Uncle Rudy

Who doesn't love the 4th of July? Due to hurricane Alex, it has been raining here for a week and it was due to rain yesterday. Luckily, the great state of Texas pulled through for us and it was as hot and sunny as ever. Actually, it was about 10 degrees cooler than usual for this time of year, only 95 with a breeze! We started out our Independence day by going to church. Then, we headed down to my parents' house for some BBQing. There were about 50 people there and we had tons of food. After feasting, we headed over to a field to watch the fireworks. We got there about an hour and a half early so we threw the football and played with the frisbee. While Peter was throwing a football, I grabbed the first water balloon and pegged him square in the back. Then, all water balloon hell broke loose. About 30 of us were running around the field trying to "win" the fight. Every time I threw one, it just bounced off the person and popped on the ground. When all the water balloons ran out, Peter snuck up on me with the tub full of water and dumped the entire thing on my head! I was soaked!!! It took my shorts to the next day to dry out. Then we played with some sparklers and watched the fireworks show. After everything was over, Paul, Josh (one of our techs) and the two of us headed back to our house to set off some fireworks. Apparently, Peter gained the pyro gene from the Updikes and bought $70 worth of fireworks. We live in a ghetto neighborhood so nobody really cares if you set off fireworks and there were about 6 families on our street shooting them off. Then some party pooper called the police and we had to stop. The next night, we (Paul, Josh, Peter, and me) drove about 30 mins out to the country where we were outside city limits so we could blow up the rest of our fireworks. We did a couple in the middle of an intersection and saw some more going off just up the road. We decided to drive over there and see if we could shoot off our fireworks with them. It was about 15 Hispanics who welcomed us with open arms. I met Uncle Rudy and the rest of the family. We all shared our fireworks and had tons of fun. They were so funny and said if the cops come we were on our own because they would claim they couldn't speak English. They said to come by every holiday-New Years, July 4th, or any other time they are selling fireworks. They said we'll do a potluck. It was so fun to meet some people we would have never met before. I guess we'll see Uncle Rudy and his clan in about 6 months. Happy Independence day!
Here are some pics of our evening. (All the guys you don't recognize are our employees.)