Memorial Day Weekend

Long, holiday weekends are simply the best kind of weekend, am I right? I'm sure most of you would agree with that. If not, well then I probably don't want to hear it. But thanks anyways... ;) Mine was the bestest, and honestly it wasn't long enough...it was full of sunshine, good food, friends, and relaxing. If only every weekend could actually be three days, right?! Right.

FRIDAY - we went to Hobby Lobby real quick after work (haven't actually done the craft I bought the supplies for yet), and then we ate dinner at Momo's Pizza again, since we were on that side of town. Super yummy.

Had to send out a Snapchat to a few friends of course ;)

SATURDAY - we met some friends down at Alligator Point Beach, and spent the day soaking up the sunshine, with our toes in the sand. The weather was perfect and breezy, and it felt great. On the way back to town, we stopped to eat dinner at Tropical Trader in Panacea. For you locals that might not realize this, it's like the little brother of Angelo's! Owned by the same people, but more casual and a bit less expensive. Such good food too! We all shared an appetizer of calamari, and I got a mahi mahi sandwich.

SUNDAY - ate sandwiches for lunch at Jimmy John's, and then went back down to meet our friends at the beach again! The weather was lovely again, and it was another good day in the sunshine.

MONDAY - we were up bright and early, so that our landlord could come by to look at the hot water heater, because it had stopped working... Long-story short, he ended up just buying a new one, and by 7pm last night, it was finally installed and working properly again. Thank the lord he worked so quick to get that done for us, or else this morning's shower would have been so freezing! We also did a lot of work around the house - laundry, tons of dishes, Jeff mowed the lawn (until the mower just stopped working), and we went grocery shopping.

Jeff grilled burgers and corn on the cob for dinner, and we had watermelon. And what I'm most proud of, was my homemade coleslaw! Our neighbor brought over a fresh head of cabbage from his garden, so I threw it in the Ninja blender, added in some carrots, mayo, salt, pepper, sugar & balsamic vinegar, and then topped it with sunflower seeds. It was so good y'all! Jeff and usually don't really even like coleslaw, but we both loved what I made last night! I was sad when I realized at like 10pm that I didn't take a picture of the fresh cabbage or the coleslaw though, so y'all will just have to pretend like I did, OK? :)

We were exhausted last night after a couple days in the sun, and a long day of working in and around the house. But it was all worth it, and we had a great three-day holiday weekend! We're thankful for those who have served in our military to make our lives so amazing in this great country of ours. We remember those who gave their lives, so that we can live ours free!

Happy Monday Tuesday! (This is going to be a confusing day...)

Weekend in Atlanta

Hey there Monday, it's not so nice to see you again, but I guess I have no choice, so I'm not going to complain too much... Let's just do the typical blogger thing, and write us out a good ole weekend recap, shall we? Yes, let's do just that...

Friday after work we made our way up to Atlanta, to spend the weekend there for a wedding. We found this super random spot in Cordele, GA to eat dinner, and it was so yummy. Carter's Fried Chicken & Hamburgers has been around for years and years, and has quite the reputation. It's just a tiny little hole-in-the-wall kind of place, but the chicken sandwiches were sooo good!

Saturday morning, Jeff's best friend (who was his best man) picked us up, and we returned to a spot we found the last time we were up there, and had a super delicious brunch at Folk Art Restaurant. I got a build-your-own-omelette with caramelized onions, mushrooms, turkey sausage and cheddar cheese, with a side of grits (with corn in them - yum!), wheat toast, and their own house-made peach jam. Holy so delicious you guys. I want all of that to magically appear in front of me right now again, because it was so good and I'm hungry right now! This tiny yogurt just isn't cutting it...

We ran a couple of errands (had to buy new black shoes for the hubs) and then headed back to the house we were staying at for some rest time and some HGTV shows :) I took a tiny nap, and then it was time to start getting ready for the wedding. Some friends of theirs came to meet at the house, and there ended up being six of us, so we called an "Uber" instead of a cab. It's a much nicer car, and it costs less than a cab sometimes. An Escalade picked us up, and we made it to the gorgeous venue in just about 10 minutes.

