independence day

This was my first 4th of July away from San Diego. I have always celebrated the 4th with my family which included a day at Seaport Village with the awesome view of 5 firework shows at the same time or seeing some fireworks at a local high school.

I was so glad we got the day off! Love paid holidays :) My boss encouraged us to work extra hard at the beginning of the week so we could get Friday off too, which we did. Nothing better than a 4-day weekend! Of course on the last day of work, I am spoiled with treats! My coworker brought donuts & my boss brought us cinnamon pretzel bites which were heavenly. She also sent me home with a package of strawberries & creme oreos. yum!

holiday themed donut from work!

Austin & I started off the day with the ever famous pancakes (at least to the Terrys) from Bill Phillips' Eating For Life. It is the most delicious, healthy & easy pancake recipe ever. This recipe can also be used to make waffles.

Golden Pancakes:
(for 2 people to have 4ish pancakes each)

1 cup of egg whites (6 eggs minus the yolk or 1 cup of egg beaters)
1 cup of oats
1 cup of cottage cheese
vanilla
cinnamon

1. Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth
2. Spray cooking spray onto hot griddle
3. Pour batter onto griddle to make pancakes
4. Cook & flip accordingly
5. Serve with butter (lots of butter because we love butter!), agave syrup (only put a little because it is super sweet) & anything else your heart desires such as strawberry rhubarb jam (got some from the farmers market!), peanut butter, fresh berries, chocolate chips, whipped cream etc. depending on how healthy you want to be :)

golden pancakes with butter, agave, strawberry rhubarb jam, & fresh strawberries

Anyways, we got ready for the day, donned on our red, white & blue clothing and headed down to the riverfront in St. Charles for the St. Charles Riverfest parade.

so grateful for all those who serve & have served our country to fight for our freedom!

random convertible with disney princesses

being in missouri, a little tribute to lewis & clark of course

After the parade, we browsed through a home discount center called Hoods down in Bel-Ridge to get some ideas for replacing the vanities in the bathroom in our new house (which we will be moving into at the end of the month!)

We returned home to relax for a bit before we headed out to Warrenton to Austin's co-worker's place for dinner & fireworks. Austin's co-worker's daughter & son-in-law happen to be our friends from church (they were in our ward & then moved) so it was so fun hanging out with them & catching up.

The boys played airsoft in their 3 acre backyard while the girls watched some HGTV which I love especially since we are getting a house ourselves soon.

Dinner was delicious and after sitting around & talking, we headed over to the neighbor's place where they had an excellent dock to the mini lake to set off some fireworks. This was my first time ever setting off fireworks ourselves since in California, its illegal. It was a lot of fun & I guess there is no better way to celebrate being American than setting off some fireworks & eating a lot of food!

some of our stock

couldn't get that great of pictures

anyways, we took my car out to Warrenton which is about a 45 minute drive & it gave me AWESOME gas mileage!