The unofficial start of summer in the US is Memorial Day Weekend at the end of May. Going into the weekend, I realized that this is the first year that I haven’t had to work (or graduate or move) during Memorial Day Weekend since 2007! Most people like to plan cookouts or beach trips – not me. I just wanted to see where the weekend took me.
I had to work Friday but once I got home, Ashley and I went to one of the local beaches with Lilly. She loves digging in the sand so we let her play a bit and then tried to get some cute photos of her. Tried is the key word.
After that, we met up with James at Biscotti’s for their summer kick off event. In the past year, they’ve made a lot of updates to their outdoor area. We sat at the outdoor bar (with Lilly!) and ordered oysters. Lilly made friends with a small child who left her seat and sat on the ground with Lilly almost the entire time we were there.
I ended my Friday night teaching. Lilly followed me downstairs and settled down onto a bean bag that’s right behind where I teach. I had made this really cute surprise reward for my student and I was excited to have the dog be one of the surprises but LITERALLY THIRTY SECONDS BEFORE CLASS BEGAN she threw up EVERYWHERE. We have to log in and hit start class on time otherwise we can have our pay docked or get fired. Thank god for Matt – he crawled around off-screen cleaning up dog vomit while I led class like nothing out of the ordinary happened.
Saturday morning started with James and I running errands – we went to the bank to deposit wedding checks then grabbed breakfast at Candlewood Cafe. While we were at breakfast, I checked Facebook and saw that someone posted a really nice patio set for free. It definitely wouldn’t fit in Shonda the Honda so I started texting all our friends with trucks but nobody responded quick enough. Later, we went to Lowes and saw the EXACT SAME SET for sale for like $700…as if I wasn’t disappointed enough at breakfast when I saw it had already been claimed.
Later on Saturday, we cooked up a bunch of food and got the fire going and just told people they could stop in if they’d like. A lot of Matt’s old lifeguarding friends came over. We sat around the fire and then went inside to play Quiplash to end the evening.
Sunday almost started with a trip to urgent care. A window on our back door broke a while ago and even though we’ve vacuumed a million times over, I managed to step on a piece of glass. Matt the (former) lifeguard wasn’t able to get it out but James did! Sunday was basically a repeat of Saturday with more grilling and more chilling and more fire.
I was super productive on Monday. I brought all my summer clothes upstairs, got rid of the stuff that no longer fits, and brought winter clothes downstairs. I also organized all my VIPKID and office supplies. We had duplicates of things everywhere! James went out on a friend’s boat and by “went out on a friend’s boat” I mean he spent a lot of time sitting on a dock watching people attempt to get the boat running. They finally did make get it going and made a quick run up to Sherman before turning around and driving to Danbury where they let James off at a dock so he could join Maranda and I at one of our favorite sushi restaurants (okay, so the sushi restaurant with the best happy hour).
All in all, a wonderful and relaxing weekend. I could really use some more three day weekends…when’s the next one?
Until our next adventure!
The Harkin Chronicles 