4th of July!!

It seems like the 4th of July was ages ago, but I have to do a little recap because it was simply the best week of the year so far! The most special part about it was that my sweet 92 year old Grandpa Ralph was chosen with his three brothers and one brother-in-law to be honored as one of the Freedom Award Recipients. Every year they choose three or four people who have "Demonstrated unusual or extraordinary devotion to the cause of freedom and America’s traditional values" and honor them all through the week. They hold a beautiful awards gala where the recipients get their awards, give a little speech and they show a video recaping the reason they were chosen for the award. We got to go last year and this year too and it has been one of the most inspiring events I have ever attended. Then they get to ride in the parade (he's the one on the left), and they honor them at the Stadium of Fire (he got to meet Carrie Underwood...but after he shook her hand he leaned over to my dad and said, "Who is she?"). He was SO excited about everything, SO cute in his tux, and I was SO proud to be his granddaughter. I was priviledged to help him put his WWII journal into a book (with lots of historical context, maps, etc...) as my Honors Thesis in college so I have spent a lot of time with him talking about his WWII years. I have an amazing grandpa. And Carrie Underwood was amazing by the way. Probably my favorite perfomer! During "Jesus Take the Wheel" she broke out in "How Great Thou Art"... I get chills again just thinking about it. And since my grandpa was being honored we had lots of cousins in town whom I haven't seen forever! We had a breakfast at the park and a big game of baseball. As we were finishing my grandpa came over and said, "Well I want to hit!" Robbie was pitching and was so relieved when grandpa hit it after like 10 swings :) He didn't want to be the grandson-in-law who struck out the 92 year old grandpa!!