Happy Birthday, America!

Happy Fourth of July to everyone! Celebrating the 4th overseas can be fun, as the embassy always has a big event and sometimes being away makes one really appreciate how wonderful America is.

Friday night Nicholas stayed home with Alicia so David and Christy could attend the embassy's Independence Day celebration at the Hilton. It was pretty low-key as far as embassy 4th of July's go, but the Ambassador gave a nice toast (that David helped write) and the food was delicious. David had to leave a few minutes early to head out to the airport to pick up a new family that we are sponsoring.

Saturday we helped them get settled by heading to PriceMart (Trinidad's version of Costco), Movie Town, Hi-Lo (the grocery store) and Westmall. After a busy day of shopping we went out to Ruby Tuesdays to relax.

Sunday was a bit drizzly but we did make it over to the Marine House for a nice BBQ. Christy really missed having fireworks (in Berlin the embassy put on a show) but David found the Macy's firework display in New York on TV so at least we got to watch that.

Monday was the best kind of day--we love celebrating American holidays when it's not a local holiday. We headed to Maracas Bay with a number of other embassy families to enjoy the beach. Our new family must have thought we were crazy driving towards the beach in the pouring down rain, but sure enough by the time we got there the clouds were breaking and we had a really nice day. Monday night we headed to a neighbor's house to help celebrate their kid's birthday, and now we are ready for bed and another busy week at work.

Nicholas hanging with daddy before we had to leave to go to the reception

cheesecake lollipops dipped in chocolate.... the desserts were fabulous.

Ambassador Welters giving her toast

the marines presenting the colors
Aren't we cute in our 4th of July outfits?

at the beach-- as long as Nicholas had his pacifier in his mouth, the sand did not go in.... this was the first time we really let Nicholas play in the sand and he loved it!

That's all folks--another busy week at work ahead, time to sleep!