4th of July Celebration

Happy Independence Day from Lily Grace and Bailey and friends!

Since Mommie and Daddy have been sick all week, Mommie said I could write the post for today! I know some of you may not even know who I am, so you can read more about me HERE.    

And since we can't have a family party here today, Mommie said it would be okay if I had my own picnic with my friends.  Bailey (my doggy) and I went outside to take these pictures, but we soon found out it was just too hot to have a picnic outside...

so we went back inside where it is nice and cool and had an indoor picnic with my special friends.

Below are Rebecca, Valerie, me, Margie, and Anne of Green Gables.  We had a really nice time on our little picnic, and finished up with a delicious cake that Rebecca brought over and we had pretend home made ice cream, since Mommie couldn't make any real homemade ice cream this year like in years' past.  Here's a link to one such gathering many years ago with some very special people.

Oh, and my little friends over at Pamela's Victorian Cottage had their own picnic outside too!  I don't think it's as hot over where they live...(actually they are standing in one of John Sloane's special Country Seasons calendar paintings from July of 2020...it made the perfect place for their 4th of July picnic)

So that's what we've been doing here today. What about you? Are you having a special picnic wherever you are?  Are you celebrating the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave"?  What good food are you eating?  Hamburgers? Hot dogs? Chicken? BBQ?  Homemade ice-cream?  We are missing all of that today, but Mommie says maybe we'll have to have a special picnic later this summer when everyone is well and also when everyone is back home again, since my big brother Benton and Auntie Rose are away on a vacation right now.   

What else has been going on?  Well, Mommie said there has been some activity on the empty lot next door this past week.  One day she heard a big dump truck over there, and looked outside to see lots of piles of dirt on the lot!

It started out with just a couple of piles, and then over the next two days more and more pile of dirt showed up!  There were two big dump trucks that just kept bringing more and more dirt!

Mommie says they must be getting ready to spread them out and build a foundation for the new house!

That must mean that there's going to be a lot of activity going on over there in the next few weeks!  

Mommie said it's a good thing she's not a little kid anymore, or she'd be over there building roads and tunnels in the dirt with her trucks and cars!  I said, "Mommie, did you ever do that when you were a little girl?"  And she said, "Oh yes!"  She said that she and her big sister (my Aunt Doris) used to play in a big pile of dirt that was on their property one time, and they had so much fun building roads and tunnels for their little cars and trucks to drive through.  She said they would get all dirty and full of sand and have to get hosed down with the garden hose to get all that dirt off of them before they could go back in the house, but because it was so hot, it felt good to get hosed down!  I didn't know Mommie and Aunt Doris used to have fun playing like that when they were little girls! That sounds like something a boy would do!  But Mommie said they had lots of fun playing outside and in the woods when they were little.  They didn't always just stay indoors and play with dolls!

Now I wish I could go over there and play in those big piles of dirt!  I wonder where I could find some cars and trucks to play with?

OOOOHHHHH!   I just went inside my brother Scotty's room, and looky what I found!!!!

He has LOTS of cars!!!  Do you think he would mind if I play with them in the dirt????

Uh, yes, my Mommie said he would mind very much and I am not to go near those cars, and especially I am not allowed to take them outside and play with them in the dirt!  I guess I'd better not think about that idea again.  I don't want to make my brother Scotty unhappy with me.  But he doesn't live here anymore...just his cars live here...but still, I'd better obey Mommie and not go near those cars.  Besides, he's supposed to come home sometime this weekend, and I could ask him, but I know he won't let me do that. Besides, Mommie says we can't mess up the piles of dirt and they are not on our property so we cannot play in them.  She said she was just thinking about how much fun it was when she was a little girl, but she said it wouldn't be that much fun anymore because the dirt would stick all over us in this hot and humid weather,  and we'd be such a mess!  So, I guess Mommie knows best, but it sure sounded like a fun idea.  What do you think???

Well, I guess I'd better close this little story and go back and play with my friends. 

Meanwhile, here's a few pictures Mommie took when she was outside...the first two are of the island (she calls it "Goose Island") and the pretty white puffy clouds in the skies.