The venue was gorgeous, and so was the ceremony. The bride Ellen was of course gorgeous, and their sweet vows made me tear up.

The reception was yummy salad and rolls, followed by your entree choice. I chose the vegetarian pasta option, and it ended up being Gorgonzola cheese ravioli - holy yummy. But of course I also taste-tested Jeff's choice of chicken and beef, and that was really good too. Very good wedding food :) After quite a few sweet speeches from lots of family members, they had a cool photo booth, and a fun DJ for some awesome dancing. I wasn't feeling very good though, so we got a cab back to the house kind of early, and caught some more HGTV before heading to bed.

Sunday morning we got packed up and headed out rather early, and grabbed coffee and croissants at a local spot before hitting the road. We took our time on the drive home, and just enjoyed some back country roads of Georgia. Jeff's dad was nice enough to let us borrow his convertible VW bug for the trip, so we had the top down on the ride home, just loving the wind and the sunshine! Although, Jeff did get a little sunburned since we didn't have any sunscreen, but it was still so nice!

We made it back in time to meet my family for Mother's Day dinner at Outback, and we all had so much fun together! There were lots of silly stories shared, and lots of laughs had by all. We had a great time being together, and I'm glad it worked out that way. Afterwards, we headed over to Jeff's parents house to pick up Primrose, and spend some Mother's Day time with them too!

All-in-all, it was another good weekend, and we were glad for a couple days off work, spent with friends and family who we love so much! Here's hoping the week isn't too awful, and it goes quickly, because we've got exciting plans to go kayaking this Saturday!

Easter Weekend

I'm back this Monday for a little weekend recap. Last Monday, I was feeling really bad and nasty, so I took the day off work, and I also took the day off from blogging. Instead, I stayed home and read my book literally ALL day long. Didn't turn on the tv at all, and read for like seven hours straight. It was awesome. But this Monday, I'm feeling much better, and so I want to share some quick clips from the weekend. 

Friday night, Jeff was still on his way driving back home, so I went over to hang out with my parents. We went out for dinner, and then got some dessert on the way home. Then we just sat around for a few hours chatting and laughing and telling stories. It was fun, and a good time for me to spend with just the two of them. But I sure was excited when my husband finally got home around 9:30 that night!

Saturday was the laziest day, and it was so glorious. Jeff is now in love with Taco Bell's new breakfast, but I hadn't tried it yet, so we went out that morning in our pj's to grab some. They accidentally gave us an extra bag of food in the drive-thru line (we assume it was for the car behind us), but we didn't realize until we were back home, and then it was just too late to do anything. So instead we got to sample a couple extra items as well! And y'all, that breakfast crunch wrap was delish. Please no one tell me the calorie count on that thing though, because I do not want to know....

We then sat around watching some Netflix for a few hours, and then decided to go see a movie at the cheap theater. We saw "Monuments Men" and it was really good! I've always had a fascination with WWII and the Holocaust, but that was a whole new part of history that I had never known. It was really cool though. We then forced ourselves to make a quick grocery shopping trip, but then called it a day and that was about all! Except for dinner I made grilled turkey and cheese sandwiches on cheddar-jalapeno bread my parents brought back from a little local place on their vacation. And it was so delicious! 

And then Sunday of course was Easter! We went to church that morning at Engage Tallahassee, and then met Jeff's parents for lunch at one of our favorites - Marie Livingston's. I had a delicious steak with a baked potato, and loved every single bite of it. (And of course dripped some of the sauce on my dress with the very first bite....) Then we went to the in-laws house and hung out there for a bit. Jeff helped put together their new patio furniture, then we all had dessert out on the porch to enjoy the new stuff! 

For dinner we met my parents at Buffalo Wild Wings, and we just split one of those appetizer sampler's since neither of us was super hungry. But it was delish. Their garlic Parmesan flavor is the jam. I think I'd like to have that stuff on everything! We sat and chatted for a while after we finished eating, but eventually wrapped it up and we headed back home for some movie-rest time. We watched "12 Years A Slave" and man what an intense story/movie. Some parts were really hard to watch, but overall, it's a great movie.

