Pop! Pop! Pop!

What's big and round and goes "pop, pop"? Fireworks and popcorn balls, of course.

Alex made us some big popcorn balls, a tradition, for our fireworks viewing. We drove to the church, walked over to the COD football field, and got there just in time to see the show. We were so close that we really had to lay on our backs to see it properly!

Here is our recipe for popcorn balls:

1 cup light corn syrup

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

1 can sweetened condensed milk

3/4 cup butter

a big bowl of popped popcorn

peanuts (optional)

Mix and cook first 5 ingredients to a medium boil. Cook to a soft ball stage. Fold into popcorn and nuts, and form into balls. Cool on waxed paper.

I love fireworks. I still find them inspiring! I love that we celebrate Independence Day this way!

Wet Star-Spangled Breakfast

Every year we have our traditional Signs family breakfast and water fight! The whole idea is to celebrate the birth of this great nation by getting as stuffed and soaked as humanly possible. This year we accomplished that very well.

Grandpa cooks scrambled eggs for an army! Check out that enormous cast iron frying pan!Here's the mouthwatering menu :Giant Belgium waffles with strawberries, blueberries, whipped cream and incredible homemade buttermilk syrup, scrambled eggs, sweet and salty brown sugar bacon, sticky butterscotch monkey bread, tons of fresh fruit with cinnamon dip, milk and juice. My mouth waters just thinking about it! Hey Nathan, where is your fruit? Fruit is healthy, you know, and its really important to always eat healthy.Caleb makes his own version - licorice waffles. Why not? Strawberry licorice -that's almost fruit.Farai, Kylee, and Miclele, my high-kicking friends from tae kwon do, took a break from a hot day of moving to join us for a big meal and a turn on the massage chair. They did NOT want to get back to work after that.Farai insisted he needed to go before the water fight began. Chicken? -um, I mean wise! Ya, that's it, wise. (Note to self: it is never smart to call a black belt 'chicken'). But he couldn't resist taking a few shots on the kids before he left.The troops are restless, rallying for a fight! Grandpa makes the first move at Derek - it is "the shot heard 'round the yard!"

The battle begins - kids (I'll call them the redcoats) versus adults (patriots - for sure).I'm sure glad we have Rambo on our side. Oh, wait, that's Uncle Ossil.Nathan pulls out the big gun - the really, really, really big ginormous gun! Dylan is ready for a fight! Would you want to mess with this guy? He is also a man of action, and guts - lots of guts for shooting right at my camera. I'm gonna kill him!
Done! Don't mess with a mom and her photography equipment, boy.
Alex weapon of choice was a cooler - and his favorite target - Grandma!Here's grandma, looking so patriotic.

Meanwhile, grandpa is engaged in his own battle with Nathan. It seems to be a fair fight.
Nobody messes with Luke and that powerful weapon he has. Oh no, he is pointing straight at me! It's all over.

Afterwards, we all dry off by trying Grandpa's new trikke. It is a lot harder than it looks.

In the end we could say "Mission Accomplished" because we were all as stuffed and soaked as well as exhausted, and happy as possible. Until next year when the battle picks up again, and I will, hopefully, find a gun even bigger than Nathan's.

Deck the Halls with Flags and Buntings

I must admit the I LOVE this country, I LOVE Independence Day, and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE pulling out all my Americana decorations. I sing patriotic songs as I hang buntings over my door and windows, and the gigantic 48 star flag over my fireplace (actually, It completely covers the fireplace!) I love how my little parade flags look, all lined up in my milk glass bud vases. I am crazy about my old 76 flag and my recent find, the fifty flag centerpiece ($2). I got everything at garage sales. I can never pass up an old flag at a yard sale! The best part about decorating for the fourth, it that it takes me about 30minutes, compared to 3 solid days to decorate for Christmas - and to me it is just as magical. Bold stripes and bright stars. Betsy Ross is my kind of gal!

Yin and Yang

I walked out of my room the other day and say my twins curled up together on the sofa. In this picture they look like they are asleep, but they were actually awake, watching TV. I just thought they were so cute snuggling together like this, and I don't think they even realized it since they were so mesmerized by whatever was on TV. They do this kind of thing all the time. When they were tiny newborns, I would put them to sleep on opposite ends of the crib, and when I'd come in later, I'd find them curled up together in the middle of the crib - somehow they always found each other - they still do.
It is such a pleasure having these twins and watching their amazing relationship - it is unlike anything any of my other boys have. They don't really ever fight even though they are as different as can be. They are complete opposites (except for boy/girl and good/bad)- They are like yin and yang - opposites yet intertwined and supporting each other, working in harmony. They rely on each other.

