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Independence Day is Mack’s Christmas.

He plans for a year… he talks all the time about how he can’t wait… he has a countdown, once it gets under a month away. He has to resist the urge to stop at every single fireworks stand (and sometimes, not resist).

And then, it’s here. The 4th of July. And my hubby is happy.

I especially enjoyed this Independence Day for a number of reasons, many of which I can show you in pictures.

1) The holiday fell on a Sunday. Now, I don’t have pictures of that, but it was SO wonderful to be able to worship with my family and church family and praise God for the freedoms we have in this country. We’re so blessed to have a pastor like we do, who took us through the words of the founding fathers (both deist and Christian alike) and reminded us of the principles our country was founded on. The message was a special way to start our day.

2) Lunch at my Grandmother’s house. This isn’t anything odd… we do it all the time. But man, I love it. Here’s a picture of that lovely place.

3) I’m sure I wouldn’t be very happy about Hurricane Alex if I lived much further south, but up here, the weather has been scrumptious. The rain and cool breezes made for one of the most pleasant Independence Day celebrations I’ve ever spent in Texas.

4) Jack loves fireworks. He came by his pyromania naturally, as Mack and I are both kind of ridiculous firebugs, but it’s still such a joy to watch him run around with a fistful of M-150s and a punk. We spent the afternoon blowing up lots of loud, non-colorful stuff on my grandparents’ driveway. (P.S. Thanks Tiffany & Casey for the extra bag of goodies you brought Jack! He LOVED the ones that flew!)

One of my favorite pictures EVER:

5) Dottie loves fireworks!!!! Mack and I were so excited, we could hardly stand it. I know that there are some kids that are born just not liking loud noises (my sister, for example). But I think that a lot of times, people inject fear into their kids by acting all nervous about stuff like this, and expecting their kids to throw fits. Or, maybe my kids are just nuts like me.Either way, we really loved that Dot woke up and laughed at all the pretty lights, and didn’t even act concerned about all the big artillery shells. Here’s a shot of a fountain that Dot particularly liked, followed by a grainy picture of her reaction (it was, um, DARK).

6) Sparklers. Mack ordered our fireworks online this year. He thought he was ordering boxes of 36 six-inch sparklers. Instead, he ordered boxes of six 36-inch sparklers. I loooooved them.

(I also just noticed that the watermark didn’t take correctly on the picture above… but don’t care enough to fix it.)

7) I love living in the country where we can blow up our own fireworks in the church parking lot after the evening service, right across the road from neighbors who are doing the same.

The next shot is fun because you can see our firework and the one from the neighbors. You can also see Jack (the small figure on the left) cheering at the sky, which makes my heart happy.

I hope everyone had a safe, loud, and thankful Independence Day. Whaddaya say we do it again next year?

My baby sister is such a superstar.

New blog readers might not be familiar, but my sister, Sam Behymer, is a musician (and recent Pepperdine grad) living in Malibu, singin’ for her supper. She even played a gig at the House of Blues on Sunset Blvd. earlier this summer! Her album, Heartmouth, was released last summer, and is totally rockin’, and you should click on that and go buy it rightnowrightnow.

I was excited to hear that she chose my favorite song off the album for her first music video, and I am so in love with how it turns out. I’m proud, having had nothing whatsoever to do with this, and wanted to share the fun with my readers:

Sam Behymer – If You Don’t Mind from A.C. Eagon on Vimeo.

Samantha Jane,  we’re so very proud of you. Dottie just coo’d along with this video, and Jack loves watching “his Samye”.

We vote “Heartmouth” for the next video! LOVE YOU!