I always feel like I get a terrible case of FOMO for summer holidays like Memorial Day or the 4th of July. We don't really have built-in picnic setups here. Our families are in Buffalo and we don't really have get-together sorts of friendships here. Sometimes there's a Buffalo invite, but those have been fewer and farther between as the extended family has grown, since more people choose to hang out in smaller groups. When those weekends come around I tend to see a lot of pictures of fun get-togethers on social media, whether it's food and fireworks at someone's house, or time at the beach, or even someone's amazing little weekend getaway, and I feel like our weekends are so boring and even lonely in comparison. But then again, when we have crazy weekends like that, I get jealous of people who have a lazy weekend by the pool. I can't win, clearly.
Our 4th of July weekend this year was no exception, but I feel like we did what we could to get a good balance. As I mentioned in my last post, I took off most of the week. I worked a full day Monday, a half day Tuesday, and unfortunately worked a couple hours on Wednesday when I wasn't planning on it because things were being asked of my big boss that she didn't have access to. But after that, I was able to enjoy the weekend. I can't say we did much during the days. I was held back a little bit by my lingering COVID congestion. It was just enough to make me not want to do things for a few hours at a time, until guilt got the best of me. The boys hit a lot of baseballs, but that meant we didn't go in the pool nearly as much as we should have considering it was warm. I was a little frustrated because the weather was so hot that it meant I couldn't really touch some of my to-do list items like trimming bushes along our back patio or sawing off the trees in our way back that the utility company tree cutters left a mess last month. I did get to those things later in the weekend, finally taking a cooler evening to tackle that stuff and cross it off the list. I also ran a couple errands and finally got myself on a couple bike rides, which were important to me to do while I had free time. I also puttered around the yard a bit trying to keep up with weeds, pick the early arrivals in my garden (mostly snap peas and a couple beans, along with some lettuce), and keep everything watered in the heat. All of the coffee grounds I dumped on my hydrangea seem to be boosting the blue blossoms. I know the pics below look purple, but you can see on the bottom picture what purple really looks like and how blue the others are in comparison. The other side has some pink, but I like the mix. Blue has always been my favorite because it was in my bridal bouquet, so that's always a goal! Not as as many blossoms as I'd like this year, but I think the late frost got them a bit and there's a whole new section that grew over the last year, so it's possible that part is still ramping up a bit.
Some of the flowers I grew from seed are just starting to bloom--a couple zinnias, some daisies, and bachelor buttons. It's fun to watch, although this week we got hit by hurricane remnants (luckily just rain and not tornadoes like Buffalo) so this is probably the start of some fungus issues, as usually happens around this time of year. The Japanese beetles are decimating my bean plant leaves, but luckily that's mostly just cosmetic. Speaking of the hurricane, I'm glad we were in the Dominican when we were and not a few weeks later. I don't think the area we were in got hit badly, but it probably got some good rain.
The Fourth itself we tried to spice up with a steak dinner, s'mores, and some driveway viewing of our neighbor's ridiculous fireworks.
There were actually a couple other neighbors shooting them off, but the ones on the next street were insane. They were so big and so loud, like public-display-worthy.
Friday morning I got up and pushed myself to take a long bike ride. It was a little hot but not intolerable since the breeze always helps. I rode all the way to Spencerport. Unfortunately there were no boats to see, but it was a beautiful day.
The flowers were so pretty.
We decided that night would be the perfect night to finally get back to the drive-in in Perry. We hadn't been there since 2015, which is crazy. Carter was only two! Every time we think about going there, either our timeline is too tight to make the drive and enjoy everything there before the movie, or we have things happening the next day that would make the late arrival home less than ideal. But this time, we still had the full weekend ahead of us, our only thing on Saturday wasn't until noon, and we didn't have work or anything that would prevent us from getting there early enough. We wanted to see Despicable Me 4. We stopped at Livingston County Pizza to get Jacob and Craig some food, and then drove the additional half hour to the place. Of course, despite the weather having looked fine earlier in the day, it started raining. Sigh.
Once we got our parking spot, Carter and I went to get our food. There are so many good options there, but we opted to get pizza. It's so good. While we were waiting, it started raining harder. Instead of going out to look at the mini golf course, we looked at the fun diorama of a old western scene.
