Family, Fun and Fireworks

This fourth of July weekend turned out to be a really fun time.
Friday, I got up early to take Cash into PetSmart and get his hair cut.
This is a picture of Cash before:

Here's a pic of a sleepy Cash after our long walk today:

He looks like a completely different dog! He loves getting shaved down. He always jumps a little bit higher after he gets a hair cut.
I'm not sure why, but it takes forever for Cash to get his hair cut. I dropped him off at 10, and they told me to pick him up at 2:30. 4.5 hours? Really?

Oh well, I needed to do some shopping anyway. I needed some new blue jeans.
So, I went over to the mall to shop. Jeans are a surprisingly hard item of clothing to shop for. There are different sizes which can often mean different things at different stores. Some stores use the 0, 2, 4, 6, etc. sizing method, some stores use 27, 28, 29 (waist size) for sizes. Then there is length... it always throws me off that the Gap uses A for their short length pants.
Anyway, the Gap and American Eagle had a sucky selection of jeans, so I wandered over to the Buckle.

The sales girl was helping me find the short length pants and she told me that I should try on a regular length pants and that with heels I might be able to swing it.
I shook my head sadly at her.
I was thinking "No honey, the only way I'm not going to walk on the hem of the short length pants is with heels."
Sad, but true.

Ash called me to see if she could come along to dinner since Dad and I had planned to go to dinner. I told her of course she could and then politely begged her to get her ass over to the mall to help me shop.

Being both sweet and fantastic, Sist-A complied. So, she came over and we went to a few stores, ate lunch and then played for a while in the new Sephora in the mall. Fun, fun, fun.

Then, we picked up Cash and went back to my house until it was time to meet Dad and Fern in New Glarus.

Here is a picture of us after getting ready to go to dinner:

Dad and Fern were a little bit late for dinner since they waited for Broth-A to get to their house since he decided to come along too at the last minute. Which is awesome, because I feel like it's been years since I've actually been able to hang out with the kid.

Here is us having some drinks, ordering appetizers and taking pictures before the parents got there.

We got the sampler platter of onion rings, cheese curds, potato thing-ys, cheese pie and escargot in puff pastry.

That's right. Escargot in puff pastry.

Fern "hogged" all the escargot and she said it mostly tasted like puff pastry.

The food at the New Glarus Hotel is pretty good. Every dinner comes with soup or juice (ahem... yeah, I'm not sure on the why of the "or juice" part of that sentence) and salad, plus your actual food.

Here, you can enjoy brother cutting the cheese at the salad bar.

Dad, actually allowing me to take his picture without fussing about it the ENTIRE time before grabbing some salad, and Fern looking sweet.

You cannot believe how much everyone bitched and moaned before agreeing to take any of these pictures. In spite of all that I think they turned out pretty cute.

Me and the father at dinner.

Grasshopper and I had quite a bit of time to peruse the menu before the DAM party got there and we noticed that they offered a chocolate fondue for dessert. Yum. Actually they offer a number of fondues at the New Glarus Hotel.

So, we jumped right on that bandwagon and ordered the chocolate fondue.

It was delicious. It came with apples, melons, strawberries, bananas and sponge cake for dipping.

It also came with rules. You have to kiss all the members of the opposite sex at the table if you drop anything in. I had to kiss all the boys on the cheek twice after dropping sponge cake in the chocolate. Sist-A did once and I think Fern did once too.

The husband SHOULD have had to kiss all the girls, but he wussed out.

I kissed them on the cheek mostly... don't make it weird.

Here's a picture of me with the Best. Waitress. EVER!!

She was a good waitress because she was really nice. Not fake nice and perky, you know, like they are sometimes at Fridays, but just really genuinely a nice person. She was accurate with our orders and good about getting refills... you know all those waitress-y type things.

PLUS! When we were done with our chocolate fondue, she came by and noticed that we had run out of items to dip, but not out of chocolate... and here's where the heavens opened and shone a light down on her angelic head... she offered us a refill of items to dip. Not just the same assortment either, she let us pick what we wanted. So, we had a whole second plate of strawberries, bananas and sponge cake.

Seriously, she was an awesome waitress and I will remember her fondly till the day I die.

After dinner, we went back to Monroe and walked over to Twinning Park for the fireworks, which were awesome.

They were kind of funny since they played some really loud Journey music before the fireworks. I'm not sure why Journey, but I guess, maybe the questions isn't why Journey, but why not?!?

It was so loud that it really allowed Sist-A, Fern and I to belt out the lyrics to "Open Arms" when it was played without really distracting anyone.

I am such a three year old about fireworks. I get excited for them every year. It was a really great show in Monroe. I was pretty pleasantly surprised. They had music that accompanied the fireworks and it was pretty long show. We had a great view of them.

Brother spent the night and went to the gym with me the next morning.

It's a good thing he's so pretty, because that treadmill kicked his ass for a while until he figured out how to work the damn thing.

Then, we had to hang out at the house for a while because the Jeep was being fixed on Saturday. After that we took brother back to Oregon, so he could get going back to Beaver Dam for his baseball game. The husband and I headed over to the East Side because we decided to go to his baseball game too.

Brother is an idiot, so he told me that the game started at 6:30 and then only texted me when he learned the game didn't start until 7. Since I didn't notice the text, the husband and I arrived to the game a 1/2 hour early, which would have been a lot more fun if the concession stand had started selling libations more than 10 minutes before the beginning of the game.

It was probably the best baseball game I have ever been to. Brother's dad got thrown out of the game in the second inning for heckling the ump (who DID suck by the way).

I blame N8.

N8 actually made the comment that got Craig kicked out the game first, Craig just repeated it louder.

They had a hilarious conversation.

(I can't remember it exactly, but it approx went like this)

Ump: Shut up Dude! I'm calling the game, not you. I get paid for this, whether I do a good job or not.

Craig: You shut up. You suck!

Ump: You're out of the game.

Craig: Suck it. I just came here to take my kid (Ben) to the park anyway. You can't kick me out of the game.

Ump: Excuse me? Where are you from?

Craig: Beaver Dam.

Ump: ?? I'm old and confused.

Ump: Well, what team are you rooting for?

Craig: Juneau.

Ump: Well, get out of here.

Craig: See ya after the game, chump.

It was awesome. Hands down, the most entertaining part of the game for me.

Then, after the game we tried to go bowling, so brother led us around to a series of activities in Beaver Dam that were closed. So, we ended up with a shitty, shitty rented movie "Vantage Point" (that both brother and N8 swore up and down they heard was good) and snacks from the gas station.

Poor husband had to drive home at midnight and I was so tired I couldn't keep my eyes open for 5 minutes at a time.

Today was a much more chill and relaxed day. I slept late. Took Cash on a long walk. Found a bunch of new stuff in Monroe (apparently, we have a city pool... who knew?). And went to see a movie (Indiana Jones.... I'm going to pretend I never saw it. I think the world's a better place if I do that).

All in all, an excellent weekend.

If only it weren't going to be followed up with a week in Cincinnati. Blech.

Oh, well... what are you going to do?

Life can't always be candy and bubbles