Independence Day 2014

I'll do a separate post about life lately and how we are doing getting settled back in and unpacked next.  But I wanted to go ahead and share how we spent the holiday from our home in Camotan, Guatemala.  Normally I like to "go all out" for holidays with themed food and lots of festive decorations.  Having just arrived home the day before I didn't have it in me to do much this year. Getting our house cleaned and in order, our bags unpacked, and our stuff stored away has been an overwhelmingly tiring process.  But, in spite of that, I still made sure we took family pictures and ate something American.  Here is how we spent the day.

If you'll remember back Cruz has always been an early riser.  In the States he had started sleeping until 7/ 7:30.  We were loving it!  But, since returning to Guatemala, he has gone right back to his old ways and has been up around 5:30 a.m. every morning.  Oh, that's hard on these old bodies, ha.  So, we got our 4th of July started off bright and early that morning.  We were up, dressed, fed, kitchen cleaned, pictures taken, and a load of clothes on the line before 7:30 a.m.  We hit the floor running!

 I am crazy about taking family photos on holidays.  I love having them and looking back at years past.  I just know I'll treasure these in years to come.  This is our 2014 4th of July family photo-

Happy Independence Day, y'all!

and here we are back in 2012

It's hard to remember the boys that little!

 and July 4, 2013 

I also enjoy making the boys some type of festive hat to wear on holidays.  I know my time is about to run out on this tradition because they will soon protest it so I'll do it as long as I can.  I knew I wouldn't have time this year to make anything so instead I picked up some holiday headbands while in the States for them to wear.  I thought they were cute (David not so much).  I took their picture wearing them and then realized they looked more like ponytails.  Oh well, I tried.

my boys being good sports for their mama

We spent the whole morning working around the house.  We ate banana pancakes for breakfast and turkey sandwiches for lunch.  After long afternoon naps we put on our swimwear and walked over to our landlord's house for an afternoon swim.  It's been pretty hot around here so it felt great to cool off and just chill for a bit.  The boys loved it. 

 Now that the boys are bigger I'm sure we'll be spending a lot of afternoons at our landlord's pool.

We came home and grilled hamburgers for supper.  The only decorations I used were red plates and these flag napkins I picked up in the States-

and I hung this "Happy 4th of July" banner over the table

our family eating supper on the 4th of July 2014

For dessert I served these red jello jiggler stars. 

There was no watermelon, no homemade ice cream, and no fireworks but in spite of that we still had a fun, simple day.  Just being together made it nice.