Happy Fourth Second of July!
This evening, Peeper and I left Shrike at home on the couch, and we went to DoulaK's big July Fourth picnic and fireworks display.
She lives out in the middle of nowhere, and there are like a zillion people there to watch her husband and his buddies blow up a whole bunch of really pretty stuff.
The picnic part is a potluck, so I figured that Peeper and I could handle making some cookies, especially since I now have 100+ groovy cookie cutters, and had picked up a jar of patriotic sprinkles on clearance at Aldi at some point. (Hmm, last August, perhaps?)
I think we did a pretty good job with them.
We had them all ready and waiting, when I read the Happy Home Fairy's post on Festive Foods for the 4th, and decided that I just had to make these dips from Kraft Foods.
They each start with a cream cheese base . . .
. . . this one has black olives, salsa and taco-seasoned shredded cheese . . .
. . . and this one has blueberries, strawberry preserves and chopped walnuts.
After putting them together, I carefully wrapped each one in foil, with toothpicks to support it so it didn't smush the pretty flag. I put the cookies (in a basket), two boxes of crackers and both dips in a cloth grocery bag and put it in the front floorboard of the car.
Everything was fine, until I came upon a stop sign that I wasn't expected, and had to brake suddenly. Everything went sliding around, but I was able to pull over and straighten it all out. The foil tents had collapsed a bit, so I thought my flags might have more of a "waving in the wind" look to them, but no real harm done.
And then there were the deer. Two babies, right in the middle of the road. And, again, with the brakes.
You see the one dip with the walnuts? Well, they're on the bottom, too, which means that there was zero friction between the dip and the plate. When I pulled over again to check everything, the plate and foil were sitting on top but the dip itself had slid right off and was in the bag, beside the cookie basket.
Oh well. At least I got pictures before I left the house.
When we finally got there (it's about an hour away), I loaded Peeper up on my front, the over-full backpack / diaper bag on my back, a camp chair over one shoulder and my bag-o-food in one hand, and hiked up a hill from the parking-field to the house.
We found DoulaK right off, which was kind of amazing, put our food (what was left of it) on the buffet table and served up a plate for ourselves.
After eating, we hung out and visited with DoulaK, her mom and some other folks that we just met tonight.
And Peeper played some b-ball. She picked up the (regulation-size) ball, positioned herself under the (regulation-size) hoop, said "Mama, watch!" and tossed it about a foot up in the air. Repeatedly. Bless her little two-foot-seven-and-a-half heart.
Once it got darkalish, I thought it best to go ahead and hike back down to the car before the fireworks started, so we weren't trying to get there in the dark with cars driving all over the place. That was a very good plan, because by this point, the field was full of cars waiting for the show. So, we put our stuff back in the car, set up our chair and joined them.
The fireworks were amazing, especially for something put on by a private individual. I don't think I've seen a public display that was any better than this.
And Peeper loved them, although she was done before they were, and watched the last few minutes from her carseat.
Here's a bit from early in the show, with her commentary, plus a bit of the finale.
:) Not to set limits on our girlie there, but some how I just don't expect her to ever make the WNBA. You might get her a "her size" hoop though, that would be fun.
ReplyDeleteladykay