I tried out some colors for my house elevations. Spent too much time here on GW and then we had a hot night out to dinner, at the diner. We're in a condo, so no barbecuing. Next year I'm going to spend the 4th down in Fl, watch the fireworks that will be 2 blocks walk from my new house and definitely barbecue!

We just had our neighbors over for supper. I made a berry flag.

During the day Monday I alternated working in the yard and jumping in the neighbor's pool to cool off. But Saturday my family (DH and two adult sons) took my Mom on a canoe trip. She has COPD and is on oxygen, so she can't do fun things outside on her own. The weather was perfect, and we had a blast!

Just the dog and I, so I didn't do anything special. I did bake pumpkin bread with walnuts and raisins, so that I'd have something yummy to have with coffee each morning. Oh, and BBQ'd a wonderful rib eye steak one night :)

That's dedication to red, white, and blue!

Every last crumb is gone--so I have no proof--but I made a big cobbler, with the last of my frozen peaches, and the last of the fresh blueberries. I thought that sounded all American. I also made tuna and garbanzo bean salad with toast points, and my son-in-law made grilled zucchini, served with fresh tomatoes.

It was overcast on Saturday and rained off and on Sunday through today--no one was in much of a picnic mood, but the weather cleared enough on Sunday night for fireworks.

Your celebrations sound wonderful as you each had a special day doing exactly what you wanted. Fourth of July weekend continues here at the river house. We were 18 in all counting the pups- ages 67 to 3- now down to 9. It can get a little crazy here. I cooked and cooked (with some assistance) and I am still cooking. I can't believe the amount of food that was consumed. The rain did not dampen our fun. The kids spent the weekend fishing from the dock, kayaking, and mucking. The grands love the huge magnolia they named Harry. It was literally an umbrella during the rainy periods as they climbed the tree and piled 5 deep in the nylon hammock suspended from a branch. The grands painted many beautiful pictures, rocks, and signs. We also enjoyed the talent show the little kids put on. And lucky us, we enjoyed three nights of beautiful fireworks displays thanks to my son-in-law.

What did you make? Do cabinets count? DH cut, I primed, DH assembled and I painted finish paint.

One kid is home, but I have 2 in the house. Surprise! DS's roommate came in from Maine and they will be driving back to OH together Friday, stay with Grandparents and continue to MI Saturday. With working on the cabinets, we are alternating grilling, cooking and going out. DS's roommate is great and already knows ya never know what to expect when he gets here- at least we have walls this year ;^) It cleared up here enough for us to see fireworks too- at least the rain kept the boys off the motorcycles!!!

Hoping to get more cabinets done this weekend after the boys leave. 4 left next to the fridge and then ordering drawers and doors from the Cabinet Joint.

Island next. I think we did it backwards for the island....we've already ordered the drawers and doors for that?????? 1 accurate CAD drawing (island) and 1 fly by the seat of my pants, organic CAD drawing that seems to change as we make the cabinets. Always a fun time here!

Have a great week!

I celebrate on July 1, Canada Day! I worked 12 hours so made nothing really. The next day my boys came home and we had steak, oven baked fries and green beans. On the last Monday in June there is a combined fireworks celebration between Canada and the USA, and it is usually quite a show. I missed that due to work too. :( Oh well, I am currently on vacation leave, though not doing terribly a lot other than eating breakfast on my porch swing and watching the weeds grow. LOL. My basement should be finished by next week and I'll post some photos of it then. It looks really good, if I do say so myself. :D

Beachem!!! That cake is amazing!

We had a cookout at the park with family. I made a big plate of burger sliders and a "burger bar" of condiments to make 'em fancy -- lettuce and tomato, two types of cheese, guacamole, bacon, onion, jalapenos and more.

beachem - even though I can read your frustration leaping off the page - that is an awesome cake! So while I agree you'd never want to make it again - it's pretty darn sweet! I felt that way about my oldests first birthday cake that was a 3-D sports car and caused serious hand cramping after hours of piping the frosting in several different colors. Never again but it was awesome. Yeah I almost didn't want to let anyone eat it after that, lol!

