Our 4th of July Picnic

 One thing I do think is quite fun when we have company is when there is the occasion to decorate according to a theme. This is totally not a necessary part of hospitality but to me it is very fun. I especially love to see how we can do it while using primarily things we already have. I thought it would be fun to share with you our 4th of July celebration.

I went on a hunt for flags to use for decorating with. I didn't find as many as I thought we should have (but we are still dealing with some things still being packed away) but then I remembered that a friend had given me some fabric that was really a bunch of flags all together. All we needed to do was cut them apart. That was really fun to use to make some garland with which I used on our front porch and also in our back yard. We also attached some to sticks and stuck them in our vases of flowers and then I put some on wire which Megan then stuck in our shoreline.

I was trying to figure out what sort of patriotic looking dessert I could make for the occasion and I found just a few blueberries that we had left from our picking last year and some raspberries (nearly the last of those too) and I stuck them in a white cake like picture above.

 After baking my flag cakes were a little messy but still gave the idea.

 We set up card tables and found Megan's little table. I was delighted to find that I had 2 red and white tablecloths and 2 blue and white ones. They looked so festive!

 I had the girls pick some wild flowers to put on the tables which we then added the flags to.

 We hung up another flag garland back here.

 Ken made horseshoe pits for the occasion.

 I picked up our friend Wayne and SuSan. They had fun trying out playing horseshoes.

 My Mom and Dad came looking very festive in their red, white and blue.

 Mom brought a rhubarb crisp to share. Though I told everybody that they didn't need to bring anything most of them did anyway. We had plenty of good things to enjoy.

 We were blessed to have our neighbors join us. They didn't have any family in town that day so we benefited instead.

  Some of the traditional 4th of July food we had were:

• Hamburgers
• Hotdogs/brats
• Potato Salad
• Baked Beans
• Lemonade. (Megan thought we should make some but I didn't get it done but then my brother brought some cans of it so that worked.)
• Watermelon.

It was a fun picnic. Afterwards some of us played music, some played horseshoes and others listened. Then some went to watch the fireworks. Aaron and I ended up staying home as he was fighting Lyme's disease (we didn't realize it at the time) and he thought it would be best if we just stayed home and went to bed in good time. I figured that if he thought he needed that - then he probably did. The others thought the fireworks were fun though.

Did you have a fun 4th of July? Did it involve hospitality? I would love to hear about it!