There is a lot of independence from the United Kingdom being celebrating this weekend. I hope you are all having a lovely Canada Day, if you even know it was Canada Day.

Today Christopher and I went to Home Depot to get a plant for his mom's birthday and while we were there we got ourselves a few things. Now if you know me at all you know that I have the most unfortunate record with plants, so please say a little prayer for us or cross your fingers. We are going to try growing herbs and peppers, we bought thyme, basil, rosemary, dill, green bell peppers and cayenne peppers. We also got a Siam Tulip for Brenda and one for ourselves. They are so pretty and kind of exotic looking, I had never seen one before. I love tulips so I was pretty excited to find these.



Hopefully our plants will continue to grow and I will learn how to use fresh herbs to cook. I am trying to make more whole meals, so I thought home grown herbs would be a good step in that direction. There is a pretty cool blog that I started reading, 100 Days of Real Food, and she shares tips on switching to a lifestyle with no processed foods. I don't think Christopher and I are ready for that strict of a diet quite yet and may not ever be, but I am trying to incorporate healthier, real foods into my cooking. I'll keep you posted on our progress.

I have also been helping Christopher learn to cook. It has been very helpful to have him helping with dinner. I figure if we ever get around to having kids it will be nice for him to be able to feed himself and our children if I am ever away or if I'm sick or maybe even just sick and tired of cooking. So far he has learned to make a Thanksgiving Turkey, Chicken Alfredo, Tomato Sauce, Pound Cake, Hamburgers, Hot Dogs, Steak, Grilled Chicken, Lobster, Shrimp Skewers, and a pretty killer grilled turkey and cheese sandwich. I think next we will work on Chili, breakfast foods and veggies. I am by no means a professional in the kitchen but I do alright and I have been giving friends cooking lessons since early college. Maybe I should start teaching a cooking class as part of a premarital training course. I'll teach women how to feed their men, we can get a sex expert to teach them how to satisfy them in the bedroom and of course the minister can carry on with their usual lessons in putting God first and each other second, communicating and other general life advice. I think that should be enough to keep couples happy for at least a while. I have a pretty simple view of how to keep a marriage in good working order, obviously. I'm not saying it's always easy, but for crying out loud don't make it harder than it needs to be.

This weekend Bianca is home from DC to visit for the 4th of July. I haven't even seen her yet, but it always feels good to be in the same county. Kelly also came home to visit today, and she is staying ALL month. We have plans to go out boozin' and singing at Pat O'Brien's Sunday night. I am looking forward to drinking pretty drinks in even prettier glasses and singing all of my favorite Elton John and Queen songs.

Monday night Chris and I plan to go with my parents to my dad's office downtown to watch fireworks. He works on the 17th floor of a building near the downtown fireworks and it makes for the perfect viewing spot. The fireworks end up being just about at eye level and since every year it rains we stay nice and dry inside in the air conditioning, drinking cold drinks and eating snacks while we chit chat with some of the other people my dad works with. It is the perfect way to watch fireworks as far as I'm concerned.

I hope you have a relaxing 4th of July weekend.