4 Juillet

Today is the rainy day where I recount all my odds and ends stories that I keep forgetting. This is 4th of July:

I spent all of the 3rd of July grocery shopping. I am making lunch, dirt pudding and apple pie for all of the kids and myself for lunch and one of L's friends. I bought the following: hamburger meat, hamburger buns, chips, Oreo's, apples, chocolate pudding, gummy worms, and I FOUND SPARKLERS! So I wake up so totally stoaked.

I put on a red and white striped dress and put a red white and blue bow in my hair. (let's be honest, this surprises no one) I go downstairs and the boys are watching cartoons as I unpack my groceries. When the movie is over, I tell them that they have to wear red, white and blue today, and I am not accepting no for an answer.

They each pull out shirts with American flags on them. Of course they do. So they get dressed and we play for a little while. They want to play card games, I say okay. They want to play war. I crack up. I obviously win, it's in my blood to win. I'm American and it's 4th of July plus, the kids gave up half way through. Hah just kidding about that last part.

But while we were playing cards I found a fantaaaastic playlist on fratmusic of 4th of July music so I play it and the kids start dancing and B tells me he loves American music. Of course you do B, that's because it's the greatest in the world.

Jimi Hendrix's star spangled banner comes on and I tell them about how he was the best guitarist who ever lived, and that sometimes he would play behind his back or with his teeth. B does not believe me and wants proof so for the next 15 minutes I YouTube videos of Jimi Hendrix playing with his teeth.

This is all B talks about for the rest of the afternoon.

I make lunch, hamburgers, chips, brown sugar cooked carrots and we sit down to eat. "these are the best carrots I've ever eaten" "that's because they are mostly sugar and butter"

We then make the easy kind of dirt pudding which is just sprinkling smashed Oreo's in top of pudding and putting gummy worms on top. The boys thought this was the greatest snack on the planet. The girls were less impressed but still liked it.

Then in the afternoon I taught them how to make an apple pie. Nothing fancy, just the crust recipe from my mom and apple slices cinnamon sugar and butter filling basically. By the time it was ready A was just standing at the oven jumping up and down, but I told him we had to save it for dinner. He has never looked at me with more sadness in his eyes.

We hung around for the rest of the afternoon and played like normal. The mom came home and made dinner -and finally it was time for the pie. A sprinted into the kitchen to get it, I sliced it and everyone got a piece.

L took one bite and screamed "oh my god" I was instantly concerned, this is the first thing I've made here, did I not correctly translate from cups to grams? My heart starts pounding.

"THIS IS THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER EATEN IN MY LIFE"

Phew. I took a bite and honestly? It wasn't my best. But every single one f them said it was so good and they begged me to make it again. I even got a text from host dad (who was out of town on business) saying "heard you make an amazing apple pie that I missed, gonna need you to make it again :)" haha deal.

I then brought out the big guns. Sparklers. The boys about had a fit. "it's on fire?! We get to hold it?!" I have the most adorable photos of them having the time of their life on the terrace with these sparklers.

I say goodnight to the kids and sprint to WOS for the 4th of July party where Sio and Morgan has been terrorizing people for the last few hours. Matty took my picture because I was wearing such a patriotic outfit and he offers me a drink. I turn around to see Morgan telling some guy that he was not good looking even though he was American and Sio standing on a barstool requesting "proud to be an American."

We did not make any friends that night.