A Different Kind of Fourth

I am witness to the fact that as you get older, holidays change. For instance, last Christmas Day, Kerry and I were actually by ourselves. All the kids were doing other things. So we went and served lunch at the Salvation Army. It was different.

Now we've just had a three-day weekend to celebrate the Fourth of July. Again, all the kids were celebrating with their own families...which I personally think is just wonderful! They should have their own family traditions without grandparents getting in the way all the time! Families grow strong when they have traditions that bond them together, and the most important family unit to be strong is that small nucleus of mom and dad and the kids. (There...that's my own personal little bit of wisdom for the day...free of charge.)

So, Kerry and I had no specific plans for the weekend other than going to Fredericksburg on Saturday because it's 'Peach Season' in Fredericksburg. And even though we still have peaches in the freezer from last year's bounty, we felt like we needed more. We decided to start off the long weekend on Thursday by inviting our friends, Rick & Ann, over for dinner. Kerry is still trying out new things on his new-and-improved grill, so he decided to grill some orange roughy and cook some scallops in a wine/butter sauce (yes, the 'grill' has burners for this sort of thing). YUM-O, as Rachel Ray would say. I made a yellow squash/zuccini dish, and Ann provided the salad and steak fries. After dinner, we introduced Rick & Ann to the World of Wii, and we had so much fun for the next couple of hours. I'm sure if anyone had been looking in the window, they would have been rolling in the grass! Especially when Rick and Kerry were boxing...it was totally hilarious! Ann and I were laughing so hard we had tears! It was such a delightful evening and an excellent way to start our three days of leisure.

Friday morning was cool, so we decided to work out in the backyard for a little bit. I dug around in the yard pulling weeds and watered the seeds I had planted, and Kerry put together the bench arbor to go against the fence in the middle of back flowerbed. The temperature began to rise, so we began our descent...into the sofa to watch a little TV. We decided the scallops had been so good the night before, we would do them again for lunch, along with some fresh asparagus and fresh corn on the cob. Mmmmmm. As darkness fell, we decided we wanted to watch some fireworks (since we had missed the Pops Concert/Firework Display down on the river the night before), so we drove up the street where we had a great view of the fireworks display over the lake. It was an awesome show lasting almost 25 minutes.

We got up Saturday morning and left for Fredericksburg. We decided to take a different route and see different views, so we meandered our way through south central Texas and had a delightful time. We finally arrived in Fredericksburg just in time for lunch and had some good German food (Reuben sandwiches and bratwurst!). Then we strolled and shopped a little before heading out of town to the fruit stands. We stopped at quite a few before we decided to buy...that's just how you do it, apparently. But we finally found some we liked, and we got not only peaches, but also black-eyed peas, okra, Pecos cantaloupes, and vine-ripened tomatoes. And yes, by the time we got home, all we could smell was cantaloupes! We also decided to stop and poke around at this place that had a lot of wrought iron and pottery and 'outside stuff' piled around. We had seen some pots outside one of the little shops earlier that I liked, and Kerry thought we might find some there. He was right! Here is what we found...perfect for our patio.

We were ready to leave Fredericksburg, but not ready to go home, so we decided to drive over to Lake Buchanan. Kerry's family had a place there when he was little and again for a little while about 12 years ago. It was really interesting to drive around and look at all the 'old places'. We were able to find the place where Kerry's two aunts had lived. The bigger house has been redone on the outside (and probably on the inside), but the smaller house is still there, just like it was.

And there is still a stand of cannas right where they had been when Kerry's aunt lived there!

After driving around the lake a while, we decided to go ahead and drive on to Austin and eat at our most favorite restaurant ever....

Carrabba's Italian Grill. We found this about 11 years ago when we were in Austin picking out wedding bands. We had been looking for another Italian place, which we never found, but discovered Carrabba's instead. There are Carrabba's in the Dallas area and Houston area, but we're a little partial to this one. Oh, my...Chicken Bryan...if you've never had it, we highly recommend it! Afterward we went down to the Capitol and walked around a while before getting back in the car and heading home.

Sunday afternoon was cool...low 90's, believe it or not...so I got out in the backyard again and put up a little fence to keep Tux out of the flowerbed around the fence so the little flower seeds will have a chance to grow. Here's the lastest pic of the backyard transformation...it's still in progress, but looking a lot better.

Celebrating the Fourth of July this year was certainly a lot different than we've ever done before. But it was wonderful not to have anything specific on our agenda...just spending time together, which is just about our favorite thing to do.

Now I've got to go and make a peach cobbler!!!