Happy Independence Day!

My neighbors celebrated last night.

Well, to be fair, they've been celebrating

all weekend, but last night was louder than

the other evenings and the guy across

the street had fireworks that actually

went up and sprayed like the ones you see

when you go out and watch them.  I'm

kind of burned out on fireworks, having

seen the same displays over and over, but

when they're visible from your front yard,

why not watch?  The best fireworks I've

ever seen was when I lived right outside

of Las Vegas, in a town called Henderson.

It was small then....Anyway, Las Vegas did

a wonderful job and we could see them

from our house!

I'll be surprised if any of my neighbors

have any fireworks left for tonight which

is the REAL independence day, but they

may surprise me.  Last night I had a

pretty bad headache so I pretended they

were thunder and went right to sleep.  

John would have called the cops.  He

was just that kind of guy, LOL.  I mean, 

they were shooting them off well after midnight

but I don't care.  It's only one time

a year.  Except for new years eve.

Except for Sonny's birthday.  Except

for The lady who had triplets.

Except for...except for...I'm just kidding.

My neighbors are pretty reasonable.

Yesterday my son, Nathan, his wife, Crystal

and Bri all came over.  I guess Ethan was

busy with teenager things.  We all had

a great visit.  I thought about taking a

picture of all of us then got distracted.

I have a script stamp but it wasn't a full 

page so when I saw this one about a month

ago I jumped on it.  It didn't hurt that I 

had a 40% off coupon.  I just love the

saying on the picture.  It's so true.  God never

told us anything would be easy.  In fact,

He told us it would be hard, but that

He would help us through it.  If things

were easy we wouldn't need God. 

Yesterday my friend, Coleen,  interpreted

for the church service.  She's been signing 

for 4 years, but even so, that's a scary thing. 

 She did wonderfully, but said she kept wanting

to switch places with Pam.  Pam interprets

for a living at a school and has been doing

it for 25 years.  I'm so proud of Coleen for

resisting Satan and continuing.  We really have

to listen to the "Voice of Truth" as the song

by Casting Crowns says.  Satan does his 

best to drown that voice out, but we have

to tune him out and tune into God.  Not

so easy sometimes when the hard

times come.  And that's when we

need Him the most.  How tempting it

is to just do it alone.  I don't know about

you, but every time I try I fall flat on

my face.  I don't think I'll ever be

ready to sign for the church.  Right now 

I'm lucky to keep up with the choruses

of most of the songs.  But if I am ever

called to do it I hope I will listen to

His voice and trust Him to get me through.