July 4th recap

We had SUCH a wonderful time with our immediate family at the lake house for the July 4th holiday weekend. We kicked off Friday with a patriotic parade through our neighborhood. There were lots of military vehicles, decorated golf carts and vintage cars to view. I've decided next year we'll have to participate in the golf cart decorating contest and parade.

The husband prepped the pieces for a basic kayak holder at our home in the hill country and then hauled it to the lake. It was past time to get them out of the third garage bay and in a more convenient place to launch them for some paddling.

As far as meals, the husband cranked up the grill and smoker. His ribs and chickens were a big hit. I made potato salad, Asian coleslaw, corn, and yeast rolls to accompany the meat eats. I also whipped up some of our favorite dips, including balsamic caramelized onion dip. It takes a solid 45 minutes to cook the onions, but it's delicious and well worth the trouble. You can never go wrong with fresh guacamole, or baked buffalo chicken dip. I'm a total appetizer girl, y'all.

We launched our long awaited pontoon for the first time on the 4th. There is definitely a learning curve when you get a new boat. The electric Bimini top had an issue, but thankfully I got the service techs out the next week to get that squared away. The CPA daughter and her husband brought along their fur baby Chorkie. She wanted to take him on the boat to see how he'd do since he has FOMO. As you can see in the pic below, he was a pretty good first time sailor. The kids wanted to do a bit of tubing even though the winds made the water a bit choppy. So we obliged and dragged them around the lake for a bit.

In addition to boating on the 4th and 5th, the kids played pickleball and a round of golf. I spied them on the 12th tee box from our backyard. There are lots of nice activities here in our community for family and friends to enjoy when they visit.

We were treated to two separate fireworks displays here in our neighborhood, one on the 4th and another one the next evening. Our golf community dues paid for the fireworks on the 4th, which were nice and what you'd expect.

The fireworks display on the 5th was sponsored by a group in our neighborhood who calls themselves the porch people. Since we made a donation to them for this event, I guess we're officially porch people now. I joked that some folks must have taken out a second mortgage on their homes because the fireworks were set off two at a time, and they went on forever. Several times I thought it was the big grand finale finish, but they just kept going. It was genuinely a spectacular sight to see.