I'm Thankful For

...Our 4th of July Celebration:

(I can't believe the 4th of July was nearly a week ago! Where does the time go? )

We had a lot of fun having R (Daddy) home for a three day weekend! Delight! I was brave and tried a few new recipes. I was too chicken to invite dear loved ones over for dinner because, I was not that confident in my fried chicken ability. Now, I wish that I had not been so...chicken!




We tried Tyler Florence's Family Recipe for fried chicken and it did not disappoint! I normally do not like the smell of frying anything in my kitchen, all 3 times I have fried somethings, so this time I snipped fresh Rosemary and Thyme from the garden and dropped it in the oil before we turned on the heat. The smell was heavenly! It took us 2 hours, yes you read that correctly, 2 hours to fry all the chicken my sweet hubby picked out. Note to self, never go to the grocery store with a hungry man and ask him to please pick out the chicken. We could have fed our street! We LOVED it! The chicken was moist on the inside and so crunchy on the outside. I served it w/ Tyler's tomatoes with blue cheese dressing and his recipe for roasted corn and Chile lime butter. Again, it was delicious!


Here are the girls enjoying our lunch. Rachel found a hat that belonged to R's Mamaw, when we cleaned out the game room....fun times!


And since it was the 4th of July, we had to have homemade apple pie. I'm not a great pie maker. The last time we had pie, I didn't even have a pie plate and we have been married for almost 18 years. So, using my good judgement, I improvised and used...are you ready for this?...cake pans! I thought it was brilliant. I worked so hard on my pie and finally the moment arrived to bake it in the oven. Since patience is not really my favorite fruit of the spirit, I refer to it as the "P" word, I waited 10 minutes, oh alright, 5 minutes, and checked on my pies. The crust had fallen and they looked like flattened pancakes. Ugh!

So, you can imagine my family's delight when I announced that I would be baking homemade apple pies, that I had never made before, for our dessert. Their chuckles were not appreciated! Anyway, Rachel and R helped me carefully slice all of the apples. Rachel and I carefully sculpted the pie crusts, and then the moment arrived to place them in the oven. I had flashbacks of my last pie, so I told them "good luck" and closed the door.

55 minutes later this is what I found:

Yippee! I baked a pie! I baked a pie! It turned out so well, I shared the second pie, cause you can't just make one at a time, with my parents. It was delicious and I was so thankful!

I'm also thankful for the fun times Hannah, R, and I had bowling this week.

Really, I prefer to bowl via our Nintendo Wii, but noooo, Hannah wanted the real deal this time. Off we went to the local bowl-a-rama. We laughed until our sides hurt. Note to self, real bowling is much harder than Wii bowling. Here are a few pics.

Great form...looking good...right?

Let me just explain, R and I are very competitive, therefore, our girls are very competitive! I'm sure R thought that he would just smoke us with his bowling expertise and just leave us in the dust, he did not! Okay, okay, he won the first game, by 3 points, and I won the second game.

It was quite a sight of beauty to see our score at the end of our second game. Here it is:

Pitiful isn't it? The high score for the night was 87. Clearly, we are not a bowling family. I think I will stick to Wii bowling, it isn't nearly as hard on my pride or my body.

It was fun, though!



On a more spiritual note, I am thankful for so many blessings in my life. Rachel has been texting me all week to let me know how the Backyard Bible School is going. They are having an incredible week. She asked me to pray for the kids in her group. Of course, I had been praying for them before they left, but I just loved her heart. I'm thankful for her heart and her deep love for the Lord. I can hardly wait to see her! I'm thankful she comes home in only 2 more days!



Joyfully,
Kristi