Dia de Indepedencia

In Chile what that means is eating a million empanadas, dance the queca, and then setting the city on fire. Fireworks too, but actually setting the city on fire is a pretty big part of it. Up here what that means is that we go to the beach all day long, barbeque, and play whiffleball.

For a couple of us, this year's 4th of July also featured a triathlon that was put on by the Irvine Stake. Greg was the only one in attendance for the rest of the day's festivities to complete the whole thing by his lonesome, but Aaron and I did form a relay team to also compete in the event. The triathlon consisted of a 400m swim, 10 mile bike ride, and 3 mile run. I'm a little upset that I didn't get any pictures of that, but I'm happy to note that our relay team posted the best time of any of the relay teams. It was a lot of fun and next year I'll probably get competitive and not only do it on my own, but try and win the whole thing. I'm kind of dumb like that. Not even sure that I'm really capable of that. Anyway, that just meant that our day started at about 6 am. As for the rest of the day...

This year didn't feature any drunk guy takedowns, and not even any reenactments. I'm a little bit surprised and disappointed by that actually, but it was still pretty awesome, nonetheless. Our crowd for the 4th didn't feature as many of the regulars. We didn't have any kiddies, which in one sense is nice since Ryan wasn't around to take my camera and throw it in the ocean (it was in its case when that happened last year, luckily), but is a big bummer because they can just be so fun to have around. I did miss Doug and Kristen, and Mike and Suzie a lot. I hope that for future reference we can all come to an understanding that the 4th has pretty much become Christmas in July. Which actually works out quite well since it is almost exactly a half year later.

Anybody else for creating a new tradition of gift exchanging for the newly minted summertime Christmas? It should be like a bathing suit exchange, or a t-shirt exchange, just something simple. I think that would actually be kind of fun. Like we could do that on July 1st...just throwing that out there.

Seriously though, it could involve a dinner maybe the Sunday before the holiday, exchange names. It wouldn't ever have to cost more than $20. Think about it...This year we adopted some new games including bocce ball and ladder ball (aka ladder golf, blongo ball, Polish horseshoes, or whatever other name is out there for it), as well as some old favorites, namely, smashball and whiffleball. I didn't get to play any catch, and I didn't jump in on the game of scum, but I do kind of like that scum has been featured two years in a row. Yes, Karen, we play cards on the beach. I think you made that same comment last year, but I've seen you fools at the beach and I don't think you guys pack in a whole week as much as we do in one day. How about them apples? We will outfun you chumps any day of the week.

We didn't watch the fireworks from the beach since that part of Newport doesn't have a view of any shows nearby. I wouldn't mind going to a different beach next year that is a little bit more family oriented, that would also feature the fireworks. It does seem like we are getting a little bit more savvy as to how to manuever all of the food, drop off cars, and make the situation pretty manageable overall.

I think more than anything this year I just felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the associations that I have with these people. There were a lot of people who went to great lengths to prepare food items, bring stuff down, and just make sure that everyone who was with us could have a good time. I really loved that we had a bunch of people show up unexpectedly and that not only were we able to accomodate them dropping by, but that nobody seemed put out by the fact that these people showed up out of nowhere and didn't have anything of their own to contribute. For those who poppped in, I kind of felt like our group served as an oasis for some of them, even if it was only to steal some of the shade that our canopy and umbrellas provided. They seemed to love Caitlin's corn and bean salsa recipe. I don't know what it was, but I just felt so grateful to be with people who go out of their way to make sure others feel welcome. I'm lucky to know you, and I love you all. A big thank you to everyone who came out, and even bigger thank you to everyone who helped out with all the food and game preparations.