Thursday, July 3rd
Liz and Kyla actively got our program manager to cancel citations for the week. We didn't see a need to come into the office on Thursday since the 4th of July was the next day. Yes, I could have taken it off, but I didn't. It's not that big of a deal since we work at home most of the week. Because it was a Thursday, I didn't have to get up early and get dressed and drive to work. I got to work at home in my sweatpants.
I was hoping to get everything that I wanted to get done finished so I could leave a little bit early, but it didn't work out. Ben had an appointment on the westside and ended up sticking around longer than he wanted to taking care of errands. I got off at 4, my normal time, and then went for my walk. The park was getting busy. Earlier that week, I had invited a bunch of people over for BBQ hamburgers and to walk over to the park for the fireworks.
I got back home, cut up all the fixings for the hamburgers and then started putting stuff away so I could take the two tables out. Rhonda and her son, Zach, arrived first and they helped me finish the tables, bring out the chairs and aided in putting up decorations with me. It was very kind of them to help me.
I went inside and started the beans. Ben finally came home to change and start the burgers. Ben forgot to make cheese less ones, so he made a couple without cheese. Rhonda can't have cheese. Everyone else arrived between 6 and 6:30. The neighborhood was getting super busy and more cars started to arrive. This is the only time of the year when our neighborhood is this busy.
We finished preparing and cooking the food. I had made a key lime pie and no bake cookies the previous day.
I got the six bags out that Lindsay gave me so Erika could go through them for Brian. She found a couple things to take home, and we stored the rest of the stuff inside the bags plopped in the garage. We ate just before 7. The food hit the spot, and we hung out in the back yard for a bit. No one stayed for fireworks except Megan, Rhonda and her son.
Rhonda and her son walked over earlier than we did so they could meet up with some people already at the park. We gave Megan a sweatshirt to wear and we grabbed a couple blankets to sit on. We made the short walk over to the park, around 9:40, and down the dirt path. We liked sitting under the trees over the past couple years so that's what we ended up doing again. We found a spot to spread out the blanket and sit until it was firework time!
The show was roughly 20 minutes, and it started promptly at 10. There were some great color combinations and some loud booms! I always enjoy a good firework show.
Once it was over, we grabbed our blanket and made our way back to the house...with everyone else. There were vehicles and people everywhere!
We got back home the same time Rhonda and her son got back. We had a quick chat before they left to go get in the giant line of cars on Ruddell Road. Megan said it was way too late to drive home and decided to stay the night. I spent some time changing the sheets, pillowcases and blankets in the extra room. I gave her some comfy clothes to sleep in as well. She and I went to bed around the same time while Ben stayed up longer playing his game with Josh.
Friday, July 4th
I knew Megan has been up since 5 (because she is crazy and wakes up early) and just laid in bed until someone showed any life of being awake. I woke up around 7:30 and got dressed. Megan was ready to go get some coffee from Cutter's Point, which was just down the street from our neighborhood. She needed a coffee fix since we didn't have a coffee maker in our house. We made the short walk over. She ordered one of her favorites and I didn't need anything, so I got a cup of water just for fun.
It looked like the weather was not going to be favorable for the 4th of July. I was disappointed.
We walked back to the house, and I asked Megan if she was hungry, she said she could eat a little bit. I made scrambled eggs and had to force Ben to get out of bed to eat them. Megan wanted to hit up the Goodwill, so I went with her. She needed to find a couple things for Mason's upcoming trip to Mexico with his youth group. He didn't have a proper carry-on backpack for the plane. She did end up finding something for him to utilize. We came back to the house and she headed home. We were going to see her the next day for an extended D&D session.
It was our turn to make food for D&D and Ben decided to make beef and chicken kabobs. We took a short trip to Winco to grab everything we needed. We headed home to cut up everything because we had some time to before heading into Eatonville for 4th of July Clear Lake fireworks at my great aunt and uncle's house.
We got our stuff packed up in the Escape, like I had mentioned before, this year's weather was meh and we didn't need to pack up swimsuits, towels or floaties. It was barely going to get to 70 degrees. That is way too cold for jumping in a lake for me. Instead, I made sure I had warm clothes for when the sun went down. I called Grandma and let her know we were on the way. Mom decided she wasn't going to go this year.
We arrived at the lake around 4, unloaded the Escape and set up our table, chairs and stuff near the shoreline. I spent some time wandering around and talking to people. It was nice to catch up with people I rarely see but once a year, haha. I saw that Paul started up the BBQ around 5ish. So, I knew food was on the horizon.
People asked how being married was and I told them that it was about the same except that we have an awesome memory of how the wedding day went. They were glad to hear it. I helped Peggy and Shari put out some of the food on the tables. Paul announced that food was ready to go. A horde of people made their way over to the tables and grill to pile their plates with food. It's not hard overeating at a party.
I did some more wandering around and talking. Most of the time I was between hanging out with Bev and Trish. It slowly started to get dark, and the clouds never went away so we were not able to see Mount Rainier while we were there. As it cooled down, I went and got my sweatpants on and found a comfy place to sit for the remainder of the night. I did find out people were making smore's over by the firepit. Of course, I wanted a smore!
The docks started to light up with the smaller fireworks and soon boomed into the larger aerial fireworks with some rapport. The flares started going and we knew it was almost time for the barge fireworks in the middle of the lake. We could see it start its puttering journey from the west side of the lake to about the center. We all waited in anticipation on what kind of show we were going to get.
It went well for the first half of the show and then something malfunctioned and we didn't get to see the end. We were hoping everyone involved in the barge was okay. We all sat there for a minute or two and decided that fireworks were indeed, done.
We all packed up everything we came with. We thanked Paul and Peggy for having us, we found Grandma and shoved everything in the Escape. We took Grandman and then ourselves home. We got home around 11:30. I got in a shower because I do not like going to bed smelling like sulfur.
Saturday, July 5th
I did not set my alarm because I needed some sleep after the busy days I've had. It was nice to sleep in without any distractions. I finally did get up, got ready and took a walk around the loop at the park. It was nice to get in some exercise before sitting in a chair for most of the day.
I got back home and had a very small breakfast just to get me by until we eat the kabobs at Nicole and Del's. Ben eventually got up and he showered.
We gathered up everything, packed up the Escape and headed over to Tumwater for our 1:00 p.m. special edition of D&D. We were all excited that Megan was able to join us during this session. Nicole had a special role for her. We all arrived just before 1. Nicole had made us potions and she, Celeste and Megan had contributed with a small charcuterie to snack on before we had dinner later on.
This session was in the Land Region and focused on puzzles, mazes and killing Banes, Shamblers, Earth Elementals, a minotaur, battling mimics, killing a Bone Demon that tried to convince Ben to sacrifice one of us. There was a lot going on during this session. Some of us were knocked unconscious, some were hit hard, some of us depleted our spell slots but we were able to prevail inside the labyrinth of trickery. We were instructed to prepare for the Ball in the capital city of Focrain for the next session.
Our homework from or DM Nicole was to create a Ball outfit for our characters to wear. We can either describe it or actually make one on the internet to show everyone during the next session. We ended around 10:30, gathered up all of our stuff and went home.
We got home, unloaded our stuff, put it away and we chilled for an hour or two before going to bed. We survived another busy weekend of stuff!
Next Adventure: First Anniversary Weekend: Lacey to Hood River
