, it's America, our country that are stronger than the rest of the world, but we nothing with out our God. I hope I never forget that. I love my Heavenly Father and I am so grateful to him for this beautiful land.

Now here are some pictures of the celebrations we participated in this fun 4th of July!

Joy and Kevin threw their annual 4th of July pool party bash! It was packed. Basically the entire ward was there, plus some of Logan and my friends and my family. They did a taco bar and when it got dark they played Tangled outside on the projector. It was really fun.

This doesn't even show how crazy the pool was most of the night, I swear you couldn't even more around in it because there were so many little kids.

Autumn is the cutest!

We of course went to the Kaysville 4th of July Parade! Logan never misses it! TacoTime stole the show as always with their huge flags and their awesome prizes they throw out. This year they threw plastic toy balls, bead necklaces, and rice krispy treats.

not to mention the million little children that walked the parade with them...it was awesome, there were little colorful balls flying everywhere.

Autumn likes to throw fits right now. Hopefully it's just a stage. She dramatically throws herself on the ground and cries and screams, it's pretty funny and cute most of the time.

The fourth isn't really a celebration with out some Fireworks too, this is us waiting for them to start

Grandpa Kevin bought Autumn a glow in the dark sward which she loved

she was memorized by it

Autumn didn't even last for the fireworks. She fell asleep about a minute before they started and didn't wake up the whole time. Later that night our neighbors were doing fireworks until about 12:30, Logan, who had to go to work the next morning at 5:30, was getting pretty upset, he finally called the police. A few minutes later, the fireworks stopped. It was kind of funny how mad he was.