Friday, July 4, 2008

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.

6 comments:

Katherine Bouldin said...

Lisa,
Nice job! Love the colorful jello dessert and the creative sparkler thingys. Cool -- we will be having hamburgers, too, and I was feeling oh so energetic yesterday so I made potato salad. And of course we'll have corn-on-the-cob. I flaked on dessert, though, and bought some ice cream from Baskin Robbins. It's one of the things I like to indulge in when I'm actually in the USA (on the 4th of July or really anytime). Glad you are able to feel so patriotic even though you are far removed from the "motherland" ... sweet dreams!
Katherine

sarah k. said...

The jello cracks me up and makes me gag a little at the same time. I can't believe how much I liked that stuff as a kid, but now, the thought makes reason stare. I also loved Twinkies, and even though I'm a sugar/fat junkie, and usually any sugar/fat will do, I just can't do those anymore.

But yeah, we didn't have anything American today. For dinner, we had tabbouleh. I spaced the whole thing. And I even have hot dogs in the fridge. We forgot to go to the parade this morning. It might have had something to do with the pouring rain, but still.

LisAway said...

Katherine-Mmmmm. Baskin Robbins! And we had no potatoes to make potato salad! Oops. And I hope the rain cleared up so you could light up your stash of fireworks!

Sarah- What!?! You don't feed your kids jell-o? Poor deprived things. At least they get hot dogs, so they're not completely missing out on the essential childhood grossnesses!

Karen E. said...

Wow, sounds like a great 4th of July! You are a lot more patriotic than I am--I didn't do anything to celebrate (except sleep in).

gramalee said...

The blue looks perfect to me! Much better that jello's idea of blue which is almost turquoise as I see it. Adam said the 4th would have been perfect if only we had had a few raindrops. Clouds but no drops.

Thanks for the great photos.

Emily said...

Oooh. That jello looks scumptious. I haven't had any in a long time. In the picture it really does look like red, white and blue.

Hope you had a good one!