Two if By Sea

The 4th of July is my favorite holiday. I think I'm a pretty patriotic person. I tear up when they play all the anthems for the different branches of the military and the veterans stand. I CAN NOT WAIT for the Olympics. I'm ready to hear the Star-Spangled Banner over and over! Go USA : )

I mentioned the 4th of July picnic contest. I'm working on a few things for this year's picnic which I hope to share maybe Tuesday night (in case you want any super last-minute ideas). Today I thought I'd show you our entry from a couple of years ago. I had never entered before, which is sort of odd, since I tend to love competition, but two years ago I decided to go for it. When I say go for it, I mean win, because I think if your going to compete you might as well win. (note here: There are like 25 "winners" for this picnic contest with totally made up as they go categories -- "Best Picnic Incorporating Pasta Salad," "Best Last-Minute Picnic," etc.-- so no one really wins you just get a prize or you don't. The competition is all in my head.)  Anyway, I decided to make our theme "Two If By Sea." based on the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem. Here's an excerpt:

I made a banner with our picnic title.

I sewed this colonial flag representing the Americans,

and sewed a British flag pillow case to represent the British. I put the pillow in this awesome boat wagon that my uncle, who builds real boats, made for Thing One's first birthday. Isn't it cool?! We just visited his workshop in Michigan and I will share more about that soon, but in the meantime you can see some of his work here. 

Finally, I set up a table with two lanterns a spy-glass, cherries and an apple pie. Food was an afterthought obviously. I was more about the decorating. Which was apparently my down-fall, as we did not earn a prize. Apparently judges like to be bribed with food, so they were not impressed with my hours of sewing and props. I'm not going to lie, I was disappointed. 

I was still really happy with how it turned out. And the theme made it a memorable fourth, which is fun. 

You know what else is fun? My in-laws couldn't believe that with all our hard work we didn't win something, so they made us an awesome gourmet basket and brought it over the next day. It was a great surprise, and way better than a free oil change : ) 

I hope that you are planning fun things for the 4th. It's going to be a great week!

Thanks for reading!

-Haley