Quick 4th of July Recap

Boy, it's been nearly 3 weeks since I last posted...

Well, I had to say that last Saturday was a lot of fun. Maybe we didn't have the now-legendary "Quaker Oatmeal Bomb", or maybe THREE-HUNDRED-EIGHTY-EIGHT sparklers taped together lit off at once, but no biggie.

It all started in the morning with a special church activity. The first part of it was the "Freedom Walk", a big walk from somewhere a ways back from our church to... our church. We all slept in (except Dad) late, so we missed it. Kind of a bummer, since I wanted to go, but that slight disappointment was cleared up with the second part of the activity: breakfast.

We had 3 wards together for the french toast extravaganza, and I got to see some of my friends from seminary last year (most of the students in my seminary class weren't in my ward), and even got to help flip some of the french toast sitting on the grill!

One thing, though: I was sitting with a friend from seminary, and got up to go say hi to someone else, and when I returned, my plate was gone. Apparently her parents thought I was done and dumped it. I didn't really stuff my face at this breakfast but oh well...

Afterwards, we went up to my Aunt Linda's for the day. My cousin Nathan had returned home either that day or the day before (I can't remember), and it was good to see him again. Me, my other cousin Kevin, Nathan, and Tyler went out on the trampoline and did a bunch of crazy stuff. I managed to even jump right off the trampoline onto the ground! (yes, I did it on purpose; no, I didn't get hurt, even with bare feet). For lunch, we had burgers, chicken burgers, and garden burgers (I had chicken), and shortly after that we went outside to blow up some cans (as previously mentioned on my Dad's blog, and in last week's "Rodney and Jim" strip)!

After Nathan showed me pictures from his mission (he was in Germany), and I showed him my book "The Adventures of Secret Agent Stick" on Facebook, we went to the main event: Uncle Richard's.

It's pretty much become a family tradition to celebrate the 4th at Uncle Richard's cabin at Mason Lake, but due to reasons I'm choosing not to elaborate here, we were doing it at his "normal house" in Normandy Park, apparently the only place where it's legal to light off real fireworks (sorry, blowing up cans doesn't count...).

We had a bunch of barbecued stuff for dinner: ribs, coconut chicken, etc., and an entire cooler of soda. For a while, people were playing badminton and some other game where you toss two balls connected by a rope onto a rack of three poles, and tried to score points for doing so. Then, when it FINALLY got dark, we got to the fun...

We had the typical roman candles, one-shot mortars, quick-firecrackers (these insane firecrackers that explode a second after lit, and the braver boys were lighting them in their hands and throwing them as fast as possible), and so on. But among the big "boxes" of mortars, there was a BIG one that was called "BRUNO" (yes, I know it's ironic that there's a Sacha Baron Cohen film of the same name coming out in a couple of days) that would be lit off last. For the whole night we were all speaking in fake German/Russian accents talking about "BBBBBBRRRUNO!".

As I didn't want to go the whole 4th of July without lighting anything, I decided I would take the opportunity with a one-shot. Considering it was being done with a cigarette lighter, I had to get in close, which didn't end well: when the fuse sparked as I lit it, it hit my thumb, which pretty much hurt for the rest of the night. Ouuuuuuuuuuuuch...

In the middle of the big display, we were treated to some homemade ice cream. We got Vanilla flavor, we got Chocolate flavor, we got... ROSE FLAVOR?

Yep, Uncle Richard actually made rose-flavored ice cream. Now, for someone who likes pistachio ice cream, this isn't as crazy to me as it may sound to you, but I was a little apprehensive. But I tried some anyway...

Actually, it wasn't bad. If you've ever had musk candy (found primarily in Australia, where one of my Dad's friends lives), it sorta tasted like that. Oh, and for the record, I like musk candy too, even though almost anyone else in family who's tried it claimed it tasted like perfume, which is not far off from the truth, but... oops, gotta get back on subject.

We finally lit off "BRUNO", and after waiting with bated breath, we were treated to some of the most awesome fireworks ever. Each mortar exploded into at least 5 smaller fireballs, which all fizzled after a few seconds. Now those were something to look at!

Finally, we got in the car, and even though it was like 10-something at night, I wasn't the least bit tired. We had to drop off Tyler at his mom's on our way home, so we did, but we got there earlier than we said we would, so we had to wait. I had my head on the window during most of the drive, which made me a LOT more tired. I planned on taking a shower that night, but by the time we got home, I was so incredibly tired I could hardly think, so... no shower.

That was the 4th of July for me, and I'm glad I enjoyed it.

Happy Birthday, America!!! Andrew Brinkerhoff, OUT!