I'm so thankful that the Lord died for us and ours sins, but even more importantly that he rose again on the third day! What an incredible miracle! I hope y'all had a good weekend, and fun time celebrating Easter. Happy Monday ladies :)

Popping In For an Update

I'm sure we're all grateful that today is Friday, right?! Yes. Just popping in real quick today for a little update on our lives and how things have been this week...

First of all, Jeff and I have both been sick all week long. Mine started last Saturday, and his started around Tuesday. And we can't seem to shake this! It's just a cold or a sinus infection (for him), but it's annoying and it's just time for it to scoot it's way out of our lives. Yet here we are, still both suffering from it's silly little symptoms. Here's to hoping this stuff moves on sooner rather than later.

Next, Jeff bought me a new phone!! My iPhone 4 was over two years old, and really start to slow down, biiiiiiig time. It was super slow and annoying, and it was always full. Like 1,000+ photos really take up that much space?! But anyways...he surprised me last week and bought me a brand new MotoX, that's all personalized and in pretty colors and stuff. It's awesome. And I'm loving it! And it does cool things like make AutoAwesome pictures in Google, like this one:

Such a a pretty, sparkly Christmas tree!!

Tomorrow morning we are going to go to the matinee priced showing of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, so tonight, we'll stay home and get cozy with a blanket and a bucket of popcorn to rewatch the first movie. And I for one and super stoked about that. (Both the Friday night at home, and the Saturday morning plans, that is...) I read "The Hobbit" over the summer, so everything is much cooler now that I know what's going on. Plus, I just always like reading a book before seeing the movie, and try to make sure that happens pretty much every time. So now I'm really looking forward to our little "double feature" movie dates tonight and tomorrow!

In case you don't follow me on Instagram (you totally should, because I post on there a lot more than on here lately, and it's usually really cute stuff...), then you don't know I've been attempting the #fmsphotoaday challenge this month. Today is Day 13, and I've missed about 3 or 4 days. But whatev's - at least I'm trying! And it's still fun anyways. Here are my top 4 favorites so far this month...

Top L: R is For.... // Top R: Green // Bottom L: Tiny // Bottom Right: Silver

And we finally got our wedding pictures back from our photographer! We looked at them last night, and there are some truly beautiful photographs. We also have a ton from a friend of Jeff's family who did a great job as well. So over the weekend, I'll spend some time sorting and organizing, and then I'll be sharing pictures all over the place! Yay!!

Oh, and in case you missed Wednesday's post, I'm in the process of renaming this here blog. Go check out that post, and leave me some feedback, mmmkay?

Well anyways, that seems like enough for the day. I have a long day of work ahead of me, and then a nice little relaxing weekend is definitely in store. And hopefully with some more rest, Jeff and I can both kick our colds in the bootay, and be better by Monday! Oh, and maybe we can get a little bit of Christmas shopping done too, because holy cow, it's in less than two weeks now. Sheesh time flies. Am I right, or am I right. Happy Friday to all of you lovelies! :)

Much Love,
Halie

Peppermint Tea & Christmas Movies

Good morning bloggy ladies :) Have a good weekend? I started getting a little bit sick half-way through my weekend, but that didn't stop me from enjoying a little bit of my two days away from work anyways...

FRIDAY
I know I made buffalo Bleu cheese turkey burgers for dinner, but other than that, I seem to have forgotten the rest of the evening. I assume it involved a Christmas movie and a bit more decorating of the house, but I'm just not too certain. My, what a short-term memory I seem to have...

SATURDAY
Woke up and made myself an egg sandwich for breakfast, and then waited on my Mama and sister to come pick me up. Then we went down the road to the fair grounds, for a big giant craft show, called Market Days. It's huge and awesome, and there are lots and lots of different vendors, from all over Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. My mom and sister both bought quite a few things. My mom got us both a cute little gingerbread house (that smells like cinnamon!), and Meg got lots of random things. I got a present for my family's Secret Santa exchange, and a Christmas ornament to celebrate mine and Jeff's first married Christmas together!

