Playing Catch-Up

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. I had all of last week off!

Sunday, June 30, Chris' dad came to visit us. We grilled steaks, showed Don around our home town, and chatted. Monday morning the boys had a 9:00 tee time at The Bridges Golf Club, which is pretty much right behind our condo. Both said it was probably the most difficult course they've played, but very beautiful. When they got home I grilled some pizzas, we went swimming and rested up, then went to dinner and saw Live Free or Die Hard. I thought it was a great action flick.

Then Tuesday morning the boys had another tee time at the golf course in front of our condo. We're surrounded by golf! The course was easier, and still beautiful. More swimming after, resting, grilling, then we played mini-golf. I think the guys were worried when my first shot was a hole-in-one. I didn't win, but I hung in there with them and had a blast.

On the 4th Don went golfing at our local municipal course; Chris was wiped out from the previous golfing since he doesn't actually get out on the course very often. We had a nice time resting at home and getting ready for the show. We grilled hot dogs and hamburgers, with my macaroni salad and baked beans on the side. We watched the broadcast of Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Competition (Kobayashi has fallen!). Then we watched the fireworks show right from our patio. It was a good show, and Ayla just watched, not scared at all like I thought she would be.

Thursday morning we drove up to my parents' place in Nevada. For the first time Chris and I took the Pioneer Trail route around South Lake Tahoe, and what a difference! I really dislike going through the town, and this bypasses almost all of it. My life has been changed!

My dad, brother, and Eli (on leave from Iraq) were golfing at an Arnold Palmer course in Dayton. They got home and we got to catch up with Eli, hear about his experiences, and enjoy ourselves. We had a lasagne for dinner that I had made and brought from home, then went to see Transformers which was a lot of fun. Then we dropped Don and Clay off at home and headed up to Reno to hit some tables. See, we had to stay up all night since Eli had to be at the airport at 4:00am, so why sleep? We lost at El Dorado to a dirty blackjack dealer (he was a perv!), took Eli to the airport for his 3-day journey back to Iraq, and finally got back to my parents' house at 5:30am.

After a few hours of sleep I got up and hung out with my folks. Don had already headed home by then. We were too tired to do any more driving, so we stayed in Dayton that day. We all had fun playing in the pool during a lightning storm (hello, I'd like to be fried now!), napped throughout the day, and relaxed. It was really nice. Chris and I headed home around noon on Saturday and spent the rest of that day and Sunday repairing from so much fun on our vacation.

So, now we're back at work and I'm playing catch up with all the emails in my inbox. The weather's been cool the past few days, but the weekend should warm up again. I'm looking forward to some time at home over the weekend. The laundry sure is piling up! :)