Independence Day 2014

We had a very low-key celebration for  Independence Day this year. Nathan had to work part of the day and the kids and I did our weekly grocery shopping. Then I set up the kids pools and made them a little mini water park in the yard - it was awesome! They loved it and played for hours!

We were going to go to the city fireworks show but since we had already been to one and Noah really wanted to shoot some of his own fireworks we decided to just buy some and stay at home and shoot some off. While Nathan was shooting them for us I was constantly paranoid one was going to shoot the wrong way or something. Luckily, all went well and the kids loved it. The good thing about being at home was I was able to get the kids in bed pretty quick since it was 2 hours past bedtime :)

The next day I noticed one of our dogs was not in his usual spots (which are the porch, yard, or following me or the kids around). I looked through my firework pictures and saw him in the background of some of the pictures so I know he was here then but not sure about when the bigger fireworks started going off. I was distracted with the kids and then we went straight inside. Nathan was racing his car so me and my mother-in-law started driving around looking for him and unfortunately checking ditches :/ Neither of us saw anything of him. I checked with all the neighbors and no one had seen him. I really figured he was gone for good at that point. It had been going on 24 hours since I know I saw him and he never leaves our yard except for the occasional trot over to the neighbors yard. I posted him missing on Facebook and had several people sharing the post. I was not very hopeful though - he had just been gone too long.

The next day we all started searching again after church. we drove all around our neighborhood and even through the neighbors fields around our house. Still nothing. About 5 hours later  I got a Facebook notification from a friend that said "I have him, we are on the side of the road" and then she said she was taking him to our house. He was at least 4 miles away from my house standing in the middle of the road with cars dodging him! He is old and cannot hear good and I am sure was scared to death! We went and picked him up from her house and he was perfectly fine! I cannot believe we found him! Thank you Facebook!

So we had a great time celebrating our independence and our dog celebrated his independence a little too much but it had a happy ending :)