Block Party

I received a couple of comments this morning at church about my more-than-inconsistent blog posting lately.  I even had one person volunteer to ghost-write posts for me until I can get it together to post more!  (Thanks, friend!)  There are a couple of reasons that I haven't posted, and I am sorry if anyone has been disappointed checking in here and finding nothing new.  I find it very funny that it is even possible that people would be disappointed by my lack of posting because I really have nothing to share most of the time. :-)

We hosted our annual block party last Thursday evening, and we had a great time.  The weather cooperated; the desserts were delicious (especially the peach pie!); the bounce house was busy all night; the fireworks were fun; and the visiting was treasured.  We all said, as we do every year, "We really need to trim that branch before we do the fireworks next time," and yet we never think about it until we're lighting fireworks the next year.  :-)  This was the first year that we have music to accompany the fireworks show that neighbor Chris puts on for us.  Eric and Ben had worked at putting some great theme music on a CD, so we watched the fireworks to the Indiana Jones, Rocky, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Star Wars soundtracks.  It added so much, and at the end, we all cheered!

Quite a few of our neighbors had already left town for their long holiday weekend, but we had some new folks join us this year.  We were also blessed to have our friend, Tom Lombardo (who is freshly back in the good ol' U.S. of A from the Philippines), stop by for a little visit.

Here are a couple of pictures of our time together:

On the fourth, we loaded up our portion of the day's potluck:  the homemade ice cream (Dave makes the BEST citrus ice cream and mocha Heath bar crunch ice cream!) , bean soup (a family favorite), black bean salad, and chips and dip to head out to my aunt and uncle's home outside of Empire.  They live on 20 acres and all of our families congregate there each fourth of July.  There's lots of visiting, quad riding, bike riding, "Outback" golfing, swimming, basketball, and of course, yummy food.  The day caps off with the brothers-in-law performing their comedy/fireworks show.  Great times celebrating our great country and our independence!  God Bless America!