Hunger for Chinese on the 4th?

Not sure why the taste of sweet and sour chicken was so stuck in my head when I should have had burgers and dogs on the grill!

Bobby had to work on Saturday, so the girls and I took our time getting up and moving around. At lunchtime, we decided to go to the hottest place around....the beach on 4th of July! The traffic was horrible! Our closest beach is Sunset Beach, which has a cozy little one lane wood bridge (those of you that have ever rode with me know how much I do not like driving over any bridges!). We had to wait almost 30 minutes just to get over. Once we made it, we parked about a block away and started walking. Reece was pulling a small toy wagon with their sand toys, Kyleigh was carrying plastic shovels to dig with and I had a chair on my back and a bag of goodies to eat on my shoulder. We found a great spot and unloaded. It was so crowded so we were really lucky to find the one we did! We alternated between digging in the sand, sitting and relaxing and then playing in the ocean. Oh, how our girls love the ocean! I'm like the worst mom broken record ever out there " I said back up!" "you are out too far" "come back!" "Now you have to hold my hand" Just to point out, "out too far" is more than 6 inches from me, which is roughly where the water comes to the middle of my shins :-)

They both love to jump over the waves and Reece actually likes to roll in the water when it is about as deep as her bath.....creating a lovely cleaning opportunity in her bath suit later that day :-)

We were out there a little over 3 hours, just us girls enjoying the weather and ocean. I was so exhausted on the walk back to the car and we were covered in sand. I tried my best to clean up everything I could, knowing how hard Bobby had worked earlier that week to clean my car out. All in all, it was such a fun day. One of those days I will look back on and smile.

And to top it all off I got my Chinese food for dinner! We do not partake in fire works because the loud booms always scare our girls so badly, and they were already so very tired from our day at the beach. Just a quiet night at home, being thankful and gracious for all of our freedoms.

Kyleigh is very much in full mode of continuing to ask the why questions for everything and this holiday was no different. When she asked what was the 4th about, I had to sit down and tell her how thankful we should all be for the freedoms we have, freedom to live our lives as we dream, freedom to say the way we feel. It was a nice reminder to remember all of the things all of us had been taking for granted. We live in a great country...a country where hundreds of thousands of people have given their lives to protect. I realized too today during a history lesson of sorts in our church this morning that I should not only be researching Korea in anticipation of our adoption, but also America. I want to really share the history and values that this country was founded on with all of my children, and not just have them learn what pop culture is teaching at that time. HAPPY 4TH OF JULY EVERYONE!!!

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."