After we ate lunch there and walked around a little more, they dropped me back off at home with my bag full of goodies. Jeff and I then spent quite a few hours cleaning up around the house, and working on our second bedroom. That room has kind of been the "dump zone" as we moved both of us in over the last few months, and it was quite a disaster. However, the twins are coming here for 9 days, and that's "their" bedroom, so we need to get it cleaned up and ready for them! It's nowhere near done yet, but we got a lot done.

I had woken up feeling a little strep-throaty, so by 4 pm, I was exhausted and just needed to sit down and rest. Primrose came and cuddled up with me on the couch, and I ended up taking quite a nice little nap. While I was asleep though, Jeff ran out and picked up some Chinese food, so when I woke up it was dinner time, which was great and so yummy. We spent the rest of the night just laying on the couch, cuddling our doggie, and watching Christmas movies on Netflix. One of which, I would recommend if you're into Christmas music - "The Mistletones." It's an ABC Family movie, and it's really cute :)

Oh and then of course we watched my amazing Seminoles woop that Blue Devil bootay! National Champs here we come!!!!

SUNDAY
I woke up feeling even worse than the day before, and even though it was only 8 am, I couldn't go back to sleep. So instead I  watched another ABC Family Christmas movie :) This one was also cute, so check it out if you're into that kind of movie - "A Christmas Kiss." I got a little stir-crazy, so I did very minor cleaning around the house, and put away some clean dishes. I quickly ran to the grocery store for just a few items, and then spent the rest of the day back at home again. After a very late lunch, I threw together some soup really quickly, and let it simmer in the crock pot all afternoon for dinner. I was thankful for this super yummy recipe of mine, because it's so stinking easy to put together, it was even a cinch while not feeling so great.

This recipe actually debuted on my blog an entire year ago, so if you're interested in the recipe for Crock Pot Chicken Enchilada Soup (and you should be interested because it's delicious), then you can check out that post here.

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing and staying hydrated with lots of water, hot peppermint tea and some cran-apple juice. While Jeff blew off the leaves in our entire yard, I worked on some wedding recap posts and rounded up some pictures from our honeymoon in Cancun. (Those will all be coming soon, finally!) We watched "Robin Hood," Jeff fell asleep on the couch at 7:30, and then I watched the newest episode of "Once Upon A Time," while writing this very blog post. I went to sleep not much longer after that to try to get some rest and get better before beginning another work day.

So even though I was feeling kinda sick and yucky all weekend, there were still some bright spots that managed to peek their way through :) Now if I can just get rid of this icky-ness and get better, things will be all good! Happy Monday again ladies!

Much Love,
Halie

*Update* I was too sick to go to work today, so I'm at home still. I'll be going in to my doctor later, to make sure it isn't strep throat. Ugh, gross...

Pilgrims, Paula Deen Rolls & Potatoes

Good morning ladies, and Happy Monday. Are y'all back at work now after a four-day weekend like me too? It's kind of rough, but instead I'll just focus on being thankful for the time off that I did have, rather than whining about being back today. And so today, I'd of course like to recap my special Thanksgiving holiday with my family!

This year we went to my Aunt Suzanne and Uncle Keith's house, and it was the first year that I brought my very own contribution. The last couple of years we've hosted at my parents house, and so of course I've helped out with all of that. But this year I chose and made my own dish to bring over, and it was a hit! I made this Loaded Mashed Potato Bake, and it was delicious.

The rest of my family all made amazingly yummy things, and we had probably one of our best Thanksgiving meals ever. Seriously - it was sooo good. We had all the usual's - turkey (two ways: roasted and deep fried) dressing, sweet potato casserole, green beans, broccoli casserole, the yummiest Paula Deen's Cloverleaf rolls, and a couple other sides too. And as a special southern treat, my uncle made up some venison as well, which was also yummy.

Sliced and deep-fried turkey. Definitely one of my favorites of the day!

My sister was unfortunately not with us, because she was with her husband and in-laws in Alabama. We definitely missed them, and it was so weird not having them around for the holiday. However, this was actually the first year that Jeff and I have celebrated Thanksgiving together (actually with each other - we've he's gone out of town the last couple of years to see family), so it was so great to have him there with my whole family as well!

