June 23, 2020

July 4th 2020 – Celebrate USA!

You’ll Illuminate 4th of July 2020 with our firecracker Menu!

July 4th 2020 Menu is the perfect finish for a day spent enjoying the USA’s Birthday. Unlike years gone by, the celebration this year looks to be a smaller, more intimate gathering, per Covid-19 guidelines. That sure doesn’t mean we can’t have a blast! Here in Erieland, we are totally spoiled with the beaches and Lake Erie in close proximity. If you don’t have any water where you are, think of a road trip our way! VisitErie will get you started~

The (fingers crossed) beautiful weather mandates outdoor activities. We don’t have enough people for a rousing round of Wiffle Ball (see our 4th of July 2019 post for more info on that) so this year we’re going to play a game that is a throwback to the good old days.

Capture the Flag!

We’re going to make a couple modifications from when we played it. First off, we didn’t actually play Capture the Flag. We played Kick the Can. If you search the internet, you can find all sorts of “rules” for Capture the Flag and for Kick the Can.

As if.

The only rules with Kick the Can is that there are no rules.

Kick the Can is a game that has been popular since the 1930s. It combines tag, hide and seek, and capture the flag into one exciting game. Any age group can enjoy this game, and it can be played with as few as 3 or over 20 players.^[1]
WikiHow

Proving irrefutably that you can buy anything on Amazon, check out the Capture the Flag Game. (Affiliate links follow – see Disclaimer Page for more details.) I want to get it just to see if the kids actually glow like that.

How we’re changing it up: Two Teams. One team searches and captures while the other team hides and avoids capture. As team members are captured, they are placed in “jail”. In a slightly different twist from the old days, we’ll have a pitcher full of the cocktail of the day and a cooler of beer in jail. Plus some cushy chairs. And, sure, some juice boxes and water for the kids.

If a teammate can kick over the can without getting caught, everyone is free to leave jail and keep hiding. So the other team can keep seeking.

Getting people to leave jail is the only problem I foresee.

Once an entire team is captured, the other team gets to hide (and hopefully spend some time in “jail”).

Food!

After all that running around (with some potential cheating) we really rack up some hunger. Time for eats!

We don’t have a recipe (yet) for the Polish Boy Sandwich. It’s a grilled kielbasa on a hoagie bun with cheese, BBQ sauce, lightly dressed iceberg slaw and some crumbled potato chips. It’s apparently a thing in nearby Cleveland. We made some changes to the original (we ditched the coleslaw and french fries) and it is fantastic, especially for a picnic. We individually foil wrapped the just grilled kielbasa and cheese on a bun and took the other fixin’s with us. YUM!

JULY 4TH 2020 MENU

The (ridiculously cute) Red White & Blue Cheese Board is from My Everyday Table. We found the Firecracker Burgers on Martin’s Famous Pastry Shop. The Grilled Potato & Peppers are via Taste of Home. The Baked Beans are from Pure Wow. And the Berry Flag Cake is from the one and only Ina Garten at the Barefoot Contessa.

Looking for something different? Look no further:

July 4th 2019

July 4th 2018

Decorate You~

Red, White & Blue decorations abound – a red Solo cup is always in style. If you’re looking for something to bump it up a bit though, how about some temporary tattoos?