We spent the 4th with dear friends and had a great day, filled with food, floating and fireworks.

First and most important, let’s talk s’mores. Our friend, Mel, is a bit of an evil genius when it comes to the culinary arts. She specializes in delicious food that is rarely good for you…case in point, s’mores for the 4th. She knew that we could do better than the traditional s’more. Sure, some people use peanut butter cups instead of regular milk chocolate squares, and we have heard of cookies instead of graham crackers, but aren’t the best things in life homemade? Yes!

Sooo, we crafted homemade marshmallows, peanut butter and coconut flavored. Mel found the recipe here, but as usual, we made some adjustments to the recipe we found. (For the coconut marshmallows, we replaced 1 tsp vanilla with 3/4 tsp natural coconut extract + 1/4 tsp artificial coconut extract and replaced peanut butter powder with 4-6 tbsp unsweetened shredded coconut.)

Mel made homemade grahams, coconut and chocolate flavored. Mel found the recipe here (and photo is courtesy of Mel.)

Mel bought Theo Chocolate bars in assorted flavors like dark chocolate coconut, milk chocolate chili, and the list goes on. Side note: Theo chocolate not only tastes amazing but they are fair trade and organic.

And then, for the real kicker, Mel made caramel sheets. Those caramel sheets really sent it over the top and made these s’mores into an experience. Sorry for the bad pic, but I was more focused on devouring this ridiculous treat. You are looking at the chocolate grahams, peanut butter mallow, dark chocolate coconut bar square, and a sheet of caramel. It was insanely rich and I could only eat half, but as my bestie would say, “go big or go home!”.

Luckily, the s’mores came at the very end of the night because I spent the first half of the day in a swimsuit. We began our day by floating the Skykomish River for a few hours. We tie all of our rafts and tubes together and let the current take us for a calm, relaxing float. We have mastered the float so that we have a cooler full of beverages, snacks and we even have music. It’s a great time and it’s a true sign that summer is here.

Lastly, here are some of my favorite shots of the fireworks. This first one includes my–impossible to see– red, white and blue Jell-o shot and fireworks. The rest of the fireworks shots are courtesy of my hubby, Marv.

I hope that you all had a safe and fun holiday. Happy Monday and welcome back to the grind. Although we have a full week ahead of us, let’s make it a good one. It’s summer!

xo