Photo by Stuck in Customs

To the little kid who always thought the fireworks were in honor of him, I raise my glass.  Have a good one, bro.  Wish I could be with you to celebrate.

I’ve always loved Independence Day, and it’s more bittersweet when I’m overseas for it.  We’ll be joining other expats for a picnic along the water, but not before a family day at the water park.  I guess that’s one thing to be grateful for being overseas today - no holiday crowds.

Still, I miss the whole hoopla in the States - the barbecue, the beer, the hanging out with friends, the fireworks, the laidbackness of it all.

So have fun on behalf of me, remember those of us overseas so a whole slew of reasons, and don’t get sunburned.

Oh, and if you have time to kill, check out the photos at Stuck in Customs, who took the photo of Town Lake above.  Amazing stuff.

In case you feel like you just can’t get enough of me - today you can find me at:

• Blissfully Domestic, where I am now blogging weekly about - well, blogging,

• Biblical Womanhood, where I have a guest post today about moms avoiding burnout,

• and Wishpot, where I am a new “Mom Expert.” Do not laugh. I hear you - yeah you, over there. Stop.

Wishpot is actually really cool. It’s basically an online gift registry for the entire internet. You know about Amazon’s wish lists - it’s the same thing, except you can pull in anything from the world wide web and put it on a list. If I were getting married or pregnant, I would so be doing a registry this way.

Which reminds me - you’ll see a baby registry on my page, but don’t start spreading rumors - they asked each of the “mom experts” to create a registry based on their particular niche.

So there you go.

At breakfast today…

• CHICKPEA: Mom, can you pass the sausage?
• ME: Sure.  (I pass the sausage)
• CHICKPEA: Good girl!  That was great obeying.  Thank you for the kind response.

But at least she’s cute:

On the toilet earlier, singing…

CHICKPEA: “Deep in the Hundred Acre Wood, where Christmas Robin prays.  A donkey named Eeyore is his friend, and Little Kanga and Big Roo [her idea of irony].  There’s Rabbit, and Piglet, and there’s Owl, but both y’all Winnie a Pooh.  Winnie a Pooh, Winnie a Pooh, tubby tubby tubby all stuffed with fluff.  He’s Winnie a Pooh, Winnie a Pooh, silly silly silly old bear.”

• hanging out with good friends from America
• going to the neighborhood waterpark and listening to their family-friendly, LOUD, swear word-laden rap
• picnics along the ocean
• picnics along the highway
• building forts in the living room
• going to the farmer’s market, once just the mommies, and again with the older girls
• playing Apples to Apples
• playing Hoopla
• playing Trivial Pursuit
• random art projects
• watching Ice Age waaay too many times
• laughing
• playing at five playgrounds (at least - what I could count, anyway)
• looking at ladybugs
• collecting rocks along the beach
• playing in the kiddie pool on our balcony
• watching the Euro 2008 (congrats to Wes & Megan!). We didn’t do too badly, either.
• doing laundry, washing dishes, and sweeping floors together
• browsing shops in the old city market
• walking to the bus stop in 108 degree weather with four children under 3
• just vegging

Thanks, friends, for coming to see us. We are so thankful for the fun and the memories, and we appreciate the “forced” relaxation! Now we’re even more ready to go back to the States this holiday season. See you soon!

We have been beyond exorbitantly and insanely overwhelmingly busy. The busiest we’ve ever been since we moved here, that’s for sure. We knew this time period was coming since around January. May and June were going to be go go go, nonstop house guests and things to do, without a moment to spare. It has lived up to its expectations. It has kicked our butt, actually. We need a break.

They’re good problems, really, because all the house guests were new friends moving near us. Our home has been jokingly dubbed the [insert our last name] Bed & Breakfast, so often do we have company. Our neighbors must wonder what in the world we’re up to. Our doorman pretty much thinks we just throw one party after another.

The kiddos are doing well. Garbanzo is almost SIX months old, which I simply canNOT believe. He had his first taste of rice cereal yesterday, and he wasn’t too sure about it. Tonight, though, he gobbled it up and went for seconds. I’m hoping this will help him start sleeping through the night. His sister was a champion 12-hour-in-a-row sleeper by 3 months old. He still isn’t making it past six hours.

Chickpea continues to be a stellar big sis. She’s so good at making him laugh, it cracks us up. She can literally say “hello” to him, and he laughs until he hiccups. It’s quite the marvel to stand back and watch your two offspring entertain each other. Otherworldly, really.

Last weekend we made a little trip up to a nearby ginormous city, and it was fun but exhausting. The highlight was running into a couple that Kabob met in Albania almost 10 years ago! He went there to work for them for a few weeks, and it was because of that trip that he traveled to Kosovo the year after that, and it was in Kosovo that we met. So in a roundabout way, this couple was instrumental in us meeting (even though I had never personally met them). It was wild that in a megacity of almost 16 million people, we happened to walk by a sidewalk cafe where they were dining outside. And their hotel was around the corner from ours. Small world.

So as life slows down here a little bit, we’re hoping to soak in some good family time. We’ve got a little vacation in the works around mid-July (just a couple hours away), and we’re planning on buying a summer pass to the city’s waterpark that so happens to be a 10 minute walk from our house. We’d never think of doing that in the States, but in a city where AC is hard to find, and it’s as hot as Austin, it’s worth the extra bucks to sit in water whenever you need to.

Good friends of ours from Austin arrive in two days, and we are counting down the hours! Yes, they’re more house guests, but it’s different when they’re friends, and they’re here simply to see us. They’ve got a girl right at Tate’s age, and they’re sweet friends, so it should be a happy reunion.

My goal is to get back to blogging here and life returns to its regular pace. In the meantime, we’ve been blessed and thankful for so many friends and family with us here in spirit.