4th of July recap

I ditched the hubs this past weekend. My family was having a little shindig up in New York and all the hubs wanted to do was play video games and veg out for three days. To be fair, he's insanely busy at work and we have plans every weekend from now until mid-September. The guy is definitely entitled to some peace and quite every now and then. Nothing says "take some time for yourself," like being left home alone.

Thank goodness I no longer have to drive up to New York by myself. I can now tag along with my brother, who unfortunately suffers from male-fall-asleep-as-soon-as-he's-not-driving-syndrome. That guy has got it bad!!! Seriously, he used to fall asleep all the time when we were kids, I'm amazed that he can stay awake long enough to drive his car.

Instead of boring you with all the standard family get-together hoopla, I'll just share a few things. One, my Grandpa Joe turned 90 and as anyone who is that close to 100 years young gets to do, he imparted some health advice. Unfortunately, his advice was to give up coffee. Yikes! Well, it doesn't look like I'll be living till 90 in this life time. Maybe next time. Two, never, ever show off to a 9 year old and throw a bocce ball up into the air and catch it. The kid will try to replicate this action and it may or may not split his or her lip open. (Thank goodness Denzel just split his lip open and didn't break a tooth or anything like that.) Finally, always have a hoodie in your car. I was freezing all day and had to bum a hoodie off of my sister. As did my Aunt Ev and a few of my sister's friends.

I left my camera stashed in my bag most of the weekend so I only have a few pictures to share.


A Sonic opened in Wilkes Barre, PA and I begged my brother to take a small detour and stop on by. I've never had Sonic before and after years of seeing their commercials I wanted to give it a try. The verdict- eating fast food while parked is kind of weird, but the Peanut Butter milkshake was divine. Plus, it was pouring, so it was nice to park the car and try to wait out the rain (like that ever works).

Great Danes like to roll themselves into the smallest balls possible. Jasmine wouldn't pose for any pictures and it seems she isn't a fan of cameras in general. I can't wait for Christmas this year and see how Jax and Jewels react to such a big dog. Oh, it's going to be so much fun.

One of my lifetime goals is to have a little cabin in the woods somewhere. Specifically, it could look like my grandpa's old cabin


or it could just have a view like this.
Either way, I think I need to have a house on a lake. Plus, the hubs wouldn't have to go far to go fishing. It seems it has rained almost every day in the Hudson Valley and this past weekend was one of the few nice days in a really long time. Sweet!

Of course it wouldn't be a trip to the woods without a wildlife encounter. As my brother and I were driving away I saw something move in the woods and I immediately shouted, "bear cub!" My brother instinctively jammed on the breaks, asked where and then threw the car in reverse. There are two things to keep in mind when you're within 20 feet of a bear cub: don't get any closer and have plenty of eyes keeping a lookout for mama bear.

Sure, this picture is horrible, but you can clearly tell that's a bear cub and it's not a fuzzy picture of Big Foot. In my own defense, the cub was hanging out in a dimly lit part of the woods. I was wearing flip flops and I wasn't about to enter said woods. And the little guy started to move once he realized I was there and I wanted to jump back in the car before the little one made that terrible bear cub cry and mama bear came over and showed me that it is rude to take pictures of a kid without asking mom for permission first. There are a few animals I don't mess with in the woods: rattle snakes, copperheads, raccoons, coyotes, and ticked off mama bears. That's just practical logic in my mind.

I hope everyone else had a wonderful holiday weekend.