4th of July Weekend Plans

Can you believe next weekend is already the 4th of July? It seems like the first half of the year has just flown by.

We are planning on spending some time indoors, no more yard work! I talked recently about the dining room changes we are planning. I'm looking forward to getting the majority of that project finished. We probably won't do the full job, we will wait to complete the bottom half of the wall, but we will prep it and paint it white. We also have some serious household organization and cleaning jobs to accomplish. I have a feeling I'll be doing some baking in the middle of all of this, as well. Sure sounds like a whole lot of work for what is supposed to be a relaxing long weekend, doesn't it?

On the Fourth, we'll be meeting up with some friends at Koka Booth Ampitheatre. Fireworks plus patriotic music from the North Carolina Symphony. I can't wait! I have wanted to do this since we moved to North Carolina 6 years ago. One of our favorite things about Koka Booth is you can take your own food and drink. I'll post my picnic recipes next week but here is what I'm planning:

Tortellini salad
Cheese plate with cured meats, olives and toasted baguette
Fruit salad
No bake blueberry pie
A fantastic bodriving red wine

We just got home from a 3 day trip to Cleveland, Ohio (which I'll talk about later) and it feels like we didn't have a weekend. We spent almost two full days driving and then had a lot of "Forced Family Fun." I can't take full credit for that one. We stopped by my Aunt's house on Saturday and they had napkins that said that on them. Awesome.

Anyways, after a long weekend with family, we're looking forward to a weekend to ourselves where we don't have to do anything we don't want to do. Bring it on!