I have so much to be thankful for, and special meal with my family was of course a great way to celebrate that. We had so much fun eating all together, and then going through all of the Black Friday ads as well. We told lots of stories, and had lots of laughs, and we just generally enjoyed being with each other on this special day. I'm thankful for a lot of things, but my amazing family is definitely up at the top of that list!!

My cousin and I got to do the wishbone - sadly he won.

Parents :)

Me and my pretty Mama

There were of course lots of other happenings from the last four days, but it's entirely too much for just one post. So the rest of the weekend recap will follow tomorrow (or the next day, depending on my blog-motivation), and then later I'll share some pictures of our first Christmas and tree together, in our own little house! Hope y'all had a great weekend as well. Looking forward to reading y'all's Thanksgiving recaps as well!

Much Love,
Halie

P.S. - Happy 23rd Birthday to my "baby" sister! Doesn't quite seem possible for you to be this "old" yet, but apparently you are! Hope you have the bestest day, Little! I love you!!

Practicing Gratefulness

I truly do have so much to be thankful for. More than I'm even aware of really - things like life and breath and family are sometimes taken for granted, although those are sometimes the things that deserve the most thanks! God has blessed each and every one of us in so many beautiful and unique ways. And the sad thing is, we often don't even realize it. God loves us enough to place amazing things and people and opportunities in our lives, so is it really too much to ask that we remember to thank him for those things? Of course not. So I want to take a just a bit to highlight just some of the blessing I'm thankful for this year...

I am thankful for:
My husband, and our new marriage.
Adorable step-sons.
My loving and supportive parents.
Siblings who I not only get along with, but genuinely like/love being around.
Our new doggie, Primrose.
Promotions (over the summer) and more new responsibilities (again!) at work.
Sweet family members.
Caring and thoughtful in-laws.
Being able to run or ride a bike, pretty much whenever I want to.
Our cute little rental house.
A forgiving Savior.

I love making lists like these. It makes me truly take a moment to stop and think about all the wonderful blessings in my life, and appreciate each one of them. This list in reality is a lot longer than just these eleven things. In reality, I have hundreds of things I'm thankful for - but these are some of the ones that mean the most to me. I definitely encourage y'all to think about all the wonderful things in your life that you have to be thankful for! And it doesn't have to happen just on Thanksgiving every year! You can thank God at any time, any day of the year. Just show the guy some appreciation for all He's given us!

I wish each and every one of you a Happy Thanksgiving, and I hope you have a great holiday with family and friends! I for one am very much looking forward to a few days off work, sleeping in a little bit, spending time with family, and of course lots of yummy food!

Much Love,
Halie

P.S. - I just randomly found this quote, and I loved it too much to not include it....

“. . . my obsession with gratefulness. I can't stop. Just now, I press the elevator button and am thankful that it arrives quickly. I get onto the elevator and am thankful that the elevator cable didn't snap and plummet me to the basement. I go to the fifth floor and am thankful that I didn't have to stop on the second or third or fourth floor. I get out and am thankful that Julie left the door unlocked so I don't have to rummage for my King Kong key ring. I walk in, and am thankful that Jasper is home and healthy and stuffing his face with pineapple wedges. And on and on. I'm actually muttering to myself, 'Thank you. . .thank you. . . thank you.' It's an odd way to live. But also kind of great and powerful. I've never before been so aware of the thousands of little good things, the thousands of things that go right every day.” 
― A.J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

Pleasant & Patriotic 4-Day Weekend

Well, I've been out of work and out of the blogging routine for the past four days, and it's been great. I mean seriously - super long holiday weekends are amazing, and definitely necessary for your sanity, and I enjoyed every single bit of it. What about y'all? And since I had such a long amazing weekend, there's a ton to catch up on, so today's post will once again be very picture heavy, and kinda light on the writing.

Let's back it up all the way to Thursday, for the 4th of July!

