A Nautical Weekend Celebration

Our family has become quite accustomed to living by the water.

We've grown comfortable with the sound of the ships passing slowly through the canal and look forward to our evening trips to the beach as the sun sinks low in the warm, summer sky.

I've even noticed my style is being ever-so-slightly effected, as some rooms seem to have taken on a slightly nautical feel.

And so, you can imagine our excitement as our town's annual moment to shine arrived this past holiday weekend. Canal Days is a weekend celebration of the historic canal that the town is built around. And of course, now the proud owners of the oldest home in this town, one with a rich history that's closely tied to the canal, we felt as though it was our duty to join in on the celebration.

Ryan spent days in the garden, making everything tidy and in ship-shape. Our home is situated near the entrance to the canal at Lake Erie, and so it felt as though we were right in the middle of the celebrations. Events happen all over town the entire weekend, and we enjoyed most of it without ever having to leave home. The boys enjoyed the kite festival, and watched the tall ships come sailing in. They rode the midway, and stayed up late to watch the parade of lit-up boats. We had family and friends over for a BBQ and watched the greatest firework show we've ever seen from our front lawn and felt like we had front row seats.

It made for a wonderful weekend.

I tried to keep things simple, but festive for the party. I had some nautical feeling linens that I used, like this tablecloth made from old grainsacks,

I hung some simple red checked bunting from my window planter.

I was inspired by the bits of broken blue pottery that come up in the soil when it rains and we garden. It's quite pretty.

I tucked bits of it in simple buckets filled with sand from the beach. They held a few tapers, and made for very inexpensive centerpieces.

Knowing we were going to eat on the back patio, we needed a patio set. We've been searching all summer, and just haven't loved anything yet. This was at Costco for $199, and we thought it was perfect for now.

I brought out some tables and served dinner buffet style.

We also added some twinkle lights and spot lights in the garden to create some ambiance.

I grabbed some pretty Dahlias from the grocery store and arranged them in ironstone.

And our favourite, the tall ships!

The boys loved touring them, and never tired of hearing their canons go off whenever they'd leave port.

It's still hard for us to believe that this is all in our back yard.