the 3rd, the 4th and then some

we celebrated july 4th on the 3rd with my mom and dad - had a little burger cookout with some beef that hopefully wasn't involved in that whole e.coli thing. (wouldn't we know by now?) so far so good. anyway we had a great time with them and we all ate too much but that's how we do. on the 4th we spent the evening with the creasy side at keith's house. again: beef. again: so far so good. again: ate too much. another fun evening also. we had planned to see fireworks somewhere but hadn't made any real plans. as it turns out, we just watched fireworks all the way home from keith's house. every little town all the way home was celebrating. even when we pulled into our neighborhood we could still see them. i'm thinking that this might be the way to do it. we didn't have to find a parking place, or a place to sit, or sit in traffic trying to get out of some place when it was over. quite different from last year when the 5 of us were sitting on the beach underneath a huge fireworks display with the ocean lapping up on us but we can't have everything.

blake got home from camp cowen on saturday afternoon, which i was very glad for. we missed him!! he didn't even smell bad. now we're actually all together for a couple weeks before we're spread hither and yon again. and we do value our family time! blake and luke, being the "older" boys that they are, are finally being allowed to get their own cell phones. they're just tickled to death that they don't have to share the "creasy boys' phone" anymore. keep in mind here that they're in charge of paying for the whole shebang. they bought the phones and they are responsible for their portion of the bill. they're in the money right now with all their lawn-mowing jobs. we'll see how well they plan for the winter...as excited as they are about the phones, they still are giving me the eye-roll when i need a picture of all of these little rites of passage/milestone dealies. does a cellphone even count as a rite of passage? i guess these days maybe it does.

the 5 of us sang/played sunday morning during the worship service. well, as everyone knows, i didn't play a thing since i'm incapable of such things. the men in our household take care of that. we did "you are everything" by matthew west. it's max's very favorite song currently and the rest of us really like it too. it is so cool to be able to be up there doing that as a family. i almost always get nervous before i sing but yesterday was a little crazy. i was just beside myself inside all morning. i decided i wasn't really scared-nervous, i was just excited because what we were doing was so special to me. when i was their age, you couldn't have paid me to do what my boys do without even giving it a thought. i don't think i ever even sang by myself in front of anyone until 10th grade and then it about made me sick. ok that's enough of that. i'd post a picture but if you read kathy's blog you know i vetoed the one and only picture there is of the occasion. not available for world-wide distribution..besides, we look the same as we do in all the other pictures on here. =)

max is attending church day camp this week and is glad about that, except for the getting up early part. several kids from our church went. blake decided he wanted to go as well, so he signed up to be a helper. neither of us is sure what kind of help he'll be expected to give, but he's up for whatever. at least he was til he saw some of the kids running around like maniacs on our church parking lot this morning. i asked him if he was sure he wanted to do this and he said "i don't know...but i already said i would so i will."...aahhhh. a responsible young man. a beautiful thing. we'll see how they both feel about it when they get home this afternoon.

this little baby is olivia. she came to church yesterday and this was my first glimpse of her sweetness. she doesn't know it but she is the reason her mommy and daddy are in church and the reason they ever decided to look for Jesus. they are now following Jesus.. and she probably will too, because she will be raised up knowing how much He loves her and learning to love Him. i love how God works.