Actually first of all, let me just show off our dinner from Wednesday night that we made ourselves. Super yummy Turkey Santa Fe Stuffed Peppers. Sooo good. I'll be sharing the recipe tomorrow!

THURSDAY
I was house/dog-sitting all last week for my friend Lacey, and for some strange reason I woke up before 8 a.m. without an alarm. What is wrong with that picture? So I took the dog out and fed her, then I was quite productive for a few hours. I did some dishes, loaded and started the dishwasher, started a load of laundry, swept the house, uploaded and edited some pictures, bought new music on iTunes, made a new running playlist, and finally made my new playlist for the summer (another check from my summer bucket list!). And I did all that before 10 a.m. Impressive right?

Jeff came over around lunch time, and we made turkey taco lettuce wraps with the leftovers from our stuffed peppers the night before, then just lounged around for a bit watching National Treasure 2 on TV. We then went out and attempted to find cute matching shirts to wear, but no such luck. So we came back to the house and made our mac and cheese to take to family dinner.

My Granddaddy - the Birthday Boy!

My Mama made these super cute eagles as her surprise dessert treat!

My sister made these patriotic themed cupcakes, which were delicious.

We played a giant game of 12-person Farkle, and my Granddaddy-the-birthday-boy won!

And of course my sister and I had to take an unnecessary amount of goofy pictures, just like we always do...

The problem was however, that Florida couldn't get it's crap together to stop raining long enough to do any fireworks. Thanks a lot. So I didn't get to see any this year. What a sad 4th of July with no fireworks, right?! Oh well, Jeff and I already decided that next year, we're definitely heading back to St. George Island beach for July 4th festivities, and that will be awesome.

FRIDAY
I am honestly having a hard time remembering what we did on Friday...I know it was still raining, so I think we ran errands and stuff around town. Oh yeah - we went to Hobby Lobby and priced some silk floral stems for wedding purposes, bought a few cute glass jars, raided an awesome new thrift store of all their vintage books and a giant empty wooden picture frame, and a couple of other random things. And I got a wonderful little package in the mail from one of my friends from college. She lives in Tennessee now, and it's been a looong time since I've seen her. But she sent me the cutest little things! Later, we got Tropical Smoothie for dinner, and then went to Jeff's church to help decorate for Vacation Bible School, which is this week.

Set of fold-out, vintage Florida postcards, a wrap bracelet, hand-painted (by her!) cards, & a super sweet note.

SATURDAY
It was still raining (for about the billionth day in a row now...), so we did some more running around and found another cool new thrift store, where we scored this really cool wicker-basket-trunk-thing for only $15. The top of it is messed up, so we are going to try to figure out a way to redo it to make it look nice. We also shopped around town for what we want Jeff and his groomsmen to wear for the wedding.  The rest of the afternoon was low-key and boring, but then we went out for date night on a budget. We used coupons at Black Bean (local Cuban place Jeff hadn't ever been to before), then finally saw 'Fast 6' at the cheap theater here in town. And that movie was awesome!

We needed a pick-me-up after so much shopping. He got a Mocha, I got a Peach Green Tea Lemonade. Yum.

SUNDAY
Church and lunch with my parents, then Jeff and I spent the afternoon driving around town looking for 'For Rent' signs for our future place! We drove around for like three hours, took down about 30 addresses and numbers, and then started calling almost all of them last night. We're so excited about finding a place to live now, and hopefully the process won't be too obnoxious and difficult.

OK, so I think that about wraps everything up now, finally! Hopefully I didn't bore you all to death, and you're still interested in reading my blog again after all this... But even more than that, I hope each one of y'all had a great weekend too! I wish we could have had less rain and more sunshine, but hey, not every day can be perfect, so we just live with it and move on. And in the meantime, we just hope for sunny days and better weather in the future! The weekend was still good, despite the crazy amount of rainfall, and I had a great four days off of work.

Oooh, and one more thing - this morning I officially started using Hal Higdon's novice 5K training plan, to get ready to run my first 5K race this coming September! So follow along with me as I get ready for that! I'll be sharing my usual collages on Instagram, and logging it all with RunKeeper.

