Summer Fun

My dad, also known as "Grandpa", "Great-Papa" or "Other Papa", came for a long weekend visit on Thursday. While he was here, instead of slaving outside on the BFD in the heat, sweating alot, and wearing attractive plastic glasses that steam up while generating itchy sawdust that sticks to our sweaty bodies, we felt obligated to go to a baseball game, spend a day on the mountain listening to music, and visit with family. It was torture but we were stoic and didn't complain.

In preparation of my dad's visit, in between work on the BFD, I slipped in a bit (a very tiny bit) of house cleaning last week . The vacuum and I became reacquainted after a long separation, however my friendship with the dust rag is still strained. When Leslie and Ryan came over one night and the girls discovered they could draw really cool pictures on the furniture, Leslie took pity on me and dusted. Later it occurred to me that her act of kindness may have had more to do with preventing the resulting cleanup of dust-covered daughters but I was grateful just the same. When my house is filthy I sometimes leave the vacuum out in the middle of the room so it looks like I'm in the middle of a cleaning frenzy. Because I learned at work recently that spiderwebs stop bleeding, if anyone notices the many spiderwebs decorating our house, I will now also be able to legitimately point out that they are there for medicinal purposes.

Friday night Dean, Dad and I went to the baseball game. The only thing more perfect than sitting outside on a summer evening in front-row seats halfway down the first baseline watching baseball and drinking a beer would be having your team win. Ours did, which only happens when the moon is full, the stars align and my father is still awake at 10:00 p.m., another rarely seen event.



Saturday morning, before we headed up to the mountain for the yearly bluegrass/country music festival, Leslie dropped the kids by for breakfast while she and Ryan searched the garage sales for all items vintage for her shop. Pierce, who is the size of a baby bird but eats like a Sumo wrestler, put his sisters to shame by eating his weight in pancakes. At one point he saw a new platter of pancakes heading to the table whereupon he ditched his fork, quickly grabbed the last three bites of pancake, stuffed them in his mouth, and cheeks bulging, made it known he wanted more.

After breakfast Leslie and Ryan collected their plump son, and the rest of us slathered on sunscreen, grabbed our hats, blankets, cooler, and newly purchased just-like-everybody-else's-camp-chairs-with-a-cup-holder and headed up the mountain. We parked, loaded our gear and shuttled down to the music.



Once at the festival we made short work of preparing our place on the ground and hauling out the food. I was feeling pretty proud of myself for making a macaroni salad at 10:00 p.m. the night before until I looked over at the people to our left and saw they had a small table with appetizers, wine glasses and were uncorking white wine. All they were missing was a tablecloth and finger bowls. We didn't let it bother us though. Well, not much.

We ate



listened to music







made and flew kites



danced





soaked up the sun



enjoyed each other's company



relaxed





and had great fun.

Sunday we filled the day with visiting, eating pizza, searching for raspberries, climbing trees and guessing what time Dad/Grandpa/Great-Papa/Other Papa would get up to leave the next morning.













Monday morning Dad/Grandpa/Great-Papa/Other Papa left for home earlier than a sane person would even consider getting up and a short 9 1/2 hours later was home in time for a late breakfast. He did not stay awake until 10:00 p.m. that night.

Once the weekend was over it was back to the BFD and I am happy to report that the south side of the deck is FINISHED!

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Summer Fun