It is amazing to watch. There is just something there - a bond I still don't quite understand. Did that bond happen in the close quarters of the womb? Or did they become twins because they were so close? Did they have such a great bond before this life that their Heavenly Father couldn't bear to separate them even for a few years? Maybe they decided to come together, like "I'll go if you go," or maybe, "I'm not leaving without him." However it happened, I feel so very blessed that they came here to our family and that I get to watch those two interact with each other every single day!

It's a Beautiful Thing!

This is now the prettiest part of our house!

You see, there was this closet guy who owed Dennis some money, so he came and put these lovely cabinets in our garage at cost. Yes. They are lovely. But, as it should be in all things, the true beauty dwells within. Because of the sweltering heat of day, we worked late into the stifling night last night digging through, sorting, and labeling. I wish I had a "before" picture to show you, I really do. The change is dramatic. Oh, Dennis had bins, lots and lots of bins. He just wasn't very judicious about what went into which. There was duct tape with the fertilizer and sand paper with the lug nuts. Light bulbs of every shape and wattage had been stashed away into every nook and cranny of the garage, like a store of squirrel's nuts. The workbench couldn't be called a workbench, since it was so piled with stuff, no work could be performed there. It was a nightmare - a black hole. It got to be so bad that when we needed a certain size screw or piece of hardware - even if we knew we had one - it was easier to just drive to Lowe's and pick up a new one than to dig through that infernal pit of pliers and electrical tape. When Dennis was working on a project and would ask, surgeon style - palm up - for, say, a pipe wrench, I would recoil in horror. I'm not going in that garage to find a pipe wrench. It's not that I'm averse to playing the surgical nurse - I'd love to be of service. But my desire to serve ends at that garage door. I'll gladly climb under that sink where he is, but he can go find his own pipe wrench. Of course the guilt really sets in when he is, say, ten feet up a ladder, holding a heavy ceiling fan with one hand, and asks for a long Phillips. I struggle with that one, I really do. Should I or shouldn't I? Against my better judgement I give in and, trembling, go into the den of Grendel's Mother to find the long Phillips. I dig and dig, and in the end, the best I can do is a short flat. So I run back in the house, grab my shoes and keys and call, "You just hang on, Hon, I'm goin' to Lowe's."

Today is a joyful, monumental day!

Here's to hoping that those Lowe's runs are a thing of the past - for a while anyway.

Newsflash: Indy and his Crew Recover Stolen Treasure

Dateline: June 9, 1938
The renowned archaeologists, Dr. Henry Jones Jr., Professor of Archaeology, Barnett College, Fairfield, N.Y., recently asked Dr. Derek VanBuskirk, and Dr. Dylan VanBuskirk, co-directors of the National Museum of Antiquities, to assemble a team of some of the world's leading archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, Egyptologists, cartographers, and linguists. Their mission was to recover a priceless treasure, the fabled "Fountain of Youth" for whichPonce De Leon spent much of his life searching. Dr. Jones discovered and excavated the treasure on a Caribbean island, sources report, called Bermuda Dunes. Shortly afterward, the treasure disappeared! It was believed that the Nazis, knowing the power that eternal youth could have on their cause, took the treasure.

The team was assembled in an undisclosed location and were briefed on the situation before beginning an around-the-world quest to recover the treasure. They were provided with passports to be stamped at each stop, and hip-sacks for their treasures. Their first stop was the dig site in Bermuda where Dr. Jones first discovered and excavated the treasure. The experts were handed brushes and given an opportunity to sift through the dig site, where they found a large stash of pirates' gold and a few old bones as well as a clue that lead them to their next stop, Dr. Jones' father's library in Venice, Italy.

When they arrived, they found his library in disarray. Research books, notes, maps, and a vast collection of ancient artifacts were strewn everywhere, But Dr. Henry Jones, Sr. was nowhere to be found. Apparently the Nazis had gotten to him first. On closer inspection, the team discovered that before he was taken away, Dr. Jones Sr. was able to hastily write a message on an old scroll in an ancient American language. The linguists in the group used the magnifying glasses they were given to decipher the code - the treasure was to be taken to an ancient temple in Brazil. The team departed immediately.

