Celebrating with Stars and Stripes

Yay!  It's time to celebrate!  Are you ready?  I'm getting there!  I've got most of the trimmings done.   Now, I just need to get going on food planning and the baking.

We have several reasons to celebrate this weekend.

It's going to be a long weekend for sure.  On Saturday we will celebrate my husbands birthday and enjoy a cookout at our sailing club along with an evening raft up on the water to watch the fireworks.

I've combined a few things  for our 4th of July tablescape at home with a few items to take with us Saturday on the water.

Like this tic tac toe box set.  It might come in handy while were waiting for the fireworks to begin.

I'm really hoping to take this cute little centerpiece I made too, just not sure how I will display it on board yet.

The dishes will not make the boat trip but I am thrilled to finally bring them out.

  I can't believe I found these adorable place mats at  DT this year.

 I feel like I have been waiting forever to use these plates!  I got them late last summer after seeing so many of you with these.  I just loved them everytime I saw some of your tablescapes and was thrilled when I found them on clearance at TJ Maxx.  

I've combined them with my"free" salad plates that I won from Lenox last Christmas.

Then topped it off with red checked paper napkins.  Yes!  You heard me right, these adorable checked napkins were from the DT also.  They will definitely make it on the boat!

I have had my star napkin rings forever but they were brass.  The brass seemed a bit dated so I updated them with a few spray coats of white.

Thought you might enjoy a close up of my wedding stainless again.

My blue iridescent goblets never made it back in the cabinets from last week.

I've had this linen forever and have no clue where it came from.  I got this one and another I will show you soon when my oldest was younger and we decorated his room in red white and blue.  I used these for his dresser tops to keep them from getting scratched.

The red bucket was on clearance last week at Hobby Lobby and looks great with the flowers, sparkly stars and streamers from DT.  

I have always seen these wiry streamer thingys at DT and thought they were cute but a bit plain.  I don't know why I've never thought of adding them to arrangement before.  Duh!

However, I got the idea of using the daisy's from our fellow blogger, A Musing Popourri.  I had just purchased the pail last week when she posted her red pail with flowers and knew I had to be a copy cat.  Thanks La! 

I found these cute little salt and pepper shakers at Dollar General for only $1.50.  Seriously!

The apple pie candle was from the $1.00 bin at Michael's last year and the plastic tray from was from you guessed it, the Dollar Tree.

I've brought out my 4th of July painting and set the side table in the kitchen for dessert.

Here's the other linen that I used in my sons room years ago.  I think they might actually be dishtowels, but not sure because they are so large.

This is the Mr.s cake plate.  I've set it on top of a compote for height.

Then stacked some desert dishes on top.

Last year I made these anchor napkin rings for the fourth.  This year I've used them as accents.  It was a fun and easy project that really looks great on napkins.  Speaking of napkins, I just love these checked paper napkins so much I may have to go back and stock up.  They had matching paper plates too!

Well, this is what were up to this weekend!

How about you?  What plans do you have?

Please leave me a note I would really like to hear!

I am joining both Tablescape Thursday and

 Thrifty Tablescape Party today.

So here's the run down.

Dinner and desert plates, Calico? by Queens from TJ Maxx - $3.00 and $2.00 each

Salad Plates, Butlers Pantry by Lenox - free (prize)

Stainless Steel Flatware, Louisiana from Oneida - free (wedding)

Goblets, unknown from yardsale - $3.00 set

Placemats from Dollar Tree - $1.00 each

Checked paper napkins from Dollar Tree -$1.00

Serving tray from Dollar Tree - $1.00

Flowers, Stars Streamers from Dollar Tree - $1.00

Red Pail from Hobby Lobby - $1.06

Apple Pie candle from Michaels - $1.00

Wishing each of you a very happy fourth of July!

Mary

Winning isn't Everything!

And the winner is...."C" dock!  That's not my dock. Boo!  Hiss...hiss! 

 LOL!  Just kidding!   We had such a great time that I really didn't even mind that our dock does not carry the dubious award of displaying the dreadful skull Triton that I made when we started this race last year. 

This photo is from last year

  I say dreadful because since we started the "Capture the Flag" race we have had a few mishaps with the winners of the Triton.  On our dock, "B" dock, while we had it proudly displayed as the very first winners we had one boat sink, one who's mast fell on top of another boat and and various electrical problems.  All can be rather easily explained and are much preferred to the more serious personal issues that those on "A"dock faced after they won the scary Triton.  They had some with severe health conditions, financial hardships and divorce.   With that in mind, we all were somewhat relieved to turn over the Triton to "C" dock.  Good luck y'all!  I'm thinking we may need a new dock trophy for sure.  Perhaps something a tad less roguish!

The rules of our cruising race are very simple and very unconventional to most all sailing competitions.  We sponsor this event and others in order to get more club members out to simply enjoy their boats and membership.  All boats from each dock must start at a designated point and time, round a mark then return to the dock.  The first dock with all it's competing members back wins!  The loop hole is that when a dock only has 1 boat competing and if that boat is larger it is most likely to win, as was the case on Saturday.  Larger boats tend to be able to sail much faster then smaller boats which is why in a real sailboat competition you have many different classes and handicaps, start times, etc.

However, we are the cruising fleet, aptly named because we are mostly like to just simply "cruise".  Does this look like a very competitive group to you?

Here we are waiting on the Captains meeting before starting.

Looks like we had a few visitors who wanted in on this meeting too.

Or maybe they just wanted a handout...hungry ducks!

Then it was time to head to the docks.

Here's the Mr. getting our sails out and ready.

Leaving the docks.

Not a bad turnout for the cruisers.  Our dock had at least four boats I know, maybe more?

The wind and the weather was just great!  Here I was happily taking pics of our club members when suddenly...rrrraaooaarrrrhh!!!!

Here come the jet boats!

They were competing in a Poker run and were all around.

Very hard to photograph because they are gone in the blink of an eye.

They are pretty exciting to see too!

Aww!  Now back to a much slower pace.

Here we are moving closer to our mark.  We were to round this island then head back home.

If it looks like we are much further away then some of the others you would be correct.  When sailing you have to go where the wind takes you, especially when it shifts.  Unfortunately, the wind was heading us in the opposite direction for a bit from where we were headed.  After several tacks we still were very far behind the bigger boats.

We actually made it to the islands twice but did not get to go all the way around as only a few others actually did.  So, the Mr. and I decided to just enjoy the day for what it was.

Hot!

And relaxing!  

Sorry, this is where my afternoon ends for you.  As I warned you I get very caught up in the activities and forget all about the camera.  After we got back to the docks, many of us went swimming in the lake by the beach area and then had a wonderful cookout complete with a late night bon fire by the water.

It was a wonderful afternoon!

Thanks for stopping by for Take a Look Tuesday!

Have a great day!

Mary