HOW WHITE TRASH RELAXED FOLK CELEBRATE INDEPENDENCE DAY:

We have invited friends over for a cook out tomorrow, to celebrate our nation’s Independence Day holiday. The kids and I already celebrated an early 4th of July in Oklahoma City, complete with grilling, swimming, and fireworks-which-were-legal-because-my-sister-lives-in-the-boondocks. So for us, tomorrow is really just an excuse to hang out with friends and eat. Which pretty much sums up the philosophy of my life.

But I *am* looking forward to it, and hope each person has a nice time. To prove to you what great lengths Blaine and I have gone, as hosts, in an attempt to make the day as nice as possible for everyone, I give you the following examples of our host-ly behavior:

1. I bought sturdy PLASTIC plates this time, instead of those cheap paper ones, so no-one’s plate should fall apart right in the middle of their first helping of pork n beans.

2. I bought hamburgers for the adults, and hot dogs for the kids. But then I realized I bought more wieners than I did buns. So I figured we can wrap the extra wieners in white bread, which is really classy. Of course, so is saying “wiener”, which I’m doing a lot in this post, because that word makes me giggle like a ten year old.

3. We actually hosed down the patio furniture, for the first time since we bought it.

4. Picked up dog poop out of the backyard.

And the most impressive thing of all:

5. Didn’t want anyone disturbed by the large number of flies that keep showing up in the house (from the kids leaving the doors open all the time) So we gave each kid a fly-swatter and told them to get busy. In a contest. To see who could kill the most flies. To make it more interesting, Blaine gave each kid a Ziploc baggie to collect them in and see who killed the most. And if that’s not bad enough, offered them twenty-five cents for each carcass. And, it kept them busy for fifteen minutes! If that doesn't just scream "High Quality Entertainment", I don't know what does. Maybe a six-pack and a bug zapper?

Hope you have a wonderful celebration, as well. Please take a moment tomorrow to stop and say a silent (or not so silent) prayer of gratitude for the men and women who are serving, and have served, our country. Especially those deployed right now, who aren’t getting to eat hot dog wieners wrapped in white bread with their families.

Kristie

PS. Robin from GA, Cindy from CA, and Mr. Bruce and Ms. Sandy, thank you so much for your donations to Caringbridge! We received the notices and want you to know we appreciate it.

PSS. Denise from GA and Amy from FL -- thanks for putting your “Getting to Know Me” information in the guestbook! Personally, I love the ideas for good books and movies, so anytime you have a suggestion, pass it on! Denise, expect a private e-mail from me soon, about your trip!

PPSS. For the record, I know without a doubt that the mother of the Sleepover Kids doesn’t read Kendrie’s journal, which is the only reason I wrote that update for everyone to read. There have been times I’ve censored myself on this site with regard to content (and language --- Goodness knows I censor this trucker mouth of mine in every update!) because I knew friends, both local and long-distance, would know what or who I was talking about. But that mom barely knows us (which is why I was surprised she would even let her kids stay here overnight) and to my knowledge, she doesn’t even know Kendrie had cancer. So I felt pretty safe blabbing about how ill-behaved her kids were. And if you’ve followed this site at all, you KNOW my kids are ill-behaved most of the time, so that was just par for the course, no big news flash there.