Good ol' American burgers and fireworks.

there's a big of a discrepancy over here with our Australian friends as to who really "owns" the barbeque.  Of course, I think it's an old fashioned American way of cooking getting together.  It's an adjective, a noun and a verb!  So, in true American tradition, we had a 4th of July BBQ after church.  Lots of great food, hot dogs, hamburgers (our beef comes from Australia or New Zealand, not Grade A USDA beef, but still tasted great!) and plentiful desserts.  I made a cake that looked similar to this:

 Last year when we watched the fireworks at our friends apartment in Boston, I counted FIVE cakes that looked like this (a popular decorating idea- did you have one at your celebration?).  Our party this year had TWO- both were delicious although I used frozen raspberries and blueberries instead of fresh (it was the sabbath and since I didn't plan ahead, I used what we had, plus way cheaper). The other cake had fresh blueberries and strawberries- YUM!

I found an old box of sparklers that we had in a desk drawer that got moved over here with all of our stuff.  There were 9 kids old enough to do sparklers so I asked the 10 and 12 year old ones to sit it out and let the younger kids  have the fun.  Asher was so excited to be the one to share his sparklers! Who knew one sparkler each would be so much fun?  Unfortunately, Asher let one of the older kids hold his sparkler for him because he was a little nervous, and when he finally decided he wanted to hold one, there was only about 2 seconds left of sparkle.  He was sad, and regretted sharing, but he was also tired and fell asleep on the way home.  Oh well, there's always the 24th of July- we celebrated the US in Dubai, why not the Utah and the pioneers?  I'll have to go to DragonMart (huge shopping center with all things Asian) and find some sparklers (isn't there some connection between the Chinese and fireworks?)