Happy Fourth of July!

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY AMERICA!

I hope everyone has a wonderful day planned for today! It's one of my favorite holidays. I wish our family could celebrate together but hubby's job requires him to work EVERY fourth of July. I'm glad that he enjoys what he does but it would be nice to get this holiday together again. anyway.

We had a nice 3rd of July around here. I took the girls to the Lake Arlington Fireworks. It was a nice free event that provided bounce houses for the kids and music entertainment. They had various vendors. OH man was it crowded but not uncomfortable! We found a great place in the grass to sit and watch fireworks. I guess we can thank Chesapeake for sponsoring the fireworks. They are making sure that everyone knows who they are and that they are a part of our "community". They really want that Barnett Shale gas.

I would love to report how very organized leaving the event was as far as shuttles were concerned but no. That was probably the worst part was catching a shuttle back to the parking lots with two exhausted kiddos in a sea of other exhausted people that didn't know which way to go. We made it home at 11:15pm about an hour after the fireworks had ended. Not too bad. We had a nice time. I don't think the girls will be up for any more fireworks tomorrow or Saturday. Bummer for me. I hope when they are older it will be easier and more enjoyable for them.

My hubby has been working at the APHA World Show for the past 2.5 weeks and it was another late night for him. He wasn't home when we arrived back from fireworks. In all the craziness of the day, I forgot that he had asked me to make banana pudding for his department's 4th of July cookout. When he got home, he checked the fridge to locate the banana pudding and it wasn't there. He came into the bedroom and said "what about the banana pudding?" Oops! It totally slipped my mind. So off with the pajamas and on with the clothes appropriate for the grocery store.

My favorite banana pudding recipe is one that I've been using a long time now from allrecipes.com. It's called Banana Pudding IV and it's da bomb. It's very similar to the one hubby's Oma used to make. Although I think she actually did the full on cooking version of the pudding. Me, I'm not so much interested in baking/cooking pudding especially when instant is available. Mine is just as homemade as the next person in my opinion. I don't believe everything has to be made from scratch to be "homemade". If I make it in my kitchen, it's homemade.

Anyway, the only alterations I make on this recipe is I fold in the entire tub of Cool Whip instead of half. You are supposed to use the whole tub anyway so go ahead and fold it in. I also LOVE the mini Nilla Wafers.

The top photo is the one I made for hubby to take. It has a single layer of mini nilla wafers, and then I added a single layer of bananas and a single layer of pudding. The second photo has double layers. The double layer pudding will go to my parent's house for lunch tomorrow. I thought I'd go ahead and make a double batch so I wouldn't come empty-handed for lunch.

Ok, I'm off to write a note to hubby to make sure he doesn't take both the puddings tomorrow. He has another long day ahead of him. He'll leave between 5:30-6am and won't be home until late 11pm-12am-1am. I'm hoping it's closer to 11pm. Thankfully the show will come to an end on Sunday. It will be nice to have him back home again. I know that we miss him a lot when he is gone.