Welcoming New Friends To The Fourth Of July

​  The tale of a Central American extended family and their connection to an American family through a shared child. 

 "Tropical Depression" by Patti Liszkay
 Available on Amazon:   https://www.amzn.com/1685131832

​WELCOMING NEW FRIENDS TO THE FOURTH OF JULY

      Along with many of the rest of the 326.7 million folks living beneath the beautiful spacious skies of this beautiful land of ours, my family celebrated the 4th of July with a cookout; that is to say, a cookout/eat in, as dictated by the 87-degree temperature with junglesque humidity that befell Columbus, Ohio for the holiday.
​     Our daughter Theresa invited her friend Mayren, who is from Mexico, and Mayren's friend Evelyn, also from Mexico, who was here in Columbus visiting Mayren for a week, 

... to our house so that they could experience a traditional American 4th of July.
      Mayren and Evelyn offered to come over early in the day and help with the preparations, which offer I gladly accepted, and I suggested they come over first for an all-American lunch of cold cut sandwiches and potato chips, which offer they gladly accepted. 

      Though Evelyn spoke only a few words of English, between my Spanish, everyone else's friendly efforts at communication, and Mayren as our translator as needed, we all managed to break through the language barrier. 
​        After lunch the first job I assigned the girls was decorating a batch of mini-cupcakes with vanilla icing and colored sprinkles.

      I asked them to decorate half the cupcakes in red, white, and blue for the American flag,

...and the other half green, white and red for the Mexican flag, 

...in honor of Meyren and Evelyn as our guests today.

     Evelyn and Mayren came up with the idea of trying to make a little American flag with the sprinkles (or chispitas ​in Spanish).

     They made a few little flag cupcakes, which I thought turned out pretty well considering the steadiness of hand required for the design.

     We then spent the rest of the afternoon on fixing food,

...and on the other preparations,

...including the grilling of the  brats, burgers, and veggie burgers for the vegetarians who would be among the guests.
      At 5pm the guests began arriving, 

...and shortly thereafter the table was set, the meats and non-meats grilled, 

...​and our 4th of July feasting began,

...all around the house.

      It was just the same kind of get-together of family and friends being celebrated that day          from sea-to-shining sea,

...celebrating our country, and, hopefully, our friendships with each other and with our neighbors around the world,

...which is really what makes any country great.     
    Happy 6th of July, Everyone.