Do they have a 4th of July in England?

You'd be surprised how many times I've been asked "do they have 4th of July in England?". Well of course we do. Do you think we just wrote that date out of the calendar and go directly from 3rd to 5th? YES we have a July 4th. No, we do not celebrate America's independence from the British.
I'm glad we cleared that up.
This year's 4th of July weekend was, as usual, full of friends and BBQs and a new addition to the Bauman household... temporarily. On Friday night we headed downtown to Romeo's with Andi and Mike. Followed by a nightcap at the starlight lounge. Romeo's was pretty good, and we were so happy with our find of this tiny bar upstairs at Starlight, where there were couches and comfy chairs and conversation nooks all over the place, with just the right mood lighting and level of music. Andi and I tried wines we hadn't tried before. Very nice!

On Saturday, Mike and Tara dropped off our houseguest, Maverick. He stayed with us all weekend while they went to New Orleans for a spontanous trip. The cats were a little disturbed, especially Onyx. Nikki just freaked momentarily then went about her business like he wasn't there. On Saturday night we joined Nick and Kitty over at Jay and Erin's house for grillin' and drinkin'. They had just bought a new grill and wanted to break it in. I'm very fussy about my steak and I can't stand it overdone. It was delicious! Jay had some special seasoning made by a friend in his home town. It was top notch.
On Sunday we headed over to Bob's house for a pool party. Too many people to list here were there, though two people I didn't expect to see, Tracey and Erin were there. They had met Bob at the boat party last week and came to the pool party. That was a nice surprise. Two kegs later and a very drunk Brian, we happily headed home with Maverick, who had a wonderful time fetching the ball for anyone who would throw it for him.
On Monday Brian went to test drive cars with Nick, while I ran some errands and did some stuff around the house. Somewhere during the weekend we headed to Bed Bath and Beyond to spend some gift cards and came home with a hammock and stand for the back yard. Late Monday afernoon we headed down south to Brian's friend Brett's wedding. It was in a catholic church somewhere of Wm. Cannon. Thankfully they cut most of the catholic stuff out and the ceremony only lasted 45 minutes. And I didn't burst into flames when I entered the church. That would have been awkward ;-)
The reception was held at Vintage Villas and was a lot of fun. I didn't know anyone there except for the bride and Joe and Terri, but by the end of it I had made many new friends and had a great time swing dancing with Joe. Afterwards, Joe, Terri, Brian and I headed to Carlos and Charlies to end the evening and ran into... you guessed it... Tracey! She is everywhere! We hung out with Tracey and her friends and also ran into Freddis, a guy I know from the elevator at work, who it turns out also knows Brian from indoor soccer, but didn't know we were married. Was pretty funny to see him put 2 and 2 together.
On Tuesday we had busy day, cleaning house, Brian did the front and back yards, our lawns look so good! he's been so dedicated to making the grass look good and it's really paying off. Tuesday evening we had a BBQ at our house. Skewers of beef and shrimp marinated in lime, olive oil, garlic and cilantro, and skewers of chicken marinated with Jamaican Jerk sauce. The food was awesome and I'm happy to say that Brian's grilling skills are coming along nicely. I made my famous guacamole and stole Erin's recipe for roasted potatoes, and Kerey brought a patriotic dessert of strawberry shortcake with blueberries. We finished off the night out in the back yard in the rain and it made my whole weekend complete to get soaked and watch fireworks against a backdrop of black clouds and lightening.

Happy independence day, y'all.