July 4th

Happy belated 4th of July! What a day it was for the Lyle family! Ella and I had some mother/daughter bonding by painting our fingernails red and blue. I love that she is at an age where we can do "girlie" stuff together. We then went to our community parade...but we didn't go as just bystanders. Our church used it to do a servant evangelism and passed out popsicles. It was so much fun and to have the kids involved was great! One of the great things about being part of a church plant is how you get to involve your kids in the great commission! Next, we went to my parents house and had a cookout. Seth took Luke on my Dad's lawnmower and made Luke's day. Luke was smiling from ear to ear the whole time. I have never seen a lawnmower bring so much joy to a human being...it was great. Last, we headed to our community celebration at Valley Park to meet up with several friends. At the park, they had several blow up slides and jumps. The kids had a blast running around and going down the slides. I took a moment and just watched Ella and Luke enjoy life! It was very surreal to me. The fireworks came at 9:45 (past our bedtime of course) and in the middle of the show it started to pour down the rain. Ella and I rain as fast as we could to the van...which happened to be very far away. Needless to say we were drenched. The park was so packed we had to sit there for over an hour...the good thing is we still got to see the fireworks. I believe we finally made it home at 11:30. What a great day!!!