8th of July...

 In an effort to give our friends from Montana the full east coast experience we whipped up a little tropical storm for their visit... We are nothing if not considerate! 

Seriously though, the first part of their visit was a bit... well, damp... But our spirits were not...

We did have to cross a couple things off our to do list and shuffle things around a bit but I think a good time was had overall... 

I ordered lobsters for the 4th and even though it was a soggy 4th fresh lobster waits for no man so Jed, Allison, family friend Jen (red hair) and some of the Montana crew braved the rain to dig into a pile of lobsters under the umbrella on the deck.

Jen, Jed & Allison coached the newbies through the process...

They dug in bravely... 

(Please ignore my non-clarified butter... I ran out of time and nobody minded.)

The Montana crew all dug in for one whole lobster each then headed in for for the more familiar ribs and fixins' inside... The locals killed the rest! 

We ended the soggy night with our favorite cupcakes who didn't hang around long enough to get their photo op! 

Due to the weather and our planned trip to the island we ended up moving our "party" to the 8th! 

So our friends and family gathered last night for food, fun & belated fireworks! 

Here is a peek...

All the traditional foods...

A make your own berry shortcake bar & s'mores for around the fire pit later on...

Unlike other parties we did one long table down the middle of the yard and all gathered around it...

Allison thought up most of the table decor and we found these fun little "brain teasers" at Cracker Barrel that we placed down the length for people to fiddle with... They were a big hit...

Later we lit up the fire pit, told funny family stories then Paul let off an insane amount of fireworks that left us with a few more crazy stories to tell around future fire pits! 

I am off to the Mary & Martha national conference in Kansas City tomorrow so I will finish catching you all up when I get back!

Thanks for listening,