Oh how I LOVE the 4th of July......last year at this time we were surrounded by so many friends and family and everything we knew, in a place we were so comfortable....getting ready to make a big step, packing up our little house to move across the country to a place neither of us really knew anything about. It was nerve wracking and scary and fun and exciting! The time has flown by...where has an entire year gone??

We had a good day...we went to 2 BBQs.....both were delish! It was nice having lots and lots of our new friends around all day!

Then we headed over to Dr. Murphy's (one of Joel's preffessors) with the Freeman's to light off LOTS of fireworks! We sprayed on the bug spray and sat by a fan outside....its that hot! I don't know why I never thought of bringing a fan outside.....it was fabulous!

We sat in the hot, humid dark, watched the fireworks and were surrounded by lighting bugs.....

We had a couple close calls with sparklers swinging around wildly and crazy guys lighting off fire works...one shooting one in our direction....We lit off a chinese lantern(like the ones on tangled), we wrote our wishes on post-it notes, stuck them to it and sent them off into the night sky...so we'll see if any of them come true!! I bet no one can guess what I wished for....... ;)

We hadn't had enough so we decided to keep the 4th going and had a red, white and blue dinner the next night...

We made these fun drinks, we found the idea from the sister's cafe. Joel's turned out so perfect! Look at how straight his lines are between the colors.....pretty impressive.....