Boats, Bocce, and Fireworks, Happy Fourth of July!

The fourth of July, which I still have not posted about, was awesome. It went something like this.

Thursday I left work around 2 or 3 pm, and came back to the house to get ready for the festivities. I packed pretty quickly, loaded up the JJ's and the wife's stuff, put everything else you could possibly imagine in the rest of the free room in the truck, and we headed out. We left around 5 pm.

We were headed to Ray Ray's parents' house. They live on a lake, have a boat, play bocce, make great margaritas, and are just great people. Before arriving we stopped in town to have dinner at a Mellow Mushroom. It was wonderful. After the pizza we headed to a bar and met up with Art and Ray. Art and I played pool while the girls ooogled at a guy with the best mullet you've ever seen. Good times. From there, we headed out to the lake and called it a night.

We woke up around 8 am on Friday morning - Happy 4th! After breakfast it was time for morning bocce with me, Art, and Ray's dad. Of course, we sipped on 'breakfast drinks' amongst the bocce tossing. Somewhere in the middle of all this bocce playing, Ray and the wife took off on a jet ski. Shortly after that they came back all in a fluster. Apparently they'd been pulled over by the lake police for making a wake in a no wake zone. Heh heh, they didn't get a ticket, and Ray swears there was no wake being made. I figured it was all because the police were trying to get the word out on the lake that they were out and ready to rock somebody for anything - probably a good idea on such a big boating holiday. At any rate, the bocce continued until all the girls woke up, and then we all got in the boat and headed for some swimming fun. We rode around a bit, swam a bit, had fun. We got back to the house, and it was time for lunch. MMMmmmm. We had some awesome food. That afternoon we continued the lazy holiday activities. We played a game called "Apples to Apples" which was super fun. More bocce followed, and more drinking. I guess at this point we didn't call them 'breakfast' drinks.

That night we had some of the best ribs I think I've ever had. Apparently they were grilled for an entire day, and by the time we ate them the meat was literally falling off the bone when you picked one up to eat it. It was soooooo good. I wish I had more. After dinner of course, we jumped on the boat and headed towards the annual fireworks show over the lake. There were tons of boats on the water, and the fireworks were grand. It was a perfect ending to a perfect day. After the show we sort of rode around the lake looking at all the huge lake houses and the big ol' parties they were throwing. It was like something out of the movies. At any rate, after that we called it a night, because all the breakfast drinks were starting to kick in.

Saturday morning we awoke a bit later than on Friday for obvious reasons. Around noon we headed in to town, met up with the wife's parents and chatted a while. After that we drove about an hour to see Art and Ray's new house. It was totally cool, but the freakin' neighborhood was a maze. Art said it took him a week to memorize how to get home - after he was in his own neighborhood. Pretty funny stuff. So Saturday afternoon we just kind of relaxed and recovered from the previous day. We watched movies, Art mowed the yard. Saturday night we went out to a Mexican restaurant and gorged ourselves before refusing to pay $7 cover to get into a mediocre bar. Instead of the bar, we decided to go back to the house. We hung out a little more after that and we all crashed.

Sunday morning everyone except me slept forever. I was up early, and hungry, and in desperate need of coffee. I showered, threw some clothes on and headed out for an adventure. I put "Starbucks" in the Garmin, and it led me to a shopping center with no Starbucks. Instead, I found a Panera. I ended up buying six bagels (for everyone else, not all mine) and a bucket of coffee. We all ate breakfast and hung out a little longer before packing up and getting on the road. It was time to come back home.

The drive back wasn't bad. There wasn't as much traffic as I'd have thought, and the weather cooperated for most of the way. And, this time, I was able to avoid the diesel pumps so the truck did great too.

...hope your Fourth was as good as mine!