Happy 'Splosion day!

We had a 4th of July Party last night. Katherine and Peter made grillables after we went to Evan's to play some badminton in the rain. I made some rhubarb crisp and then we played some Risk which was interesting due to the higher levels of intoxication of some of the conquering world powers. There were deals struck, treaties broken and much wheeling and dealing that didn't make any sense. Then we watched Mel Gibson's The Patriot because there obviously wouldn't be any United States today if there wasn't the one-man killing machine that Gibson becomes when he watches one of his SEVEN kids get shot by those naughty red-coats.

Then Jessie and Steve made it over just before we went to watch the fireworks next to the Old Brewery in Lacey. Katherine, Peter and I rode our bikes down and Joel, Jessie, Paul, Steve and Evan took the car because of a bike shortage. The fireworks were great and it stopped raining in time to be a warm, pretty night. We managed to bike down there AND back in about four times faster than everyone who drove and the streets were really quiet so it was a much nicer way to go.

We all wound up back at the house, watched a little bit of Jim Gaffigan's full length Beyond the Pale that Evan managed to find for us and then blew up a few of our own fireworks (thanks Evan!).

Roman Candles
And all of these are pretty sparkly, I have no idea what their names were.


From over Joel's shoulder.

Risk! The Game of Champions...

Risk is aptly named for the mad-strategy skills that are necessary to win. Unfortunately, I don’t really possess these skills. Instead I have mad-persistance skills. I insist on taking over some such country that I set my sights on, no matter how well guarded it is by the little metal people that I’m always switching out for horses or canons. This time, I really wanted Quebec. Not because it’s French, but because there was a ridiculous number of little red people stationed there. That and I really wanted North America so that I could get those extra armies at the beginning of my turn. Anywho, Dharyll also wanted to keep North America. Dharyll, I might add, has mad skills at the whole “dice-rolling” thing, whereas I managed to roll straight ones, three times in a row. Anyway, here are some shots from the last epic Risk game we played this weekend.

This is me winning... and by winning I mean managing to hold out for five extra dice-rolls than I expected. Go Western United States!

Good game Dharyll, next time I'll win.

On a completely unrelated note, but also semi-related, I'm not allowed to touch knives. I cut myself just about every time I even THINK about knives. Today, however, Dharyll was giving me flac about it. I totally managed to take out, open and then close that silly knife he has in his pocket without cutting myself. Which was great, because it furthered my cause that I should be allowed to handle sharp objects. But, the kicker is that as soon as Dharyll left I went to cut a piece of bread from that tasty cinnamon bread I baked this weekend and completely sliced open my finger. So much for fine motor skills, or planning ahead as far as how to hold the bread while cutting. Ah well, a little more protein, a little more color and some extra ingredients for those pieces of bread I managed to cut off before my little slip.