Independence Day 2015

We had a fairly low-key Independence Day this year. We forgot that our town has some celebrations Friday night (oops) and the girls weren't too keen on waking up early for the parade, so we slept in, took care of some errands, cleaned up, and enjoyed the fireworks from the comfort of our street corner.

The girls enjoyed getting dressed up for the holiday! Well, except for Azucena, who we realized doesn't own a dress or top that is expressly made for patriotic purposes. So the poor thing had to wear pants on a hot summer day!

 

A friend posted directions for making a "Firework cake" and I tried it out for dessert. Bundt cakes are NOT EASY. But it didn't look too bad in the end and it wasn't dry, so there you go. :D

 We got the girls dressed up in their swimsuits so we could wash our van. They LOVED helping out and cooling off with the hose.

 (Azucena hates loud noises. Headphones were TOTALLY WORTH IT.)

After fireworks, we had sparklers to light up. We used the Home Depot bucket filled with water to douse the used ones. We had two kinds of sparklers for the girls: regular length (about a foot) and giant ones (as seen in the picture). Well, we were just finishing up with the last of our giant sparklers, and Adelaide put her stick in the bucket. Since it's so long, Azucena thought that because it was sticking out it needed to be adjusted to go in all the way. So, the poor thing reached in to grab it and ended up burning her hand. We had a very, very long night, cooling off moist paper towels, putting burn cream on her hand, and general snuggling and comforting her. But since it took four years for us to have a firework accident and it wasn't too bad, I'm still calling today a success. Azucena is a trooper, and she still talks fondly of everything else we did today.

Here it is, kids. The story, better than I could have ever told it. Enjoy.

Once upon a time . . .

Well, as some of you may know, I had a rather exciting weekend. One filled with damsels in distress, knights in shining armor, a broken dragon, distress calls for "Batman" and a few other fun elements.

But I'm still most excited that my camera can take pictures in sepia. I'ma have to steal Emily's lappy to upload pictures to this blog.

And maybe, if you're nice, I'll even let you know if folks lived happily ever after. ;)

It's a good thing we keep Band-aids around . . . except we don't . . .

I find it mildly horrible that I can jack up my finger so badly just by reaching my hand into a cubby hole to get the mail.

Ick.

And then, this one time, at 7 in the morning. . .

Yesterday morning, my phone (alarm) fell between the two beds. When the alarm went off, I got out of bed, since I couldn't actually reach my phone (my bed is about three feet off the ground) and tried to reach for it through some cinder blocks. Unfortunately, it was dark, I was tired and without glasses, and I proceeded to ram my face into the metal bed frame.

The picture doesn't really do justice to the tenderness my face feels, considering I wear glasses. Also, there is a fine red line where my cheek met with the edge of the frame. And my eyes, which already had a blue-ish hue to them, now have one blue-ishly hued circle while the other is slowly turning a pond-green.

Huzzah.

Idiocy is its own reward.

For example, I have always been known as an over-exuberant kind of person. Normally this is a good thing: I have plenty of energy to run around with students/nieces/nephews, or be pick up the pace at a dance party. However, last night, I found a dark side to my peppiness. Discovering that I was clever enough to link an actor to two different medias, I did a celebratory dance which involved jumping up and down. On the edge of a sidewalk (that part was unintentional). Of course, coming down I totally rolled my ankle (or something) and lay on the sidewalk with two of my roommates looking on. The three of us laughed (because we all know I'm ridiculous) and I was finally able to hobble upstairs to my apartment.

Lesson learned: roll ankle when I'm already up the three flights of stairs so it doesn't take freakin' forever to get home.