Happy Birthday America!!

July 4th is one of my very favorite holidays!!  It's right up there with Christmas and Thanksgiving!  I just love a good opportunity to be overly patriotic, play at the pool, grill out, and watch fireworks :)

I love this!!  It really says it all.  I'm very thankful for all the military men and women giving of themselves for our country!  And of course their families who sacrifice their spouse, dad, mom, brother, sister, daughter, son, etc, while they go defend our nation!  God Bless!!

FYI...this is a bit of a longer post :) At least I warned you!

This was Brandon and I's third July 4th together!!  Can you believe it? Where does the time go!?  The past 2 years we've spent it with big groups of our friends at someone's pool making lots of food and hanging out.  But this year it seems most of our typical July 4th crew was out of town.  It was ok, though, because B and I didn't see each other much last weekend and well we just plain like hanging out together :)

Friday night we had a little date night and went to one of our favorite restaurants, Cajun Yard Dog!

They have awesome New Orleans' style food and decor and is kind of a little whole in the wall restaurant.  They're always packed so we usually grab a seat at the bar!  We always say they should expand, but it just wouldn't have the same atmosphere and feel if they did! After dinner we grabbed some froyo & caught a movie too :)

Saturday our apartment complex was having a pool party for all the residents!  That's definitely a plus about our complex, the office staff is always hosting little parties, leaving treats in baggies hanging on our door, or giving out goody bags on the way out of the garage...pretty sweet, huh!?

They hired a DJ and supplied some good BBQ and eats for the day!  The DJ held a hula hooping contest, among other trivia contests and such, for prizes! Here I am practicing for the hula hooping contest!

Once we started the real contest, it got down rather quickly to me and one other girl and the DJ thought the contest could go on forever.....so she thought we needed 2 hula hoops!

This was quickly my demise as you can see and I missed out on winning the awesome prize of a cool t-shirt and a pass for a cruise around lake norman! Ughh, I was so close!!  I wanted a rematch, but no one else cared it was on to the next contest!  We didn't really participate in any of the others as our TV show theme song knowledge isn't exactly up to par and we just hung by the pool!  After a nap, we went out for some dinner and a couple drinks.  I think all of downtown's friends were out of town, too!  We felt like we were the only ones in the restaurant!

Sunday was rather lazy!  We slept in, then went to the pool but decided we were pooled out cause it's so stinkin' hot!!  We attempted a work out, then stopped by the grocery store to pick up some food!  We were feeling fajitas and some chips and salsa and then just laid around and watched a movie.

Monday was pretty much more of the same =) went to the pool for a bit, worked out for a bit, watched some tube, then put on our red, white & blue to go celebrate America!!  We hadn't done anything overly 4th-of-July-ish all weekend and I was itchin' to celebrate my USA!!!  Downtown Charlotte has a great fireworks show (that cannot be seen from the rooftop of our building, btw!  Learned that the hard way last year!) so we headed to Elizabeth Ave which is a prime spot to watch!

Woke up to this crazy kitty on my head Monday morning!

We were hoping to hit up some Nothin' but Noodles but they were closed :( the only open restaurant on the street was....1800 Mexican Grill!  Ha, what better way to be patriotic than to eat Mexican on July 4th (and two nights in a row!)!?!  Shortly before we left, the heavens decided to open up and it was storming just a bit, but we figured we'd still give it a go!  Just our luck, the only other open place on Elizabeth Ave was Elizabeth Creamery!!  We got some ice cream and headed to the car to wait out the rain & religiously check the radar on my iPhone :)

When I saw the rainbow, I knew God would allow for fireworks!!!  And that He did!  There were the cutest little girls in the parking lot with us & B had a hard time differentiating their squeals, wows, and oohs and ahhhs with mine!  Haha, I just love fireworks and feel about 7 when I see them!

I put B on camera duty, but it's hard to capture a firework at the exact right time, try as he might!!  These don't do it justice!  They were so awesome, I thought, and lasted a good 20 minutes!  So worth our 90 minute wait!

I sure hope you and yours had a most spectacular 4th of July....full of fireworks, red, white & blue and those you love the most :)