This past weekend was a really good one, and I feel like I haven't had this much fun in such a long time. 

Saturday I got to spend time with my family, as well as with Charlie who I don't usually get to see a lot. We spent the whole night together and ended it with a late night Wawa run. The best night's are usually spent in.

Which is true for Sunday, as well. 

Sunday was Julie's birthday, and after work I headed over for a big cook out and bonfire. 

Sometimes we'll just order pizza, but Sunday we actually cooked, and it was a huge team effort. Dylan peeled shrimp, Josh made barbecue sauce and grilled, Chrissy cut onions with her sunglasses on (and made Jungle Juice), Katie made guac, and Bella helped us make Rita's popsicles! 

It was actually really fun making dinner together, and if you and your friends have a free weekend, you should totally have a cookout. We joked about buying a big house and living together and making dinner like that every night (even though we'd probably all get on each other's nerves). But that's family, right? 

We used fresh veggies from Julie and Josh's family's garden! The green beans were the best. 

Josh was the grill master, and basically slapped barbecue sauce on everything except for the fruit kebobs and fries. 

We had cilantro lime shrimp and pineapple, barbecue shrimp, shrimp wrapped in bacon (basically anything shrimp), loaded fries, buffalo chicken dip, homemade salsa, pierogies (barbecued and not barbecued), green beans, hot dogs, sausages, fruit kebobs, and other little appetizers. Everything was fantastic and I'm looking forward to more dinners like this for the rest of the summer (whenever all of us can squeeze in some time in between jobs). 

Honestly, the next time you and your friends are stumped on what to do or too poor to go out, make dinner together! It's a really fun way to bond. Just make sure you soak any skewers before they go on an open flame! 

The birthday girl! 23's never looked so good!