4th of JULY! (aka, The Pie Post)

There's no more hiding from me with this post! Now you know how far behind I am! :) The 4th of July is a rather big thing with my husband's family. Everyone goes out to the cabin on the lake and basically eats all day. There's lunch, dessert, watermelon, dinner, dessert (these are each very distinictive and separate eating times) and for activities, well there's a lake, so swimming, tubing, sail-boating, canoeing, water skiing, wake-boarding, rafting, and regular boating. Everyone over 30 usually just sits under the big pine tree outside the back of the cabin. Like this:

(This picture is only a small portion of the family that comes)

The front lawn of the cabin looks much like a parking lot. You might think you are attending a church function or potluck:

But no, truly, you are at a Ronnevik July 4th gathering. I'm not even sure everybody even knows each other, but I was introduced to relatives that were related like this: "Oh this is Hans' (my father-in-law) uncle's cousin on his mother's side, twice-removed." So after about 50 of these introductions, it's safe to assume that I now know who some people are but have no idea how they are related. 

Enough about the people now. What you all really want to see are the pies and desserts. That's pretty much why people attend this thing. There are two sets of desserts: one after the noon meal and one after dinner.

The (lunch) pie table. More were added after I took this picture.

The pies that I tasted were added to the table after the picture. I had the most amazing lemon meringue pie I've ever eaten as well as tastes of Gretchen's Triple Berry Pie and Pumpkin Pie. She has a great blog (which I love reading)  and her 4th of July post can be found here. All the pies I tried were Delicious (notice the capital "D") and frankly, it's unrealistic to try a piece of everything that looks good! 

Snapped this cute picture of Gretchen's daughter Silje surveying the pie table! 

The after dinner dessert table looked like this:

mostly bars, but a couple of the leftover pies.

Layered dessert: brownies, vanilla pudding, strawberries. Repeat (x3) 

The 4th is also a good time to catch up with how quickly the little ones are growing! Here I am with another one of Gretchen's children, Elias, whose chubby cheeks I just cannot get over!

There is also the tradition where father and son (not sure who) do a belly flop into the lake. They've got it choreographed pretty well.

View from the loft in the cabin.

And of course, no 4th is complete without a beautiful lake sunset!