July 4th Weekend- 2011

We are heading to the beach for the day to swim, eat seafood, and smell the salt air!! We only live about 1 hour & 15 minutes from the coast and it is a lovely drive through the country...and I mean flat, open, green, and sparsely populated country!!! But we love going "the back way"...

( I will try to remember to take some pictures as we go)

(and this is cotton growing in the fields where tobacco used to grow...)

We used to live on our NC coast where I taught school in a small fishing village called Swansboro. We lived on the Intracoastal Waterway, where we watched the yachts going south in the fall and back up in the spring and then on the White Oak River where we saw alligators twice!!

But before we left, I put our flags out to celebrate July 4th, America's Independence Day!!

Here's my little flag pillow that sits in the rocker...

And of course the 4th would not be complete without ...

pickles...I made yesterday but only got enough "free" to make three quarts.

This is an easy recipe that I will post when I get more to make...

and brownies I made last night...one stick of butter and 3 eggs, 2 sq. of chocolate

and they are rich.  You can see we have almost eaten them all!!

HAPPY JULY 4TH EVERYONE...have a safe and restful holiday

in celebrating our nations's wonderful independence!!!