A Post-Holiday Hello Monday

Hello friends and happy Monday. 

I'm joining Holly and Sarah for a post-holiday weekend reap today. I took so many pictures of the beautiful sky this weekend I might just post them all. 

I have a hair appointment this morning which is going to throw off my entire day, but I had to take what was available. I had to cancel my normal appointment in order to go to my daughter's house a couple of weeks ago, so I'm overdue and my stylist is fitting me in today. Do you have to book your hair appointments three at a time in order to be sure you get on the calendar, because that's what I have to do?

So how was your holiday weekend? Ours was really fun with a lot of time spent in the water because it was HOT!

Hubs brother and sister-in-law arrived on Wednesday afternoon on their way home from the beach. They brought four pounds of fresh shrimp with them, which we promptly deveined and cooked to have with our dinner. 

They lived in the Chicago area three different times and know their Portillo beef, so they also treated us to dinner Wednesday night by sending a 'to go' order to the southland. If you're a Chicagoan then I don't have to explain, but for those who are not here's the 411-

Portillos beef is a slow-roasted, thinly sliced, beef served on baked Turano French bread. The bread is key. The standard way to serve the sandwich is to put the beef on the roll, splash it with some of their secretly-spiced gravy and then have a cup of gravy on the side for dipping. It's even better topped with their oven-roasted sweet peppers and the hot giardiniera peppers which we love. 

My neighbors joined us because they also have Chicago ties and I wish I'd taken a picture but it's a bit of a production getting it all put together. I'd made a cucumber salad and we all sat around our outdoor table and it was a low-key fun way to kick off the holiday weekend.

We woke up on Independence Day and had coffee on the deck, then spent most of the rest of the day in the lake. It was HOT! but the water temp was perfect. 

For our July 4th dinner hubs grilled ribs to perfection and I made baked beans, cole slaw, and a roasted corn salad, plus there was  more shrimp. 

I made a frozen strawberry pie for dessert, which doesn't actually contain any strawberries, but does have a strawberry topping so I guess the name fits?  I made the Alex Guarnaschelli's recipe linked here.

It does contain mashed raspberries which are what give it the pretty pink color, and the pie is really light and tasty. Also refreshing, which was the name of the game this weekend.

It was HOT!! 

My across the cove neighbor does a ginormous fireworks show and boats start coming to our cove and to the water just outside our cove about an hour before. A neighbor asked if they could tie up to our dock and we said sure and they asked if they could bring a few people as they had friends at their house, and we said sure and y'all!!!

They floated over on a boat filled with 28 people and a few more in a car and it was ka-razy! 

Fun for sure, but also ka-razy!

Kids peeled off that boat and scattered like ants. Adults too! 

God bless America! 

The fireworks display was its usual fabulous happening which we all enjoyed, and then one of the adults who had come by car (and who we did not know) announced she had dropped her keys in the lake. 

Ruh-roh. 

Their car was parked at the top of our driveway, and there it sat until 4 PM the next day. It would have been moved earlier except her brother who arrived from an hour away brought the wrong key so...

All's well that ends well, right? Lol!

We had nowhere to be on Friday except the lake so it was just a funny thing to us. Maybe not so much to the person who dropped the keys, but we spent the day boating and swimming. Late afternoon the most delightful storm rolled in and we sat on the screened porch listening to it roar, feeling the humidity drop to an acceptably breathable level.

I love a storm on the lake, so long as we're all tucked safely indoors. 

Hubs grilled steaks for dinner and afterwards we sat on the deck and watched the sun make a perfectly pink exit. 

Family left Saturday morning, then hubs had some real estate-ing to do for a fair chunk of the day. I put the house mostly back in order, did five loads of laundry, cleaned out the frig, and took care of some paperwork that needed taking care of. 

We have a busy week filled with meetings and appointments and readying the house and the pantry for a big wave of family who will begin arriving this coming weekend. We can't wait to have all the grands here!! 

We also know we need to eat our Wheaties, fill our frig and our sleep tanks to overflowing, and get our steps in so we're in tip top form to keep up with the under six set. No grass grows under their feet when they're here and we gotta keep up!  

Hope your holiday weekend was grand!