Love Always: 4th of July

We had a fun July 4th this year. The day started with Tyson taking our boys and our friends, Sammi and Daniel to float the river. They had a great time. It's a great way to beat the heat that won't let up.

For the past several years we spend the 4th with our friends, the Vanormers. This year was the first without Charles. We missed him. The Vanormer family knows that their dad/husband is near them. They say that Charles is in the wind, that it's his way of telling them he's close by. While we sat up in the foothills we felt a nice breeze blow by and Mari said it was Charles, that he was there with us. It made me smile. :)

We had dinner, watched fireworks and came back to our house to light some of our own. Tyson, Mari, Sammi and I talked until 2:00 in the morning. It was nice to talk and nice to be able to sleep in the next morning. :) It was a good day!

I love this picture. Mari and I were sitting in the living room and I looked out the window to see Tyson and Sammi sitting on the curb chatting.