Celebrating our Independence is always a great thing. We spent the day with family. It was hot early in the day and I enjoyed riding the ATVs on my folk’s 400 acres, blasting through the creeks and mud! I had to change clothes three times and took 3 showers…I was a mess. The whole crew shot skeet a bit later. I didn’t do as hot as I usually do, but I was having an “off” day.

We have been trying to get a portrait in this chair of Lily Mae (my little 2-year-old niece) for a while. That day she actually cooperated! These were shot with aperture priority on my 50mm with window light only.

Ashlyn had to put in her two cents…

Hopefully, they will always be close cousins!

In the late afternoon the rain moved in and cooled things down. It stopped in plenty of time to light fireworks and create our own little display.

In my mind, there isn’t much better than family get-togethers, grilling, laughter, story-telling, food, dessert, beautiful weather and fireworks…A wonderful day. Here are a few more pics from the day…

I am not one to take photos of sunsets, but this day I did…this sky was amazing and the color is not adjusted on enhanced at all on this photo!

This poor teensy-weensy frog had the misfortune of getting caught by our gang of 2-5 years olds.They played with him for a long, long time…INSIDE the house!