Hope that those of you who celebrated had a great Independence Day today. We certainly did. Practically everyone from dad’s side of the family showed up for grilled chicken (and burgers & dogs). It was all good eats. I ate too much. I probably drank too much. But we all had a blast, the glow-in-the-dark necklaces & glasses were a hit, the sparklers were fun, and lots of neighbors were firing off illegal fireworks which were fun to hear & see. I’d be outside with mom & the girls by the fire, but I got eaten by mosquitoes too much so came inside for hydrocortizone & screen doors. 🙂

PS: Happy belated birthday to timjr!

After a bit of a late start today (where mother bought herself a new bike at the local bike shop), we went to Yellow Springs, one of my sister’s old stomping grounds from her college days. She wanted to show off the town to Rachel (and we all love shopping there, so we all went along too). We had lunch at Ha Ha Pizza, where I got a pesto, ricotta, mozarella, & tomato calzone, and everyone else got the lunch special (a slice of pizza with 2 toppings and a trip to the salad bar). They have a number of interesting toppings with 3/4s of our party getting the special got falafel on their slices. They even have a choice between white and whole wheat crust. It was very yummy. Oh, a Stewart’s cream soda rounded out my meal.

After lunch, we shopped around the town. I stopped in Mr Fub’s Party, a cool (but very small & cramped) toy store. Saw lots of cool things, but was a good girl and didn’t buy anything. We stopped in a number of shops – clothing, jewelry, booze, etc. While looking for Moody Shoes, the really cool shoe store in town, we found out it was gone! Awwww! So sad! We checked with another shop and they said the store was gone, not just moved. The store with the bongs, however, was still there. They didn’t have the big “Please don’t call these bongs!” signs like I remember, but they still had many disclaimers about their water pipes. And, damn, they were still beautiful pieces of art. Almost makes me wish I smoked to get some of those beautiful bongs water pipes.

We had a wonderful afternoon shopping in town, and when we were done, it was off to Young’s Dairy for ice cream. I actually saw Young’s Dairy on “The Best Of” on FoodTV once. Cool. It’s got really good homemade ice cream. And I just couldn’t decide what I wanted, so I was a bad gurl and got a triple scoop waffle cone. 1 peaches & cream, 1 chocolate peanut butter, and 1 chocolate fudge brownie. All three were wonderful. 🙂

Since I had the largest cone of the group, I was the last to finish. Everyone headed back to the car before I was done, so Amy stayed with me while I finished. “I hope they don’t leave without us,” she said. “They do have their favorite daughter with them.” “Yeah,” I agreed. “They got to choose her. We were thrust upon them.” 🙂 As you might guess, they didn’t leave without us. (Though Amy and I were trying to figure out how to commute from Yellow Springs to our jobs sans cars…)

On our way back from Yellow Springs, we stopped at Fulton Farms for some fresh produce. I actually bought several preserves, but mom bought fresh peaches and veggies. We got there just as they were closing. Amy was disappointed to discover it wasn’t the farm from her memories. It has changed a bit over the years (a bit more of a marketplace and less of a farm).

Once we were home, the folks mowed and trimmed the yard while we watched. Then we had salads, cheeses, nuts, and bread for supper. Oh yeah, and wine and beer for those who wanted it. (I tried the Zinfindel, but stuck with water.) Everyone was really tired after supper, so they all went to bed and I came home. I’ll probably play some City of Heroes before going to sleep. 🙂

Tomorrow we head for the Lake. And the four girls (mom, me, Amy & Rachel) are going to spend the night there. Should be fun! And on Monday, the Shorts are all coming for the 4th of July dinner. 🙂

For this Fourth of July weekend, Amy & Rachel decided to come visit us from Minnesota. Their plane was scheduled to arrive around 11pm tonight and we’d then spend quality family time until they left Tuesday. Earlier this week, however, Amy received word that all of the Nature Conservancy employees (of which she is one) would get Friday off. So the girls left early for the airport today and applied for standby tickets on an earlier flight to Ohio. And got it! I received a phone call around quarter to 11 saying they’d gotten their boarding tickets and would be arriving around 1pm. Woohoo!

I was, at the time, working on a computer in the business lab. My goal for the work day was to get half of the business lab computers cloned to their new specifications (they’ll be going into other classrooms this summer). However, with 2 bad CD-ROM drives and the three 3-com switches hooked together (a quicky replacement for a 16-port hub that died at the end of the school year) not playing nicely with Norton Ghost, cloning wasn’t working. When Amy called, I was fighting with a piece of elementary software that will be going on every elementary machine this summer. And then realized I hadn’t installed the updated version yet. Whoops! 🙂

So, I basically worked 2 fruitless hours today and then went home to pick up dad. Mom was working, and dad was only allowed to accompany me to pick up the girls as long as he had a miserable time (so sayeth mom). We didn’t have to wait long at the airport before they arrived, and then we headed off to Stop 8 to the Panera Bread there and had lunch. Dad made sure to have a miserable time. 🙂 Then we stopped at Krogers on the way home to pick up the groceries needed for snacks and supper. And we got home about half an hour before mom came.

I had this inspired idea last weekend that perhaps Amy and I could work together on making an Indian meal for everyone. I have this nice kitchen and all, and it’s good to have folks around who like to cook so that it gets used. (It’s one of the reasons why I love it when elsaf visits!) I worked on the tandoori chicken and Amy made the vegetable curry. Basmati rice, steamed pita bread (instead of nan), and fresh peaches rounded off the meal. For dessert, we’ll have strawberry ice cream which I made earlier this week. (Everyone was too full after supper for ice cream. So we’ll have it after the girls get done visiting one of our cousins.)

This has been a wonderful day for sisters. 🙂 (Crappy day for computers. I was having troubles with computers. The dentist’s office where dad & Granny were today was having computer troubles. AAA was having troubles when I was off getting my euros for my Italy trip. Just a bad day for computers.) Tomorrow, we’re off to Yellow Springs to shop and so Amy can show off her old stomping ground to Rachel. Yay! Cool toy store! Great shoe store! And probably some Ha Ha Pizza! Oh yeah, and that store that sells bongs. 🙂 (Yellow Springs is still stuck in the Hippie Years.)