Happy Independence Day

After having a gloomy Sunday, we thankfully embraced the spirit of the holiday and ended up having a lovely 4th of July.

Dara was convinced we needed to have a flag cake and proceeded to pick out the recipe and get to work. All I did to help her was do the actual baking (we had a tight baking schedule because Ruth was needing to make bagels too) and make the icing. Joel helped a bit with the icing, especially the stars. But Dara did the vast majority of the work and I am content saying that she made the cake and it was yummy. At 3 o'clock we headed over to the Huttons for a day of celebration with over 30 of our dear friends. We played horseshoes.
I must teach my kids to stick out their tongues when they're concentrating because they both did it!We also had a watermelon seed spitting contest. Zillah, one of the 3 British friends sharing the day (the apparently celebrate our Independence day for different reasons), had never spit watermelon seeds and took some pride in not being very good at it - she said it isn't very proper to spit (and I agree except in this situation) :)

Most of the seed spitting pictures are understandably not flattering so I've thoughtfully declined to post them, but they're so funny that I'll share them individually upon request!

The high light of the day was water balloon launching game. You play with a water balloon, 3 people to use the balloon launcher, and people running around trying to catch the balloon on the way down. The team with the most water collected at the end is the winner. Because the water mostly splashes out of the bucket (as seen in the next picture), it's a bit difficult to really tell who wins.

This is Dade after he caught a balloon with his face. I was a bit worried about how he would respond when everyone laughed. Plus, it doesn't feel very good as these balloons came down with enough force to break two of the plastic bowls! But, I couldn't have been more proud. I highly recommend this game and think I'd like to make it a new tradition. It was soooo much fun.

We didn't have fire works, but we did have 4 sparkly candles, lots of food, and good friends. At the end of the day, Dara and I agreed that if we have to be away from home for this holiday - we were exactly where we would want to be!