INDEPENDENCE DAY 2019 * CELEBRATING AMERICA'S 243rd BIRTHDAY

This is my favorite tradition

Celebrating Independence Day in our backyard with family

This year, nephew Alex and his fiancé Laura joined us for the birthday party

As always, we talked and laughed

Played corn hole and a game Sarah brought (can't remember the name)

Alex and Laura brought Giant Jinga and Yardzee (giant Yahtzee) and we celebrated their engagement and upcoming wedding this October with cards (and cash)

We enjoyed ribs (Neil grilled them just right), corn on the cob, cole slaw (Don's specialty both traditional and Hot), potato salad (Ann's specialty), deviled eggs (Holly's specialty), pasta salad (Laura's specialty), and baked beans (Terry's specialty)

So good, y'all!!

Jane brought a homemade blueberry pie (kudos to whoever made it), Holly made a Jell-O cake (red, white, and blue of course), Sarah made a lemon icebox pie, Laura brought strawberries and graham crackers to go with her homemade fruit dip, and Neil made vanilla ice cream.

Thanks so much to everyone who brought food!

Again, so good, y'all!!

We went for a walk around the neighborhood and saw an amazing sunset (wish I had a pic)

Then to top it all off, our little city put on the most spectacular fireworks show, the second largest in Tennessee (Nashville is #1)
Pictures posted below were taken by almost all of us and shared among us. Thanks, you all, for sharing them with me so I could share them here. This was granddaughter Ella's first 4th, so there are lots of pictures of her.
These Independence Day snapshots speak for themselves and the good time we enjoyed being together.
And we thank God for blessing us with dry weather, even though there were scattered showers all around our area. That is no small blessing on the 4th of July!

From left back row:
Son in law Kerry, bro in law Don, nephew Alex, bro in law Terry
From left middle row:
Moi holding Ella, hubby Neil, daughter Holly, dear friend and honorary family member Katelyn, niece Julia, grandson Elijah, niece Sarah, sister Ann, daughter Kelly
From left front row:
Son in law Jerry holding Cooper, granddaughter Shelby, grandson Knox, sister Jane, and soon-to-be-niece Laura

God bless America!
Let Freedom ring!

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERICA!

My brother in law Don is the news editor for our local paper, the Herald-Citizen. He is a talented/articulate writer who penned (typed most likely) this piece for the Tuesday, July 2 edition's opinion page. It is an interesting, fun, and profound essay that I'm sure you'll enjoy reading as much as I did. Thanks, Don! Well said.