The 4th of July

Don't ya just love three day weekends!!! I know I do....but then you come back to work and I'm sure you know what that means.Yep, five days worth of work crammed into four! It still doesn't ruin the joy of three full days to sleep in. The best part is being able to sip a cup of coffee instead of gulping one down and rushing to make sure I'm not tooooo late for work.

The important thing to me about a holiday like the 4th of July is to be with family. Well most of the family at least.Our youngest son and his family went to Chicago to visit his wife's family, and the best niece in the whole wide world wasn't able to be with us this year.
Like most July 4th's we went to our camp to relax and just chill. For us that meant no sewing, no yard work, no laundry....and I didn't even turn on the computer,well not as often at least (you gotta have your priorities te he).

Someone was just happy we were all together

 Several members of my daughter in law's family have camps in the park, and her father has one next door to us. We were also joined by one of my brother's and his wife who just bought a camp in the park.Since I knew the weekend would be full of relaxing, chatting....and eating, I would need some yummy food ideas.
Most evenings we all end up gathering at her Father's camp next door around a campfire,or on the porch. Campfire's have become very important to me and my Etsy shop as you probably know. So when I saw this dessert idea I knew I had include it in our weekend.

I found this recipe on a blog called  how sweet eats. Check out this blog for this recipe and lots of other great ideas. She used the larger canning jars and they looked much prettier than mine do. But I thought that the small jars would be just enough for each person,and it was.

Sadly my first batch turned out a bit burned.....lesson learned to never put them under the broiler and walk away,marshmallows burn QUICK! I personally love burned marshmallows better but they just don't look very appetizing to serve. I simply scrapped off the burnt and did the final step again.

Ok now that's licking the bowl!

He agreed that it was delish!

 However I forgot to cut up the marshmallows in little pieces. Oh well, looks aren't everything,because they tasted amazing. And on a warm 4th of July evening,in front of a campfire they were perfectly delicious.
Our park held their annual golf cart parade again this year. So at the last minute we decided to enter ours.

 

 Ok I am sorry about this picture, but what is it about a goofy teenager? Every time I tried to snap a photo of the golf cart he would jump out in front and make faces. After laughing my self silly, I told him, okay dokay it's going on the blog...hahaha. Also it was so hot out (95 degrees) that my camera's lens was still steamed up....oh well you get the idea.

We really didn't have much to decorate with so we just used what we had. Once we started lining up  we realized that next year we will need a better plan!

There were some really great ideas. We especially loved the cookie monster mobile. We told them that they should have tossed little ziploc bags of cookie crisp cereal to the kids. Preston loved sitting on the back of ours and throwing candy to the kids who lined the streets.

This one was so cute with the kids all dressed up as animals. I'm sure with 3 little ones all close in age their camp is a zoo at times.....I think we all can relate hahaha!

An attempt to get a pic of all of us coming around the club house and pool

Red white and blue patriotism was the popular idea for most

This one was called the dog pound.

We spent a lot of time swimming, playing cards and board games as well as plenty of time just sitting together and laughing.

Pap takes a moment to teach the fine art of Go Fish.

We had the pool to ourselves,but forgot the pool toys,sorry Pap!

Preston jumps to his Pap.Pool is always crowded on holiday weekends.

Family starts to arrive.

Yep I bet he's doing a little whittling on a stick.He has to make a new roasting stick.

He is not shy and made a few new friends at the park.

 We also had a severe evening thunderstorm which forced us inside for a while to find things to keep us busy. My son and grandson decided to make a hobo candle,part of their hobby of the fine art of survival.They love to watch Dual Survival and Preston says he's the barefoot Cody on the show. He loves when he can get his pocket knife out under his Father's supervision and whittle a stick or start a fire without matches. So a hobo candle was a fun activity for them.

I 

I think a hobo candle is made with just cooking oil, a wire, and a cotton ball. I was shocked at how long it burned,several hours believe it or not. It may have burned longer but we blew it out when the rain stopped so we could head outside.

I busied myself by making some small cherry pies baked in canning jars. I kept saying that I thought they screamed old fashion America dessert.But I was corrected by my grandson who said the saying is it's as American as baseball and apple pie. Well he's right,but I think cherry pie runs a good second in my cookbook of favorites.

It was a good Independence Day weekend!

A favorite photo from a previous camp weekend