The experts arrived at an ancient temple, guarded for ages by booby traps and filled with spider webs and bugs. Inside, on a pedestal was a ancient Fertility God made of solid gold. In order to receive the clue, the experts had to fill a burlap sack with sand to the same weight of the gold treasure with which they could replace the sand bag on the pedestal when they took the idol, so as not to disturb the trap underneath. Each team member took a turn filling the sack to the exact weight of the heavy gold idol. Finally, the exact weight was found! But when they got into the inner chamber of the temple, they found that the Nazis had already escaped with the treasure deep into the Amazon rain forests.
Jones' team raced into the rain forest and heard behind them a loud rumble. They were being pursued by a giant bolder. It was rolling through the jungle and everyone had to be quick on their toes or they would be crushed. When the danger had passed, a clue told them that the treasure had been taken to Turkey. They were off again!

Down in a secret chamber under an age-old church in Turkey, the team encountered an old knight, a Knight Templar form the crusades who was miraculously still alive and waiting for their visit. He was the guardian and protector of the fabled "Holy Grail." There were numerous cups of all shapes and styles, many elaborately ornamented and encrusted with jewels. One by one the members of the team had to step forward and select and sip from the cup that was believed to be the holy grail. If they chose wisely they would taste everlasting life. But if they chose poorly they were poisoned and would die on the spot (well, actually, it just didn't taste very good.)
Dr. McKee Thatcher chose wisely. Here's a toast to long life! After his refreshment, the knight handed Dr. Thatcher the clue and the team booked passage to Shanghai, China.

In Shanghai the clue was easy to find in a small silk box, just steps away. Unfortunately it was in the middle of a swarming, churning, slimy snake pit! Each team member had to take their turn through the treacherous snake pit on giant jewel stepping stones, retrieve an artifact stone, and escape before being struck dead by a venomous snake or crushed alive by a giant python hanging overhead! When each was safely out of the snake pit, they had to smash open their rock to find a magic skull ring. The clue sent them to the Nile and the great pyramids of Egypt.

After locating the golden sarcophagus of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen, the team had to spilt into three teams and perform an ancient ritual - they had to mummify themselves in "families" by standing together and passing a roll of mummy gauze around themselves. The first team to use up all their gauze received the clue. They left the underworld and went to Fiji.





In Fiji, they found the natives quite restless. The looming volcano was erupting and spouting fire and hot lava. The team members were captured and required to walk across a long narrow plank just inches above the bubbling molten rock, remove a magic tiki talisman from the heart of the volcano, and return back across the lava while the natives chanted "hoo ha ha, hoo ha ha." Miraculously all the team members made it back alive, though some were a little singed. Satisfied, the natives let them go. They escaped to Peru.

In Peru, a local guide led them to the notorious Forbidden Temple of the Incans, famed to be watched over by the magic ruby eyes of the Mystic Skull. Many treasure hunters have entered the Forbidden Temple, never to be seen again. Indy's gang hoped their fate would be different. The group had to break into three teams and do a rely-style search within the dark corridors and levels of the glowing ancient temple, each looking, in turn, for a different specified artifact - a royal tiki cup, a sacred stone, a jewel heart, a gold idol, and a mummy bone. Fortunately, the Mystic Skull was undisturbed and the team members escaped, unharmed, with their artifacts.

The search for the treasure finally ended at a massive warehouse known as Area 57 where it was packed in a large wooden crate hidden among a sea of similar wooden crates. Using their skill and knowledge, Dr. Jones and his team located it and hoisted it above them where they worked together to break it open with a big stick. Out tumbled the treasure - the "Fountain of Youth" - candy! And lots of it! The team of renowned professors, archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists and the like dove for the candy and upon eating it suddenly reverted to children again. Truly this was the fountain of youth!!!

Famished from their travels, the children were taken to one last stop - India - where they feasted on an array of local delicacies - snake eggs, crunchy beetles, fried green snakes, worms in blood sauce, sugared rats, and of course, chilled monkey brains. Delicious! It was the meal they deserved after all their adventures and hair-raising experiences around the world.









In the end, the treasure, what was left of it, was returned to National Museum of Antiquities, thanks to Dr. Indian Jones, his colleagues, Drs. Derek and Dylan VanBuskirk, and the team they assembled. Good work, gentlemen, and Happy Birthday!!!