I love the fourth of July!  Just saying.  So here is what we did!

Made and ate delicious food!!!  It really was good, thank goodness.  And I ate ABSOLUTELY NO RICE yesterday!  Woohoo!  (Even though I really like rice)

There is just nothing more American than apple pie.  A huge thank you goes out to our friend Sirisha from the local bakery

This is what India looks like when you try to decorate it for the fourth...  Not great, but not too shabby either :)

Anyway, our fourth was great!  I am getting better at being away for the fourth.  Three years ago, I was in a remote village outside of Kathmandu, and the only thing I had to celebrate with was oreos, so there is that.  Two years ago the fourth was the WORST day of my mission.  Seriously, it was horridly awful!  I was so homesick, and there was sister drama, and it was just a bad sort of day.  Last year I spent the fourth with one of my best friends Sis Falke, aka Jenny, and we sat on the back porch to watch fireworks and both of us said "I wish you were a boy right now" #notsucharomanticmoment.  That was actually a REALLY good fourth.  This year, it was India, and the food was good and there was pie and in the evening I took a walk on the beach, so all was lovely.  PLUS, I was able to skype home/skype the Hughes Crew, which was such a treat and a blessing.  I talked with them all for over an hour, and LOVED it!  I am so grateful for family and friends and love and tradition, even as I grow old and grow kinda far away.  Also, here is one funny story.  Because we were celebrating the 4th, Rajyalakshmi asked us how long we were ruled by the British, and I said 150 years as a rough estimate.  She then said "We were ruled for 200 years," but with an inflection in her voice that made it sound like she was trying to say "haha, the British ruled us longer than they ruled you.  Beat 'cha."  I just don't know why she was so proud of that.

Anyway, this week was pretty non-eventful.  Mostly I was feeling very lazy, so that is why.  I did get some beautiful henna for the fourth, though.  I LOVE henna.  Also, this next week I am going on an adventure, so I won't be here to blog next Sunday, but I will get back to ya'll when I return to Vizag, probably next Wednesday or Tuesday (I don't know why I wrote those in that order).  Anyways, today was also very fun, probably one of the most fun days I have had here so far.  First, I went to church.  Then I took a nap.  Then I went on a walk with Momoksha and Siddhartha, Durga's two little men.  Then I indexed, and for those who don't know, there is currently an opportunity to index records from the freedmens bureau, which was created to protect the rights of 'colored' people after the end of the Civil War and slavery.  They were actually supper interesting to work through today.  Also, the Home Teaching message this month is really good.  Anyway, then everyone went to the park, because Dr. K isn't here, and since it was fast Sunday Durga didn't have to cook for us students, so pretty much everyone in the house had a day off, and it was so fun to go to the park with them.  What I was not fully aware of was that the park leads to the beach, and so Silouja and I were wading in even though we were both in dresses.  Well, a wave came and caught us by surprise and got us wet past our waists, at which point we just went for it.  I am now the proud owner of a very sandy dress, but it ain't no thing since I got the dress for only $2 at the Salvation Army (aka my favorite store!  Try it, I bet you'll like it).  Anyway, so here are some pictures from that. Also, after that, I ate left-over American food, complete with a pepsi-float (as they don't have root-beer here).  It was such a good day.  Okay, all my love!

Emilee

Oh, PS, today we were in Primary again, and someone forgot the keys to all the upstairs classrooms, so Primary was booted and got moved to the Branch Pres. office.  That was a TERRIBLE idea, if you ask me, but I do have greater love for Primary than others, so I guess it was okay.  The kids handled it well, though.  Unfortunately, it limited some of the activities we had planned (we were in charge of lesson and singing time this week), and so when we had gone through all of our material and still had 20 minutes to burn, I taught the kids how to make paper birds, a skill I perfected as a 6 or 7 year old during sacrament meeting (after the sacrament was passed, to be clear).  The weeks lesson was on obedience, so I told them they had to obey my instructions if they wanted to end up with a bird.  It was actually pretty fun, in the end.  All I am saying is that you never know when your hidden and half-forgotten talents from childhood will spring up and save your hide.  Again, it was an awesome day.  Especially the part where we went to the beach!

All the pretty flowers at the park!

The pretty beach at the park!

A VERY wet me.  Also, what was nice was that at this stretch of beach there were all these rocks, which broke the HUGE waves before they could get to us.  Let me tell you what, I love to go swimming in the Indian Ocean, it is SO FUN!!!