A Weekend of Birthday Celebrations

Decorated birthday cookie.

There are three birthdays in our family in July and August (*not counting mine).  Meredith's birthday was in mid July, Dan's birthday was Monday, and Granddaughter Grace's birthday is August 7th.  We decided to celebrate all three with a cookout Sunday evening. (We celebrated Dan's birthday again on Monday with family and friends.) 


Everyone likes hamburgers so we grilled those.  For sides we had potato salad, mac n' cheese, baked beans and a salad. 

All is ready.  Waiting on the burgers.

Granddaughter Grace particularly likes a decorated large cookie as opposed to cake so to please her I picked up a cookie at Harris-Teeter.  There were several flavors of ice cream (all from Local Fresh) for folks to choose their favorite. (vanilla, chocolate, Carolina Crunch, maple walnut, and cookies n' cream)

Birthday cookie.

When I was in Ireland recently, I found these little silver earrings. A perfect gift for Grace.

Tiny little silver earrings I found in Ireland for Grace's 14th birthday.

On Monday we celebrated with cake and ice cream for Dan's 88th. 

Dan's cake made by Macy Cakes. 

Cake and ice cream. 

It was a fun weekend.   (*My birthday is at the end of August, and we will celebrate at a later date.)

National Peanut Butter Day

One of our favorite brands of peanut butter.

Today is National Peanut Butter Day and I would like to celebrate by making my favorite peanut butter cookies, but I can't do that today.  I will share the recipe with you though.  If you go to Dorie's page in her cookbook you can find the recipe.

I will have a peanut butter and banana sandwich though to celebrate.  I like to make an open face sandwich using pecan raisin bread from Harris Teeter's. 

Three simple ingredients for my sandwich.

Spread the peanut butter generously on bread.

Top with sliced banana.  Ready to enjoy.

I told Bea that today was National Peanut Butter Day and she said "Every day is peanut butter day for me."  Dan and I feel that way too.

Grocery Shopping Online

With me recuperating from knee surgery it was going to be more convenient for me to order groceries online and just have Dan drive by and pick them up.  I had been wanting to try Harris Teeter's Express Lane at Cameron Village so this was a perfect opportunity. 

It was not possible for me to go to the grocery and fill up a grocery cart, and I thought ordering online would be easier than sending Dan with a list. 

So I sat down at the computer and went to the Harris Teeter online ordering site and filled out my grocery order.  That was on Friday night and I scheduled a pickup between 11:00 and 11:30 on Saturday.  As it turned out, Laura and Anthony arrived for a visit just in time for Anthony to take Dan down to Harris Teeter's where they drove in the Express Lane, pushed a button, gave them the name on the order and presto the groceries were delivered out to the car. 

The order was exactly has I had indicated.  Just as if I had done the shopping in the store myself.  Since this was our first order online the $4.95 fee was waived.  But I won't hesitate again to use this service.  I would probably save $4.95 by not putting something in the basket that I really didn't need when I shop in person.  Of course sometimes I see something that isn't on the list that we really need, but if I'm careful with my list for ordering this should work out fine.  I will probably try this again while I am more or less home bound.