4th of July Fun

It's hard to be motivated to celebrate a predominately outside holiday in the middle of July in Phoenix, but we tried to pretend like it wasn't 109 degrees outside and enjoy it with much gusto!  Our celebration was pretty low-key, but it was perfect and just what we needed.

I had seen this tutorial on A Beautiful Mess and wanted to try it out with my Nikon J2. It was super fun! I only wish that I had thought ahead of time of some cooler patterns to do because when the time came I felt myself a little stunted for inspiration.

According to the tutorial, you slow your shutter speed to a 10 second exposure. After wrestling with my camera manual for a time longer than I am going to admit to you, I finally got the hang of it. You definitely need a chair or tripod to steady the camera other wise it turns into a blurry mess. Unless you have strongman arms then I am super impressed.

Here are some smoke bombs, just because it feels right. Who doesn't love a good smoke bomb?

I also made this strawberry poke cake.  I was a little hesitant about this, apparently it's a big thing and I have never heard of it.  It was pretty tasty! I didn't hate it. Sorry for the poorly lit picture.

What did you all do to celebrate July 4th?