Delayed Happy Fourth of July!

Yesterday, passed quickly it seemed like. We had beautiful weather; sunny, in the 70s. I was thinking of all of you who had to deal with sweltering temperatures; we don't really appreciate the liveable climate around here enough. 100 degree temperatures are not conducive to doing anything, it must be terrible. It seems like the west coast has been one of the few areas in the country that hasn't been affected so far. You should all move to Oregon! Or maybe not, because we like how it's kind of empty out here... However, you can't beat the weather in this area and I'm trying to remind myself how lucky we are. Yesteday couldn't have been any better.

This was our first real Fourth of July in the house. Last year we spent the day sanding floors, and just took a break at night and watched the fireworks. Yesterday we took the whole day off from any projects, put the flag up, cooked, relaxed and enjoyed ourselves.

In the morning I went for a walk, checked out some of the festivities and picked flowers.

I baked no knead bread, and we enjoyed wine, and fresh garden (sadly not from mine!) peas and radishes.

Next year I definitely have to grow these peas because they were so so good.

We made barbeque sauce, coleslaw and grilled chicken drumsticks and corn on the cob. It doesn't get much more 4th of July inspired. Oh and red gingham tablecloth doesn't hurt!

And for the finale of the meal, we decided to go full out this year:

A flag cake! This cake arrived freshly baked to our backyard setting with most wonderful honey-mascarpone frosting. We decorated it with blueberries and strawberries...

... and cream! And it was a very fitting ending to our Independence Day meal.

The beautiful weather seems to be continuing. We're expecting temperatures in the eightes and sunshine, and we have a couple of projects in the works, so that should be perfect working weather! Because after yesterdays eating, drinking, eating and more cake eating, I could go for some actual physical work...