  We really had the sweetest 4th of July and first holiday party in our new house. We had a nice assortment of friends and family, including this dear girl, Jill. I am so lucky to have her as a friend, AND she brought this beautiful flag cake!   We kept it simple and stuck to the grill and a few treats. We wanted to enjoy time with family. The weather turned out perfectly, allowing us to walk to the beach and bury these kids in the sand. We also blew up Benny's kiddie pool for cooling in the yard. It was mellow and relaxed, with just enough partying to make it fun for the adults too. Our neighborhood is so friendly and totally has a block party feeling, going in and out of everyone's houses.   My sister in law and baby nephew (still in her belly) came down from Huntington to join us too! Benny loves his Auntie.   Benny practiced standing and got us all very excited that he might walk.. but then decided to hold off and keep us waiting.    Courtesy of Jessica at Little Baby Garvin, I decided we should make her bomb pop sparkler cocktails. Maybe it was the bootleg Mexican sparklers we bought, but ours were just not as cute. They were a smoky mess. But you know what? They were delicious and we laughed our butts off at all the smoke and screaming to get them to work. Thanks to her for another darling idea!    We finished off the day with some fireworks of our own before heading down to the beach to watch the 3 fireworks shows within view of our street. It was a great show and apparently, in Ocean Beach right after the fireworks finish, all the thousands of people (70,000 in fact) on the sand engage in a marshmallow fight throwing millions of marshmallows everywhere. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time! Next time I'll be armed with several bags of my own marshmallows!   The finale was amazing. They had all these sparklers going off the pier and into the water like a brilliant, sparkling waterfall. Tough to capture with my iphone, but it was incredible! Happy Summer y'all!  |
