July the 5th

Monday the 5th was hot,hot,hot. We had the boys and their respective wives, Grandma, and our friend Blake over for a cookout. {Technically it was a cook-in because the grill was broken, but that's just a small detail.}

The two pictures below are my attempt at making up for not taking a picture of Andrew and Debbie together. I hardly think two side-by-side picture would qualify as a "picture of them" to two newly-weds, but I did the best I could.

Andrew really is a fashion icon, don't you think?

The only way to truly beat the heat was to walk across the yard to our uncle's pool. After all, somebody has to use it. The most popular method of entry was jumping/flipping/belly-flopping from the trampoline right next to the pool into the water. I've done this before, but since I value my life{also my dignity}I went in the way normal people do. And I was mocked for it. Once the mockery ended, we started a game of Sharks and Fishes. It's like Marco Polo in that one person closes their eyes and tries to tag another person. Once they're tagged, they also become a shark and so on and so forth. Eventually, there is only one poor, unfortunate soul who hasn't been tagged being chased by six maniacs. I should know...it happened to me and I barely made it out alive. It really is a delightful game. :-)

Erika the Shark makes her way towards the three little fishies who she now shares a last name with. Aaron seems to be the only one with any chance of survival.

You know things are getting serious when the purple noodle comes out.

Daniel came up with a "sweep the pool" plan he tried teaching to his fellow sharks while they all have their eyes closed.

Daniel: "Ok, everybody. Take the hand of the person to the left of you."

*everyone starts waving their arms everywhere*

Erika: "That's my face you just hit!"

Blake: "Who keeps hitting me? I'm trying to find your hand! Wait. What's this?"

Erika: "That's my bathing suit!"

Erika: "I have two hands now."

Blake: "Somebody's holding both my hands!"

*Blake and Erika do more maneuvering and finally, everyone is connected*

Daniel: "Ok, ok everybody. Now that we're holding onto each other, the person all the way to the left is going to hold onto the side of the pool and we'll all move forward in an orderly fashion."

*more chaos ensues as none of the three actually knows who's all the way to the left*

It was so funny to watch. What made it even funnier was Daniel trying to do the whole thing over each time a new shark was tagged!

Andrew and Aaron. Aaron and Andrew. Brothers and former room-mates.

I hardly think these two need an introduction.

Monday was one of those days{actually the whole week was one of those weeks}. I was so excited to be making a cake like this and everything was going wrong. I woke up too late, there were bugs in the sugar, we didn't have milk, the batter was really lumpy, and on and on. I was sooo close to just giving up but I didn't want to waste the ingredients and batter I already had. I decided to cut out the layer of stars and just make it a red, white, and blue cake. It was much simpler that way even if it wasn't quite as fancy. After the morning I had, I wasn't going to attempt decorating the top much, so I used a flag and some of Aaron's Army men to re-create the famous Iwa Jima picture. It wasn't perfect, but I ended up being happy with the results!

This Independence Day celebration was given to us courtesy of the greatest country in the world. This flag is its trademark.