First Annual Fourth of July Cookout

Now that we don't have a family party in July to celebrate Ms. Thang's birthday, and due to having to work every weekend, except our anniversary weekend, for the rest of the summer, I thought it might be nice to have a cookout to celebrate the Fourth of July. Due to financial restraints, this year I only invited immediate members of both sides of our families. It turned out that all the people from my side of the family could make it, only The Boy's ™ parents could come from his side, and we had it on the 3rd.

I found a cool pattern to make pinwheels out of scrabooking paper and made a cute centerpiece for the table. I bought 3 glass pitchers and learned how to make lemonade from scratch. It's so yummy and easy I don't know why I have never made it before. I will say that I plan to buy a hand juicer, because squeezing lemons sucks. I also made homemade iced tea, and a lemonade/iced tea mixture that also had rum which was very yummy. I pulled out a large plate that I use at Christmas that is red/white striped (I call it my candy cane plate) and it worked out great with our flag theme. I plan to watch clearance at Christmas and Valentine's day and stock up on some serving pieces, because all they sell for the 4th is tacky plastic stuff, and we are trying to move away from plastic.

We ended up with a beautiful day. The sun was out, it wasn't as hot as they originally predicted, and we had a great time. Our backyard is long and narrow, and my brothers and the  kids managed to have a cross the yard game of sorts. A set of them played a game the long way down the yard, and another set of them played across the yard, right through where the first were playing. How they didn't kill each other, I don't know. I decided what our yard would be really good for, is lawn bowling, and plan to get a set for our cookout next year. Because really, I want to do it again. My summer job, that I will likely have to have again next year, starts the first week of July, after the 4th, so it's kind of a nice way to "end" my short vacation and still see everyone.