Mommie says we should celebrate all the beauties around us on this Independence Day.

And this is one of those big old Red Shouldered Hawks that live over there, and he was making lots of noise, so Mommie took his picture so he'd quit squawking at her. LOL.

Mommie said we can only see his silhouette because the sun was so bright behind him.

But he was sure big!  Here he turned his back on us:

Mommie said these are just some pretty little wild marsh pink flowers alongside Still Waters Pond. They are really pretty down there in the weeds, so she wanted to take a picture of them.

Mommie said we should close this special 4th of July post with a very special song, "The Star Spangled Banner", and it is being sung by a very amazing singer, Sandi Patty.  I wish I could sing like she does, but she is pretty unique and wonderful.  So please listen as she sings our National Anthem.

Happy Independence Day everyone!!

John 8:36 NKJV

 "Therefore if the Son makes you free, 

you shall be free indeed."

I hope you enjoyed this Independence Day post from me.  It's been nice visiting with you again.

Love, Lily Grace and Bailey

 

Memorial Day Thoughts and Blessings

"Oh say, can you see

By the dawn's early light

What so proudly we hailed

At the twilight's last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars

Through the perilous fight

O'er the ramparts we watched,

Were so gallantly, yeah, streaming?

And the rockets' red glare

The bombs bursting in air

Gave proof through the night

That our flag was still there

O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free 

and the home of the brave!"

Thank You, Lord, for so many who have gone before us, fighting valiantly for the safety and protection of our great nation, and the freedoms we hold so dearly.

Help us remember and honor them today in our hearts, 

and never forget what it cost those brave soldiers and pioneers so that we could have the blessings of 

living in still the greatest nation in the world.

May it ever be blessed by You, Lord, and let us not take these freedoms for granted.

Help us remember that freedom is not free. It was paid by the blood of those who loved this country so much that they were willing to fight and lay down their lives for our sake.

May we never forget their sacrifice.

Amen.

John 15:13 

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends"

Have a blessed Memorial Day, dear friends,

and take a moment to honor the memory of those great men and women

who gave their lives for us.

Meanwhile, I wanted to share a few Bluebird pictures...Yes, father Bluebird is still busily feeding his young family. Mother Bluebird is as well.

These pictures were taken last evening, and the lighting was getting dim, so they are not as clear as I'd like, but they are great close ups of father bluebird with supper in his mouth...ready to feed his hungry brood.

However, I learned that as long as I was sitting there on the porch taking his picture, he would not go to the birdhouse and feed them.

He soon flew away because I had not left yet.

And because of this pitiful face looking out the window, hungrily awaiting his supper, I decided I'd best go inside and allow them to be fed.

Usually around Memorial day we try to plant something in our Memorial Garden in memory of our son Matthew. He passed away from his valiant battle with cancer on May 25, 2014, which was actually Memorial Day weekend that year. And so every Memorial Day brings back those memories to us.

Recently, my sister Doris had given me a lovely new azalea bush, which she intended for us to put in the Memorial Garden. I've had it for a little while, but we just hadn't gotten around to planting it.

So over the weekend our son Scott finally planted it for me. It was starting to get a bit stressed from the heat and needed to get planted.

It doesn't look like much right now, but it will soon perk up and begin growing, and by next spring we should have some lovely azalea blossoms on it. We planted alongside some other smaller azalea bushes that we had planted earlier this spring in the "Secret Memorial Garden".

(Secret Garden and Memorial Garden combined)

When we come and sit in this lovely cool spot beside Still Waters Pond, we know that Matthew would be very pleased to be remembered here of all places. If he were still with us, he'd be out there fishing in that pond every chance he could.

Okay, what are you doing today to commemorate this day of remembrance?

Our church family is going to have a picnic today at the church parsonage.  It is a kind of celebration of coming through the pandemic this past year without losing any member of our church due to Covid. We were extremely blessed and very thankful. Our congregation is made up of primarily senior citizens over 70 years of age. The only person we even know who was diagnosed with Covid was actually a younger person in his 30's, and he came through just fine.  We are counting our blessings for sure. God has been very gracious to us and we give Him much thanks.

Have a blessed and beautiful day today.