Team Americuh

I hope everyone had as much fun celebrating Independence Day as we did!  Both James and I had a few days off work with no big plans. It was so nice to relax and get projects done on the house. Wow, I just realized what a old lady grown up comment that was.  Aside from checking things off our to-do list, we also hosted a cookout at our house on the third and went to another cookout and fireworks display on the fourth.  Here are a few pictures from the festivities:

Centerpiece

Stars & Stripes Sangria

Cute Fruit Kabobs that my friend Mary Frances made

Me, James and Buford-- happy little family (except Buford looks terrified-- usually when James picks him up it's to put him in his crate, which he isn't a huge fan of)

Patriotic Pup

Happy Birthday to James and America!

Fourth of July weekend was crazy busy. We kicked off the weekend with James' 26th birthday on Thursday, June 30th. For a few weeks leading up to James' special day, I kept asking what he wanted to do to celebrate. He insisted that he "just wanted to get some steaks and grill out with the two of us". Easy enough, so that we did! I did have a little surprise for him-- my parents and I went in on a really nice pressure washer as his birthday gift. Yes, when you get old and married, you get really fun things like pressure washers for birthdays. No, but with all seriousness, James had been saying for a few months how he wanted/needed one. Here's a picture of James playing with his new toy:

We ended our yummy steak dinner with birthday cupcakes from The Sugar Shack. One chocholate pretzel and one lemon zinger. I let the birthday boy choose which one he wanted, and he chose the chocolate pretzel.

Friday evening my brother, his girlfriend, Jinna Anne, and some of their friends came in town from Birmingham. We headed up to Lake Lanier on Saturday afternoon for a fun day on the lake. It was a full day of relaxing out on the water, tubing and delicious barbecue.

Jinna Anne and I in the boat

We love America, or "Americuh" as James would say. Gotta love the bandana.

My brother,Aidan, jumping off the dock. Sweet swim trunks.

In years past, my family has always gone to the Capital City Country Club fireworks on the 3rd of July, and this 3rd of July was no different. We decided to have a cookout at our house beforehand. We ended up having 11 people at our house and it was a successful cookout. We all headed over to Capital City around 8 to get a good spot on the green. The fireworks were great! Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures at the cookout, but here's one of my lovely centerpiece.

Martha Stewart, eat your heart out

We couldn't have too much fun on the 3rd of July, because James and I had to get up early on the 4th to run the Peachtree Road Race. James ran the Peachtree a few years back with his brother, but this was my first time running it, and my first 10K. It was definitely hot and exhausting, but we are so glad we ran it. Who knows, maybe we'll make this a 4th of July tradition? Here's a sweaty, post race picture of us, with our shirts

After the race we had a pretty lazy afternoon. We ended up going grilling out with some friends on Monday evening, then headed over to the Lenox fireworks. One of the girls in our group works in the building where Bluepointe is in Buckhead, so we were able to use her parking pass to park in the parking deck there. We had the perfect spot, on the second to the top level of the parking deck (protected from the rain). We actually weren't even positive if the fireworks were going to happen because of the rain, but after a slight rain delay, the fireworks started and they were awesome.

As you can tell, we had a fun-filled, busy weekend. This weekend, we are enjoying having absolutely nothing on our social calendar and just relaxing.