Happy Birthday, America!

Today we picked up Sister Richards and went to Oxnard Second Ward's flag raising and breakfast.  It was fabulous - ramrodded by the Japanese brother you may see in some of these pictures - nope, he's not in even one.  We had fried rice (in lieu of hash browns), chorrizo (a Mexican hash of sorts), scrambled eggs, sausage, pancakes, juice, milk, and watermelon.  It was a chilly morning with periods of heavy mist/near rain.  Not a great day for their traditional water fight.  Trust me, when the water guns came out, we departed.  But it was a delightful morning and the breakfast was delicious!

Two of "our" three-some - Elder McCracken and Elder Stratton

(Elder Garrett was gone on an "emergency exchange")

Chatting before breakfast

Cooking crew

Bishop Sweet in white cap and his counselor, Brother Basua,

in light green shirt

Prepared for 300

(setting up makeshift flag pole in background)

Bishop Sweet

Can't believe I didn't get a pic of the rows of tables set for 300! :(

Then it was off to the laundromat!  The laundromat has been crazy-busy the last couple weeks when we've gone after getting home from the office.  We discovered today that the perfect time to go is mid-morning on a holiday -- the place was nearly deserted -- except for Elder and Sister Blue, who were also doing their laundry :)

Had a nice telephone visit with Mother, Tawn, and Ryan, plus text communications with several!  Always love any of that!!

The Blues invited us over to their apartment for grilled hot dogs.  We took a salad and enjoyed a nice meal together at 3 o'clock -- giving us time to get back up the road to our apartment while the getting was good.  Their place is down by the harbour where the fireworks show will be tonight.  Even at 3 o'clock, there were lots of cars with people sitting in lawn chairs along the way.  We heard that if you drive down there for the show, you may not be able to get home before 1 or 2 a.m.  So I think I'll iron while we watch a movie in our apartment tonight. 

All in all, a nice day.  Happy Fourth of July!!!