Hm. I missed Monday again.
I tried; I really did. I wanted to post some cute little patriotic memo yesterday about how lucky we are to live in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. I wanted to talk about cookouts and family gatherings and fireworks and mosquito bites and baseball games. I wanted to talk about drinking beers and margaritas and Pina Coladas and Kool Aid for the lil’ ‘uns. I wanted to talk about Cornhole and Bocci and flashlight tag and croquet. Never mind the fact that baseball bores me to tears, beer gives me a bellyache, margaritas and pina coladas are too much work for one person to drink from them, and I have never in my life played any of the four games listed above. Never mind all that.
(Ed. note: as I worked on this blog, I was interrupted by a conversation that went something like this:
R: Can I show you something that I know doesn’t interest you?
D: Sure. I can tell you’re excited about it; show me
R: (proceeds to show me a clip from a baseball game involving some bad call, and the coach’s irate reaction to said call.) See? This is why you gotta watch baseball.
D: Um, but is it really worth watching three hours’ worth of a game for that two minutes’ worth of conflict? Isn’t that why God invented SportCenter?
R: …I guess…)
Because regardless of what traditional, um, tradition says we should do, the beauty of July 4 is that we are all free to do what makes America home to us. So Friday while Ryan was at work, I made a pitcher of Sangria, using this recipe. I stocked up on hamburger buns and pork chops and cheddar-wurst for the grill. Friday night, after watching “The Social Network” from our Netflix queue, I challenged my far-more-athletic-than-me husband to a competitive round of mini golf (“competitive” as it might have been, we both did terribly enough that we didn’t bother to tally the score. We both would have been mortified, I’m sure.). We took the motorcycle, and when we got home, he installed the window air-conditioner in the kitchen while I grilled cheddar-wurst and assembled some boxed mac’n’cheese for dinner. Gourmet, I tell you. We are 100% gourmet in this house.
Saturday, Ryan packed up his RC gear and went out to race for the day, while I prepared for a “girls’ day” with my newlywed friend Nicole…
photo from Nic's wedding-day arsenal...
and Saturday night was spent at home, dining on some grilled teryaki-marinated pork chops and rice, with corn on the cob and fresh green beans.
Sunday, Ryan made a suggestion I don’t believe I’ve ever heard from his mouth before: he suggested that we ride the motorcycle to the local wineries and stock up on our favorites. It’s been awhile since we went to the wineries together, so it was a special treat to share with him some of the newer ones I’ve discovered with my friend Bekah and her fiance Kasey. We made a day of it, biking from place to place; he kept a careful eye on my consumption to be sure I didn’t become so inebriated that I might fall off the back of the bike, and he sipped very little. Still, it was a fun and (for us) different way to spend a summer weekend afternoon.
In turn, I succumbed to the idea of attending more late-model races Sunday night, but when we got there the place was packed, so we turned around and left. We settled instead for heading to the local amusement park for a funnel cake and some people-watching, but we both were so frustrated by the decorum of our local demographic, we left before the fireworks we had gone to see in the first place, had started. We got home just in time to see the sunset from our front yard in the most gorgeous array of perfect sunset colors…
And Ryan stole my camera insisting we needed to add a photo of me to the photo collection. I disagreed, so here’s my compromise:
Happy Independence Day, friends.
Yesterday, for the fourth, we started the day by going out for breakfast to our favorite weekend-morning breakfast place. Later, we met up with friends of Ryan’s from high school for dinner and fireworks.
And finally, today was back to the grind. Ryan returned to work, and Clohe and I headed to the library to volunteer. We came home to this surprise in the back yard:
And so, friends, I hope your fourth of July weekend was filled with all those wonderful things that make America wonderful for you.
Cheers!
xoxo,
~d
Today and To-Merrow 