Celebrating the Red, White and Blue

We are going to spend the fourth of July at the cabin for annual party with the Bain's and the Johnson's. My favorite part is taking the horses and spending hours riding through the quaking aspens. The boys love the paint ball tournament. I'm a little worried because last year I hit Rick right in the butt point blank after he was complaining that he was done playing because he was tired of getting hit. He doesn't get even, he gets revenge!

Since the boys are still up at their high adventure camp, I decided to try to round up all of the paint ball equipment so it would be packed and ready to go. I was shocked as I tried to plow through their rooms trying to find all of the stuff.

Brayden has a secret room - where he invents things. I couldn't even find a place to walk because there was so much crap! I ended up throwing away four big bags of garbage. You name it, it was in those sacks - old deodorant bottles, wires, a canning jar with something black caked in the bottom of it, empty tape dispensers, and parts and pieces of all kinds of items that were dismantled. If anyone offers to give him their old VCR, DVD player, radio or other electronic device so he tinker, I will shoot them! I know that is how Einstein got his start, but enough!

Then there was Alex's closet - if that's what you call it! The floor was covered with clothes. How does he know what is clean and what is dirty because it looked like a good combination of both scattered all over the floor! I didn't even attempt to clean that one up and just shut the door so I wouldn't have to look at it. He always smiles and says, "You weren't supposed to go in there!"

One of my favorite deserts for the fourth of July is this patriotic trifle.

Cut up one angel food cake into bit sized squares or you can use pound cake squared. Make one family sized box vanilla pudding and set aside. Wash three cups of strawberries or raspberries and two cups of blue berries.

In a glass trifle bowl, put in the following layers: cake, blue berries, pudding, cool whip, strawberries (or raspberries) then more blue berries, then repeat the layers and top with cool whip.