A very relaxing 4th of July

This year we had a very relaxing 4th of July (as the title of this post suggests!). We kicked off the day by aggressively sleeping in, which means staying in bed long past when it's socially acceptable to "sleep in". For breakfast, Kyle made pancakes from scratch!

Whole-wheat, blueberry and coconut pancakes

After our aggressive sleep-in and pancake feast, we decided to actually do something productive. We'd been meaning to clean our patio for a few weeks, but we we waiting for the rain to stop....and it. never. stops. Every year, though, it seems that we get a streak of good weather starting July 5th. This year, we lucked out with the good weather starting on July 4th!

Before picture...pretty gross.

Working on the railing...

Kyle scrubbing the patio deck

All done!

We used this all purpose cleaner and it worked
GREAT! Plus, the deck  smelled like lemon!

After cleaning the deck, we packed up and headed up to Hilltop Lake to enjoy the evening with some friends and watch the fireworks.

View of the Lake

Our view for the evening

The dessert feast! I brought the red, white and blue strawberries. 

Not quite like they look on Pinterest,
but they still tasted great!

Watching the fireworks!

Giving it grace: It's hard to celebrate the 4th of July and not be reminded of how fortunate we are to live in a country where we can freely be Christians. To be sure, many Christians would voice that publicly loving Jesus in this city comes with it's fair share of judgement and persecution by others. Having experienced much of that myself, I do agree. That being said, however, the social judgement pails in comparison to the freedom we experience to be able to go to church on Sundays, gather with other Christians, and be open about our faith. Kyle and I humbly say thank you and bless you to those who serve and defend our country.