4th of July

Will got to celebrate his first 4th of July as an American citizen over the weekend. We headed south to the neighborhood where I grew up for our annual block party. It has been going on for at least 40 years and has grown from just the families of the people on the street to the families of people who used to live on the street (like me) and lots of kids of the kids who used to live in the street (like my kids).

Unfortunately, just as we were driving into the neighborhood, the rain arrived too. It rained for about 2 hours. Ugh. The rain wasn't about to stop some of the older kids who were dancing in the rain with their umbrellas. I did my best to keep my kids under the cover of the crowded garage. Marcus passed the time by eating. Will passed the time by socializing with all the people he could say hi to. A man had picked a bunch of wild raspberries. Will wasn't quite sure what to think of them at first. Marcus started digging in and then Will decided to give it a try. I am not sure anyone else got any raspberries. My kids had both hands in the bowl and were shoving the raspberries in as fast as they could.

Some of the older kids were applying temporary tattoos to the other kids. Marcus was all about the tattoos and got four of them, one on each of his limbs. Will had one too that he mostly enjoyed picking at.

Once our bellies were full and the rain had subsided, it was time for games. There was an attempt at a game involving water balloons but most of the kids opted to throw the balloons around and try to break them, Marcus included.

They also played a sticker tag game where you run around and try to put stickers on people. Will lost.


We didn't really get to see any fireworks since the kids were in bed by 9:00. I did catch a few out my window. All in all, a pretty nice little holiday.

One of my Guatemalan-American Boys: