4th of July

We had a fun time on the 4th. We started out by watching the Boggs fireworks on the 3rd in Doug/Lisa's lane. I think the kids were more excited to visit with Lisa & Doug than actually watching the fireworks. Then on the 4th we made a quick stop by the hospital to visit Mandi, she looks great and is working so hard with her therapy and making amazing progress and in fact she posted on her blog she is getting to go home on Wednesday!!! God is so GOOD!!

Then we went to see WALL-E in Washington and the kids received free blue WALL-E watches. They were excited and you know a movie is not complete without popcorn & an extra squirt of movie theater butter and Raisinets! Yummy! After the movie we headed to Gatti's for pizza. While we were there we ran into another little blondy boy named Griffen! He's so cute! The girls found a "pile" of tickets on the floor and they turned them and the staff said they could just have them, well on top of that the nice young fellow working the counter basically let each of them pick whatever they wanted from the prize bins. I think they ended up getting 3 times their value of tickets. Griffin got a kite, Natalie got Hannah Montana stationery set, and Megan got this cool baton thingy. They were so excited. We left Gatti's and convinced Les to pull over and park in a business parking lot to watch the fireworks, even though they didn't start until 10 p.m., way past his bed time. I had to remind him to enjoy "the magic of the moment!"

I'm thinking Megan & I are the ones who could sit and watch fireworks for any length of time and the others...well ....lets just say it was more like putting them to sleep! ha ha. So we drove off for home around 10:30p.m. and watched as the regular citizens were setting off their own personal fireworks. As I'm singing our national athem in my head along the way and to my added surprise the fellow up St. Mary's Road was setting off his awesome display of fireworks. He does this every year but I always forget when it is...but they are probably better than any of the parks in the area, so we got to see a few of those too...I being the avid firework watcher wanted to stay outside and watch, but my dear hubby had had enough so we retreated to the house for sleep. The girls decided to camp out on the floor and I stayed out there with them on the couch. In hopes that I would be able to see the fireworks out the window.....but no luck, so I just whined to Les that I can't see the fireworks only hear them....

To my disappointment I fell asleep on the couch only to be awoken about 1 hour later with a phone call from Les' Uncle Herschel (all the while I'm trying to process what he was saying and trying to figure out how I got to the phone anyway, I was so dead asleep) Finally thinking Did I hear what he just said, his shop is on fire, and he is still in Florida? Les was awake by this point so I gave him the phone to make sure I didn't mess up relaying the message because I was in total shock and not sure I understood exactly what was going on. Then the big shock came, when I went to the window and could actually see the inferno his shop/warehouse had turned into and the flames shooting high into the sky. It is the most sickening feeling I've ever felt and so helpless, and worry for those who were up there fighting the fire with all the chemicals, equiptment, and all kinds of things that could only add to the already dangerous fire. Of course my first reaction I turned and just started praying for God's hand of protection. No one was hurt in the blaze PTL...but everything is a total Loss. We drove by on Saturday and I took a few pictures just so you can maybe grasp a little of their tragedy and also ask you pray for Herschel & Karen as well as Brian & Melissa (Herschel's son, he is Les' age), They will have a lot of decisions to have to be made regarding their Insulation business. My prayer is that God will guide them in these decisions and grant them wisdom and that they will be at peace with whatever the outcome is.

The above picture is of the barrels that contain what makes the insulation and you can see how it just oozed out of the barrels and burned.

You can tell in the pictures the tragedy and loss, the fire still smoldering still the next few days. The fire was so hot that is also scorched our corn in the field North of the shop. The local newspaper also had a picture and an article about the fire if you want to read.