Happy Monday, y'all! And I almost forgot - here's the nails I did for my 4th of July festivities! (I did them like 2 days before I took the picture though, so that's why they're a little chipped already...)

Much love,

Halie

Patriotic Festivities

"It's Independence Dayyyyyy!" (Pleas sing to the tune of the classic Martina McBride song from 1994. That's such a great song, and don't you even try to deny that.) You know what else, it's also my super sweet Granddaddy's birthday today as well. Yes, he shares his birthday every year with our country's birthday as well. And so every year, we get to celebrate a national holiday, and a family birthday as well, so of course it's always lots of fun! 

I for one am super excited about today, and so I wanted to share some about what my day will look like!

First of all, I'm totally splurging on this healthy eating kick, and eating a super delicious meal for dinner tonight, including ribs, baked beans, potato salad, mac and cheese, and some dessert thrown in there as well. And I'm not going to let even one ounce of that deliciousness make me feel guilty.

Found via Google image search

Oh, and that mac and cheese I mentioned earlier, Jeff and I are in charge of bringing that, so I've scoured my "Pasta is my Favorite" board on Pinterest for the past week, in search of the yummiest recipe. And I think I've found the winner folks. We're going to be using cheddar, jack and mozzarella cheeses, and adding fresh crumbled bacon on top. Hello?! Who wouldn't eat that yummy, cheesy goodness?!

From the recipe post on White on Rice Couple blog

Moving on from food now, I will be rocking as much red, white and blue from head to toe as I can possibly manage - as long as that doesn't include my blue and white umbrella in all this nasty, thunderstormy weather. Come on Florida, get it together. I have some ideas in my head of outfits I can wear, but those are my backups. But first, Jeff and I are gonna hit up Old Navy to see if we can find something matchy-matchy to wear, and just be that sickeningly cute couple :) Now, I don't think it'll be quite like the picture below, but who knows? If we find it on sale, maybe...

Found via Google image search

In addition to my sporty red, white and blue outfit I'm sure I'll be wearing, y'all know I'm also gonna be rockin' some festive and patriotic nails as well. I actually already painted them two nights ago, but I don't have a picture right now, so I'll just wait for Mani Monday to share them with y'all. In the meantime though, here's a picture of some awesome nails, I only wish I had the talent to paint free-hand!

Photo found on the Pams & Kin Facebook page

Now what I'd like to be doing tomorrow afternoon before dinner is laying on the sand, with the sun shining bright in the beautiful blue sky, getting my tan on. But noooo, the weather in Florida has to be rainy and crappy all week long, so the chances of my preferred scenario happening are pretty slim right now. However, if I had it my way, this looks like the perfect spot to hang out on the 4th of July...All I would need is a bottle of sunscreen, a cooler of snacks and drinks, and a book to keep me company. And I guess my fiance would be a good addition too ;)

Photo found via Google image search

Oh sorry, I gotta jump back to food for a bit. Since my whole family (of 12) is eating together, we're doing it potluck style and each contributing, thus why we're in charge of the mac and cheese. So my mom is bringing some dessert for us, but she's keeping it a surprise and won't tell us what it is. We know it's festive in some way, but that's about it. Oh, and she said she's sure it'll end up tasting good, but she's not sure how it will end up looking, so who knows what she has up her sleeve. I'd love to see her attempt something as pretty and Pinteresty as this, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see...!

Photo found via Google image search

And of course at the end of the night, after gorging ourselves on some yummy food, and maybe playing a game, and definitely sitting around having weird, random, hilarious conversations, eventually there will be fireworks. Now, I don't actually know if we're doing them ourselves, or if we're going somewhere to watch them, but either way, they'll definitely be happening. And if they can look even a little bit like the ones below, I'll be a happy girl.

Photo found via Google image search

I'm so grateful and thankful for this country I was blessed to live in. I hope you guys know how lucky we truly are here in America! I hope y'all have a great 4th of July celebration today (and throughout the weekend too probably), and that you enjoy your time with family and friends! Happy Independence Day, and Happy Birthday America, and another Happy Birthday to my Granddaddy!