Red, White and Blue... stripes, but no stars.

It's always an interesting experience to celebrate America's day of independence in a different country. This happens to be my 3rd 4th of July in 23 years out of the country. The first was when I was 10 years old on vacation with my family in Europe and consisted of our crazy drunken Scottish tour guide lighting off fireworks (with beer and cigarette in hand) somewhere in France. The second occured 2 years ago during my internship with Youth for Christ in La Paz, Bolivia (can't currently remember how we celebrated).

Here at EMI Costa Rica, we did not take the 4th off as a holiday, but we did however clock out 2 hours early for some fun and patriotic activities! We headed over to my boss Tom's house around 3pm. His 3 young kids had a whole afternoon of events planned. We started things off with an indoor obstacle course (it was pouring outside), then moved on to the revoluntionary war trivia contest, followed by a flag design contest. We then ate yummy grilled hot dogs, german potato salad (so good!), baked beans, and salad! After filling our plates with patriotic cake, we sat down to watch 'Facing the Giants' (a good football movie produced by a church in Georgia).

My host family picked me up from the 4th of July celebration to head to the next party. It just so happens that my host family brother turned 3 years old on the American independence day! We sat down together for dinner (which I skipped out on), then sang 'feliz cumpleanos' and cut up the cake that Lucy brought home (which I did not skip out on). A little later we broke out the 'funfetti' cupcakes which I had baked the night before for Walnercito (which I partook in as well, making it my 3rd type of cake for the night!). Lucy and Walner bought all sorts of new toys for Walnercito at the American toy store! The coolest (but unfortunately not the best for a 3 year old) was a 700-piece Lego set with directions to construct some awesome construction site equipment - a little office building, a dump truck, and an excavator. Chris and I spent about 2 hours assembling the new Lego toys (by choice... fun, frustrating, and addicting), while doing our best to fight off Walnercito and his urges to grab a hand-full of tiny pieces and half-assembled trucks and soliciting the help of the adults when necessary.

A fun 4th filled with good friends and 'family'. It would have been great to spend the holiday with my very loved and missed friends and family back home, but this was a nice substitute, despite the severe lack of pyrotechnics! Cheers.