Summer Fun

We have had an ultimately grand and glorious time over this past month…………

Brian and Sheila arrived on July 1, and just the seven of us were here to celebrate the Fourth of July. We made the annual trek downtown to watch the parade and visit the various booths that were set up on the main street but opted to stay home and skip the fireworks. Besides, we had attended the Tacoma Rainiers game the night before and sat down on the infield after the game to watch quite a spectacular display of fireworks.

Keith and Janet and the girls arrived the Friday evening after the Fourth, and we had about 19 here on Saturday. Mike and Mary drove over from Spokane and Curt and Cinda came down from Bellevue. Plus Craig, Cassie and Greta. Of course for every occasion, it was absolutely necessary that we have at least twice as much food and drink as needed. The grill was going at high speed and we enjoyed some awesome salmon, ribs, and beef.

Brian discovered that the Army Recreation Center at Fort Lewis has a brand new pontoon boat that will hold 14 people, so he reserved it for Sunday. We loaded up the canoe and some snacks and headed for American Lake for several hours of cruising. Ken was the captain and the helmsman, and the rest of us just played and relaxed. The boat was awesome with all kinds of seating with storage underneath, a radio, and a plug in for an MP3 player. I think we need to do that again. I envision an afternoon dinner cruise with several other couples!!

Warren and Nolan were looking for a little something to do when they discovered my collection of several hundred wine corks. Now I have been collecting those corks for years, and wouldn’t let just anyone have any, but with lots of packing tape and two days of effort, they created several boats and an airplane. With a bathtub test, they discovered that the boats were in fact seaworthy. Warren and I wrapped his plane in bubble wrap so he could carry it to Virginia in his backpack.

Sarah and Rachel are still two of sweetest teenagers I know. Just as at Christmas time, they happily join in, put up with, and just generally make all of us happy to have them with us. I can’t believe that Sarah will be twenty next month. She is looking forward to moving out of the dorms and into her first apartment next month along with her roommate from school.

We had a week of boring after Brian and Sheila left for Virginia and the Maryland Kirkwoods were off on their Alaskan cruise………..so we spent one night at the Ft. Lewis Famcamp just for something fun to do. But we were back in play mode when Keith and Janet and the girls plus Janet’s brother and family got back. I have gotten quite good at finding places for everyone to sleep.

I knew going in that keeping track of bath towels would be a challenge, so we wrote everyone’s name on two clothespins………….with instructions to take their towel to the clothesline, pin it with their pins, and retrieve it the next day for their shower. It worked like a charm.

There is a little hole-in-the-wall eatery in north Tacoma called Tatonka Takeout, and they sell frozen buffalo meats plus serve buffalo burgers along with a huge mound of freshly cooked home fries. It is a draw for both Brian and Keith so we ate there twice recently. It is located right outside the entrance to Point Defiance Park, so we could take our burgers into the park and find a picnic table for our fine dining experience.

We also had a total of three dogs to add to the mix. Colleen and Ken fenced in about one half of the front yard so we could play musical dogs. Colleen’s and Brian’s dogs got along just fine, so the challenge was to keep Cooper out of the fray since he doesn’t much cotton to other dogs and was particularly miffed that those other two mutts had invaded his domain.

So there you have a brief outline of the month’s events, and given a few more days, I hope to post some pictures. Ciao