It’s weird to celebrate the Fourth of July in France.

We celebrated alone this year, since our fellow teammates were either in America or the Alps. Patrick talked to the police here and asked if he could pretty-please set off the fireworks we had in the parking lot in front of our home. They said no. This brought on all sorts of tears, especially for Aidan and Julia, and a few “it’s not faaaaaaiiiirs” from Sophie. Truth be told, I was sad too. It seemed the last little vestige of hanging on to our holiday.

Patrick forgot to bring eggs home, so I couldn’t make the “normal” potato salad, so instead I made German potato salad (which we ate…and, I might add, Italy ate as well when they played Germany last night). We had French sausages. The best part was good old American corn, not on the cob, but sweet nonetheless. We made it up to the kids by letting them make their own banana splits. During halftime of the semi-final match, they roasted marshmallows over our barbecue.

I went to bed early, unfortunately. I’m battling the demon of food poisoning and am just now feeling slightly human again, which is good, because I fly to Denver on Friday!

So, it was a weird Fourth. But we all love each other, enjoy each other’s company, and had good family time. The kids played a game. They ate sweet treats. And even laughed a little.