The weekend celebrations

Mark and Glenn

Glenn - Bill in the background

Bill fishing!! I've heard that he was a happy happy man!! What a great weekend! On Saturday, Mark, his brother Bill and Glenn went fishing down at the farm. I understand that there was lots of laughter and lots of hot dogs eaten and I heard that they caught some fish! When my good friend, Phella, found out that I would be home alone, she invited me to come down and join their family on Lake Tuscaloosa. I had a great time soaking up some sun, reading a good book (The Help - I recommend it!!) and eating yummy chicken enchiladas. There are no pictures from Lake Tuscaloosa because Mark had the little digital (see pics above!) and I never dragged out the big Canon. Maybe that is my answer about whether to buy a small camera or the Canon Rebel Digital???

On the actual fourth, we went to church and Sunday school and went out to eat at Zoe's with Mark's mom and Laura and her friend, Laura Brown who was visiting from out of town. Then late in the afternoon, we went over to our friends annual Fourth of July party.

She always has great fourth of July decorations!! The food was yummy. They grilled burgers and dogs and we all brought different sides. I made a cornbread salad that was delish and we had baked beans and slaw and fruit and sliced tomatoes. Of course, we started the evening off with a couple of delicious appetizers and cocktails.
Fred was even playing the guitar at some point before the fireworks.

Joe was cooking the burgers and Mark and Laura M. were entertaining him. You can actually see the smoke curling around them.
Here is a group of the girls - Carolyn, Kim, Laura and our lovely hostess, Lynn
After dinner, we always walk up to the crest and stand and watch the Thunder on the Mountain fireworks. What a great way to spend the fourth - good food, good friends, good fireworks. But we weren't through with our weekend.

On Monday, we drove down to Mollie and Roger's lake house on Lake Mitchell. This is an annual family tradition. Mollie is Mark's first cousin and these two families have always been close.

Once again, we were surrounded by food . . .and LOTS of it. If you look closely, there are actually some healthy items!!
Roger is the grill master - cooking the burgers and grilling the ribs. Glenn and Mark and Bill said their plan was to put only ribs on their plates (no sides to fill them up!) and then to have homemade ice cream. Not sure if that plan worked out. Seems to me that I saw Glenn loading up on my slaw and Sally's cornbread salad.
Some folks sat in the air conditioned house and just visited the afternoon away.

Here is a great picture of Bill, Sally and Laura.
Other folks sat outside in order to absorb every drop of Vitamin D possible. Our family would be some of those people. We were so excited to have Lauren with us yesterday. It is her first time to come to our family fourth celebration. Welcome to our future daughter-in-law. She fits right in!!

We had a great weekend!! Now it is way past time for me to be getting ready to go to work. Wonder if I could make a living writing a blog? Nah? Well, off to get ready to go to work (thank goodness, I love my job!)