We got our food and tried to eat under cover of the minivan's rear hatch. The rain let up, so we headed back to the main area. There was this fun fountain along the way, filled with pretend animals like otters! It's a little hard to see, but it was cute.
We also got a picture of Carter with the giant minion!
There were a few photo ops, including this cowboy...
...and this horse.
The skies were getting quite pretty off in the distance. This doesn't do the color or the clouds justice, but it was pretty.
We ended up having a lot of fun on the course. I didn't have my best day, but we were actually all pretty even for most of the match. I had a couple bad holes and that was enough to come in last (although I didn't get a mulligan like the boys each did), but I'm especially proud of Carter for hanging in there and doing well.
It's a fun western-themed course. The greens aren't the most predictable, but the holes are all pretty doable and we had a good time.
At the end is a hole with a rotating wheel and a couple circle cut outs. It's almost like moving skee-ball, and if you get your ball in a hole, you get a free game. My ball looked like it went in but must have just ricocheted out. Boo. I needed that bragging right. But as the woman in the booth was confirming she didn't get notified one went in, she asked if she could ask Jacob a favor. When we paid to get in, she was such a sweet lady, talking about being from Wales and complimenting my earrings, which I had made. She had Jacob and Craig help take down umbrellas on the nearby deck, and gave them free passes for helping...so I guess we'll have to go back! In the meantime I was taking more flower pics.
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| Wish I could get zinnias this pretty! |
The movie was enjoyable, although it kept trying to rain again. It chased Craig uncomfortably into the van for a while and then took another break, but right at the end as the credits were rolling it really started to come down. We awkwardly packed up and tried to figure out how to make sure our lights were all back on properly and get into seats without getting soaked. Eventually Jacob took one for the team and took his shirt off to run around to the front seat. The parking area was nearly flooding by the time we left. It was a bit of a rainy drive for the first half, and it's a lot of dark country roads, so we were very happy to get home and go to bed!
Saturday Jacob had a playoff game with his baseball team. As we were driving there I noticed a giant black cloud. I checked the radar and it appeared it was going to stay northwest of us and go toward the lake, but it sure looked threatening--and even had some pink on the radar. Strangely we didn't hear thunder and I never really saw much about it going elsewhere, though we watched the cloud move the whole way across and past us. We only got a couple sprinkles then as we were right on the edge, plus a few more under mostly blue sky later, but the breeze definitely picked up as everything came through.
They won the game and played again on Monday, but sadly Jacob was feeling a bit under the weather that day (maybe food poisoning or glutening or maybe just a quick virus passing through) so he missed it, but they made a great comeback. The next game got rained out so hopefully Monday will be the day.
The other big event of the weekend was going to North Tonawanda to see my aunt and uncle who live in North Carolina. They're the same ones my mom and I visited almost six years ago. I can't believe it's been that long, actually. They don't make it north much so it was really good to see them. We had fun talking about "resort life" since they go to an all-inclusive in Cancun almost every year. My aunt and I also compared notes on Coco Bongo, as my aunt took my cousin one time. The picnic was at my cousin Doug's house, and it was good to see him too. Not only was it his birthday, but he's recovering from cancer, so it was nice to see him for the first time in a while and see that he's doing well. The bonus was that a bunch of my mom's cousins made it as well. I haven't seen most of them in years, since our family reunions on that side died off around when the last of the older generation passed away and it's been a while since any family funerals. It was really fun to see everyone again and realize how much things had evolved since those reunions, between them getting older and the kids growing up. My mom's one cousin is almost 80, which absolutely blows my mind. He definitely doesn't look it, and with the way he beat his body up over the years with everything from skydiving and losing a leg in a motorcycle accident to a cozy relationship with beer, it boggled my mind to think he's that old now. Time really flies. The boys didn't have quite as much fun as me, so they did take a break in the middle to go hit baseballs and grab Jacob some food. Hopefully no one took it personally. I had a great time, though. And hopefully my mom and I will take another trip down to North Carolina soon since Chihuly is back at Biltmore this year!
So, as a whole, our weekend had a little of everything that a summer holiday weekend should--some fun food, some fireworks, some pool time, some yard work, a picnic, a fun family activity, and some relaxing--both the active and inactive kind. Not too shabby. I still had my moments looking at other posts and wondering what we should have done better, but all things considered, it was pretty darn good.
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