4th of July

We spent the 4th at my parents' house--they grilled out (burgers and brats), and John made strawberry and cherry pie (the cherry was his BEST pie ever--incredible).



I documented the crazy pie action...



The dogs were also paying very close attention

For the party, I made David Lebovitz's Chocolate Banana Ice Cream (I also crossed it off my summer list - yay!). Easy to put together but didn't freeze as quickly as I hoped (recipes says "at least 4 hours" and I had 4 hours and 15 minutes--not enough time). We ended up putting it in our ice cream maker to speed the process along, and by dinner it was fine. It tasted a LOT like the generic Bailey's irish cream (not necessarily a bad thing), but I'm not sure I'd make it again. I've marked it off my list, but I'd like to try a couple more recipes before the summer is up (mint chocolate...candied bacon...avocado coconut...etc)

After dinner, John and I (and Callie and Cooper) went out to the lake to watch the fireworks. Despite the smelly lake and swarming mosquitoes (thank goodness for bug spray!!), I'm glad we went out.



When the firework pictures weren't working out, I gave up and took pictures of the tree we were sitting by instead.