4th of July

The 4th of July in our house was a busy day! We met with Dave's family for a BBQ and they all played volleyball. Good food, and lots of sun.

After that I ran home to make some cupcakes and that evening we went to my Aunt and Uncle's house for more food! Rachelle always feeds us way too well. It was all so yummy!


For dinner she had a handful of different pasta, fruit and regular salads. Super moist corn bread. But the yummiest thing of all was this lime coconut chicken. I have actually seen this recipe pinned a lot before and have wanted to try it, but haven't yet. But this will definitely be a new must make for us. We are die hards for any good chicken recipes.  

photo via Chaos in the Kitchen. But Rachelle's looked exactly like this. Limes and everything.

My cousin Britney's son Jaxon really is the cutest thing ever. I swear his cheeks double in size and his hair doubles in thickness each time I see him!

I can't even being to tell you how amazing dessert was. Britney made brownies topped with marshmallows and fudge. And Rachelle had endless choices, strawberry cream pie, banana cream pie, razzleberry pie, and a lemon cake and fruit trifle. All so yummy. I think I could eat my weight in Rachelle's cooking.

I also made strawberry balsamic cupcakes. I have been a huge fan of the raspberry balsamic cupcakes recipe via Love and Olive Oil for the past year + but raspberries tend to be pricey. Last time I went shopping for them it was $5 for a small container. Ouch. So I recently decided to try making the frosting with strawberries instead. Genius. 

For the cupcakes themselves I have also changed the recipe a bit by adding about 2 tablespoons of unprepared chocolate pudding mix. My favorite, exquisitely moist chocolate cake recipe has chocolate pudding mix, and I have found this cupcake recipe to be dry in the past, but adding the pudding makes them insanely airy and moist. For the original recipe, click here.

For the frosting, There were two problems I had with the original recipe; it always made 3 times as much as I needed, and was always runny. 

So what I did when making the strawberry frosting;

1.5 teaspoons granulated sugar

1.5 teaspoons balsamic vinegar 

1/4 cup mashed strawberries -- I don't have a food processor so I just threw mine in the blender till they were similar to jelly.  

1/4 cup of butter

1 teaspoon of vanilla 

2-4 cups of powdered sugar

Cream butter, sugar, vinegar, strawberries, vanilla until smooth. Add powdered sugar and beat until light and fluffy.  

The runniness of the frosting honestly depends on the day. Some days it comes out nice and rather thick and other days not at all no matter what I do. Still not exactly sure what I need to do to fix that. 

The lovely sunset on the way home 

After dinner at Rachelle's we met up with Dave's family again to watch fireworks. His parents have a FJ and decided to shuttle people up on a hill to watch all the fireworks going off in the valley. 

Note to self. When any Cavanaugh family mentions anything having to do with offroading, do not go. Ever. Dave's overly brave Dad was driving in the back hills of Eagle Mountain. For one thing, 5 extra people were shoved into this 5 seater vehicle. Super safe. He then tried to force the car up a insanely steep hill. The car was basically vertical. Honestly, I think if we had tried much farther we would have flipped. I began to have a panic attack and we all ended up jumping out, hiking the rest of the way. And boy it was steep and rocky in what must be the thinnest flip flops the world has ever seen. Awesome Uncle Brett practically dragged me up the last bit of the hill.  

Poor Dave fell trying to help some kids out of the back of the car. When I found out that he had fallen my first question was, "Is the camera okay?" Thankfully it was, but I am terrible wife for asking about the camera first!

 I should have switched my lens. And I should have been better with the settings, but here are a few half arsed photos from the top of the hill,

There were fire sirens going literally the entire time we were up there. Thank heavens nothing burned down! And we are now thankfully getting some much needed rain. 

Happy 4th!