**God Bless America**

This was Will and I first 4th of July married and it was wonderful!! We got to spend it with great friends and LOTS of laughs. Even though Will had to work most of the weekend we had to plan around his schedule but it all worked out good! We had a weekend full of things to do, we went to an awesome place called Cattlemans to kick it off. It is a steakhouse located in the middle of the desert about 30 mins away from El Paso. Ann and Joe's friends Liz and Eric came in from California and they had heard about it so they wanted to check it out. So Ann and I did our research and we were very interested in it. When we got there Ann and I were very disappointed that we had never heard about the place. It was great! They had AWESOME food and some animals that you could walk around and check out and even feed. All the boys challenged each other to eat the 2 pound steak called the cowboy, and to all of our surprise all three of them ate every last bit. Then after we were all stuffed from the amazing food and warm apple pie with vanilla ice cream, and chocolate mousse we walked it off by checking out the rest of the place, feeding the animals and swinging on the swings :o)

The 2lb. Steak



Will's Done



Joe's Done


Eric's Done


Me showing Gavin the animals








The Next night we all went over to Ann and Joe's house for the UFC fight. The next day Will had to go into work, and we were both bummed about it, but I guess ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I spent the day getting ready and preparing some yummy M&M cookies for the party that night. We went over to another friends house for dinner and fireworks. It was probably the most amazing fireworks display I have every imagined! Down here in Texas there is no fireworks law except that they cannot be shot off inside the city limits. Will and I were not used to that since we come from PA where there are tons of trees and you cant have fireworks that go so many feet off the ground and you have to get a permit to shoot off the big ones or only certain people have permission such as the fire department. But there were fireworks going off ALL around us! We were literally surrounded. And they lasted for hours and hours. Normally we would have to pay to go see a fireworks display that only last 30 minutes if that, but here it was a completely different story. We even said that the fireworks that we saw this year were even better than ones that we have seen back in PA. So much Fun! All in all we had a great weekend and I am so blessed to have got to spend it with my soldier and my hero. I know a lot of people who couldn't be with their loved ones on this Independence day weekend due to there services overseas. I thank God everyday for our military men and women, past and present, and I pray to Him to watch over them and keep them safe! God Bless America!