INDEPENDENCE DAY

Today started early. We left at 4:15 am to run Michelle and Aaron to the airport. They are flying to Kentucky to visit family. The trip to the airport started out with the car lights on. But on the way home, the sun was starting to glow behind the mountains. Such a gorgeous sunrise. The perfect start to a special day. It's been a good 10 degrees cooler than the last few days. With the flag flying on the front porch, a gently breeze in the air, the quiet of a holiday morning, all of a sudden kaboom. The neighbors, at 6 in the morning, decided it was time to wake up the neighborhood with fireworks that definitely were not sold legally here. I'm sure the fireworks were the infamous heart stopping fireworks bought in the neighboring state of Wyoming. The noise stopped as quickly as it started. I'm sure they are saving the rest for tonight.

The rest of our day was relaxing. Mike went to the church for a ward breakfast. I was sound asleep after the trip to the airport. We were prepared to keep an eye out for our neighbors and their fire works. We don't need a fire. But they were relatively quiet. A few fireworks and they were done by 10. It was the most peaceful evening for the 4th that we have ever had. I did find out what the loud kabooms were. You take a tub of water, cut a hole in the bottom of an open tin can, set the open end into the water, put a firecracker in the hole, light the fire cracker, and kaboom.
Our favorite fireworks are the ground flowers. We would light them, they would start spinning and spin into the irrigation ditch and keep spinning in the water, glowing and turning the water different colors. We would also put them in the water and you could hear them spin and making blub blub blub noises and echoing as they went through the irrigation pipe under the driveway.

I wonder what the men who wrote the Declaration of Independence would think if they saw us today. I'm sure it would be mixed emotions. My fathers ?? great grandfather settled what is now Long Island. The little bit of written history we have is amazing. Those settlers were not only brave, but the trust in God that they had was unbelievable. I hope I can honor them by the way I live and honor this country.