Patriotism at its Finest

I had all intentions of making a July 4th cupcake or patriotic dessert for this blog post but, alas, mother nature had other plans.  I am dog sick.  Which means no cupcake, not even an easy backup dessert.  I've got nothin'.  And if it hadn't been for my sweet husband taking care of me last night I probably wouldn't even have had the strength to write this post. My dear husband worked 14 hours, got off work at 7 in the morning and STILL went to the store to get me medicine, chicken noodle soup, cough drops and the cutest get well soon card.  {swoon}

Just when I thought my husband couldn't love me any better, he goes and proves me wrong.   :)  I am so blessed.

Now that I am done bragging on the hubs, I'll get to my main point and that is patriotism.  Chattanooga sure did step up their patriotism this past week when they teamed up with Steps2Hope and built a wounded warrior's house in 7 days!  It was much like the Extreme Makeover- Home Edition episodes you see on t.v. except this wasn't for glory or to get t.v. viewership.  It was just good ole humble volunteering, a lot of hard work and a bunch of heartfelt donations.  Hundreds of Chattanoogans (and some out of towners) gathered in Apison, Tennessee to make Army Specialist Andrew Smith and his wife Tori Smith's dream home a reality.

{The driveway up to the house was lined with flags.  Each flag had a name of a veteran that it was in honor of}

In March of 2012, Andrew was severely injured in Afganistan resulting in serious abdominal injuries and the loss of both of his legs.  Since then, he has undergone several surgeries and is making his way through recovery and rehabilitation.  At the same time, there were several organizations raising money to honor and support this hometown wounded warrior and after a handful of fundraisers and a partnership with Steps2Hope the Team Andrew Project was well on its way to building a home that Andrew Smith could live in after he is discharged from Walter Reed Hospital.  And that is exactly what happened.

They could not have picked a better week to honor our hometown hero than June 27th through July 4th.  Blood sweat and tears were poured by many volunteers last week, but it was all worth it.  On July 4th at noon, Andrew and Tori were presented with the keys to their very own customized home!  Now what is more patriotic than that.  Thank you Andrew, for serving and protecting our country selflessly, for paying a high price for our freedom, and for being the type of man we can all look up to.

 {A huge thank you to all of the restaurants that donated the meals.  Every meal was covered for the whole week thanks to their generosity! *note: this was just the menu for Friday, there were many other restaurants and organizations that donated that are not on this whiteboard, this was just an example of the daily donations}

You can watch the video of the big reveal and Andrew and Tori's reaction here.

July 4th Flag Cake

   Happy Independence Day!  I had a wonderful time with in Florida with family, and I hope everyone else did too!  We celebrated the good ol' American way- grilled out hamburgers and hotdogs, read the Declaration of Independence at dinner (courtesy of my daddy :) and proceeded to read the names of the signees haha), decorated a flag cake, gave the kiddos some sparklers and ended the day watching "The Patriot."  Yes, I would say our family is pretty patriotic.

   The flag cake that we celebrated with might look like it took a chunk of our day out to decorate, but it was quick and easy.  I also want to note that I cannot take credit for making it; my sister-in-law and my sweet little niece baked it and iced it while I took fun pictures of them.  I did cut up the fruit though, if that gives me enough credit to put it on my blog, haha!

   We baked a regular funfetti cake- using a box mix- simple and easy.  Let that cool completely and then set it on your platter.  Top the cake with cool whip dabbing it around to give it the fluffy texture.  Then make a square in the top left corner with blueberries, and stripes with cut up strawberries.  We cut the strawberries up in little pieces where the reddest part of the pieces could be on top.  We were kind of sad that only one piece of cake would get blueberries, so we spread the left over strawberries and blueberries around the whole cake.  Easy Peasy!