My Fourth of July

Mine started with me enjoying sleeping in a bit - but then my wife rolled over and asked me if we were going to the pancake breakfast. It was 7:10am and the breakfast started at 8:00am. So, I got up out of bed, showered, and we made it to church on time for the breakfast. My ward has a long standing tradition of a pancake breakfast followed by a flag raising ceremony , by our boy scouts, on the Fourth of July. For those who no longer attend church regularly, we no longer have kitchens in our LDS chapels, we have Serving Areas. And, we no longer cook food, we warm food. So, we warmed the pancake batter.

After the breakfast, we stayed after and helped clean up. Then we went home where I worked out in the yard for a bit - until it was just too dang hot to work outdoors anymore. By that time, my son and his family arrived. So, I played with the twin grandbabies (although, they are nearly 2 years old, so I guess they really aren't babies any more).

About 3:00pm, I fired up the grill outside and started cooking ribs (which I had prepared the night before with a dry rub). While the ribs were cooking, some friends of ours, whom we invited, arrived. So, we finished preparing dinner, enjoyed ribs, plus a lot of other food, and then just sat around, talked, and enjoyed one anothers company.

About 8:00pm, the grandkids were getting tired and cranky, so my son and his wife packed up the kids and headed home to put them to bed. We invited our friends to stay longer and play games.

This is where it got really fun ...

My wife asked me for a Dr. Pepper. So, I went out and was bringing a 12-pack of Dr. Pepper into the house. Unfortunately, I dropped it, the box hit the corner of the table and burst open, and cans of Dr. Pepper came crashing down onto the tile floor. All in all, half the cans in the box burst open and were spraying Dr. Pepper all over the kitchen, all over our guests, and all over me. We all started laughing. The kitchen door was still open, so I was grabbing cans and hurling them outside. Once we got the flow of Dr. Pepper stopped, it came time for cleanup. We all pitched in, still laughing, and did a quick wipe down of the pools of Dr. Pepper on the kitchen floor. After wards, we asked if they still wanted to play a game, and they said Yes. So, we sat down at the kitchen table, on the sticky floor, and played Five Crowns. It was nearly 11:00pm by the time they left. My wife went to bed, but I had to jump in the shower to rinse off because I was still sticky from being soaked in Dr. Pepper.

So, that's how my Fourth of July went. How was yours?