We Represented

Wheee! Go, America, go!

Oh, you know we celebrated our Independence. We celebrated the heck out of it, y'all. Our Fourth of July Party (on July 9th, but shhh) was a success! I think. We had fun, at least! But here's a note if you ever pastor a church and then host a party for 40 people on a Saturday night. You will not go to bed until the wee hours of Sunday morning, and then you will need to be awake again in the slightly less wee hours of Sunday morning. Ya know--cause church and stuff.

But we had a great time! As I said before, the group of friends we've gotten to know from the kids' school, as well as a few other friends we invited, is quite international, and I loved having such a mixed group of folks over. It was fun to serve up a little slice of Americana.

Once the party started I got busy and didn't actually get any pictures. I know! But here's a few I took beforehand...

Our hallway, all festooned. Yes, that's the Texas flag! A friend of ours works for a printing company and showed up the day of the party with loads of American flag signs and banners that he'd printed out for us. So sweet.

And...the obligatory flag cake! Cream cheese icing...yuummmm. I'd never made one before, would you believe. The one I was copying had blueberries in the upper corner, for the stars. But blueberries were like 10 bucks for a tiny little amount. So I had to improvise. My patriotism has its limits.

I printed out lots of little quotes and "fun facts" about America and posted them all over the house for people to read. The kids helped decorate them, too. Here's a few:


This one was a crowd favorite:




And I couldn't resist this one. Classic:


Oh, W. As we say in the South, bless his heart. Anyway, we had a great time! The kids ran riot all over the house, and Jason manned the BBQ and turned out some of the best burgers I've had in awhile! And in spite of a chilly winter's night, at least half of the adults sat outside all evening, around a nice fire. So we got to have our backyard barbecue after all!

The only downside was that the crowd pressured me into singing the national anthem when we cut the cake. By "pressured", I mean they suggested it and I was like, "Okay!" But it wasn't my best performance. There's a reason all those pop stars mess up The Star Spangled Banner at the Super Bowl--that is not an easy song! Someone did take photos of that moment, but I'm hoping they will remain locked away forever. I feel that my talents would've been best displayed in a lower key, but there's always next year!

Hahaha. Ha.