We had 5 tween boys over for a cookout and camp out to kick off the long weekend. We had fantastic weather this weekend. So it was hot dogs and burgers, watermelon and I did bake some SIMPLE monster cookies. It went pretty well til they woke up at 4:45 a.m.. Considering they went to sleep at midnight it was a tad early. Yikes! We cooked ribs on the 4th, yum. But the camp out left everyone tired and we never seemed to catch back up on the sleep! :O

@cpartist can't wait to see your finished kitchen and home.

@Ann the berry flag looks cool and that's so sweet of your DH and sons.

@happy. That sounds so amazing with all those family members. It's so Norman Rockwell.

@heatheron of course, cabinets count big time. I would have worked on cabinets too but DH wanted to spend time with me on his days off. No one else is willing to work on the kitchen so I'm solo.

@autumn the 3D sports car sounds awesome.

beachem, that's an awesome cake. That you did it without a kitchen--I bow down to your skill and determination, and concur that never again would be too soon.

We celebrated with my parents, and my sister and her family and I had a blast putting my new kitchen through its paces. BIL made ribs and a peach pie, DH grilled buffalo burgers. I made mustard vinaigrette potato salad, chopped veg salad, beans baked with salt pork and onion, watermelon pickles, plum grilling sauce, plus a strawberry cream cake that didn't turn out so well. The peach pie exploded, too. It was kind of a disaster dessert day, but that didn't put any of us off much.

It's just the two of us, and we can't stay up late enough to go watch fireworks, so it was pretty low-key. I did make nice burgers from fresh ground chuck, so they could be rare and juicy. My wife made a peach-blueberry cobbler from local fruit. We watched the Capital Fourth on PBS, and went to bed early.

Brownies. My siblings took care of everything else over the long weekend, but my nieces and nephews kept looking at me with that little gleam in their eyes...Thea, can we have brownies? "We" had four pans of them in four days. By the end of the weekend one nephew was browning butter, while my niece measured out the cocoa powder and sugar and I lined the pan with foil. We were in my sister's kitchen, thank goodness!

Beautiful cake btw. I doubt I could pull that off even with a working kitchen!

Beach -your cake is amazing! I love it! It's too late now, but make your whipped cream in a mason jar. Shake, shake, shake. Just stop before it turns into butter.

Wow! That's a fantastic cake!

We joined friends for a party at their house. My BF was so proud to walk in with this:

He got so many compliments and he told me so many times how amazing I am. I hated to tell him how easy it is to make! LOL

We also brought caprese salad skewers:

Caprese Salad Skewers

Pinterest makes me look good. LOL

This was the easiest 4th ever! One of the neighbors hired a food truck for his party and invited the whole neighborhood to purchase if they desired. Chicken tacos with pineapple salsa, lime sour cream, & micro cilantro; sliders with maple baked beans, candied bacon, pickled cucumbers and onions; Thai brussel sprouts with peanuts - everything was delicious and I didn't have to cook this year.

I made Peach and Raspberry Crisp From an Ina Garten recipe to take to a BBQ at our neighbors. It fed 10 with leftovers and the peaches came from Costco. They were heavenly.

Ribs

That flag cake looks awesome.

You guys never cease to amaze me.

I worked. You'd be surprised at how many people celebrate the 4th with Tex-mes. I mean Tex-Mex. Yup. Mex, not Mes.

Just got back online after a week without a computer. Longest week in my life since I went online in 1988. Yup. 1988. Absolutely roto-routed my system with a Blackberry phone app (dropped old phone in potty, activated a new, 2-year old phone) which deleted all my communication drivers (WiFi, Bluetooth, and even ethernet) and caused my factory installed Windows to claim it was a counterfeit edition. Huh? Although back online, I am really disgusted with the frou-frou Windows 10. Can do very few functional things with it. Grrrr....

But here I am. Hot, sweaty, and online. We're in our first real heatwave.

We worked in the garden (probably too much) and didn't make much of anything in the kitchen. But it is a kitchen garden, with strawberries and blueberries. Does that count? LOL

Hope everyone had a great fourth! : )