Miss America

I do. (Not I am.) Especially on days like today. I've always been a patriotic person, but living abroad has brought my patriocity to a new level. Now I don't just love being American and have a sense of pride for my country's history, but I also see more than ever where that history has brought us, and what it really means to be an American. That probably sounds a little silly, but it's true. I won't elaborate further because it's 11:43 and my bedtime is 10:30 and plus I hardly slept last night because of a lovely, but very loud thunderstorm.

As we do every year, we had a little devotional and talked about America's beginnings and our blessings. We also sang "America the Beautiful" with Rory the Lion (the patriotic, singing feline my mom brought to us 6 years ago) like we do every year, but this year we also got to read the words of that lovely poem and look at some beautiful pictures of scenes of America and it's past, in a book she sent this year.

It was raining all day so there was no barbecue. Okay, there wouldn't have been one anyway, but at least we had an excuse. We did have hamburgers, though, and the kids helped make some onion rings. Yum! And of course we tried to do some themed treats as well. I'm really not creative, but here are some of the things we came up with. It's hard to see in the picture, but the kids made these gigantic fire crackers which have bits of crepe paper as the sparks coming off the "lit" fuse.

Then we remembered about sparklers! We COULD have fireworks in Poland on the 4th of July, for the first time! I have a strange suspicion that this happens every year, the whole last minute, "Oh my gosh! Sparklers! We can do sparklers! Finally a 4th of July with fireworks!" thing. The kids helped make the jell-o and cookies as well as the onion rings. I was glad it was raining, because there was plenty to do indoors today!

I hope you are all having/have had a wonderful fourth of July and appreciate living in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave (if you do). Three cheers for the Red, White and Blue!

Or the Pink, White and Purple, if you're going by my jell-o. C'mon, we did the best we could with what we had. And I actually appreciate that there is no blue jell-o to be had in Poland.