Yeah, it’s one of those “How I spent” posts, inspired by Shannon’s this time. Only I’ll confine mine to my super-busy holiday weekend.

Saturday, my wife and daughter went to Sisters with my mother for the rock and gem show. They do this every year, it’s tradition. While they were gone, my son and I returned a bunch of cans and bottles to Safeway, went to the library, and stopped by the homebrew shop so I could pick up ingredients for a batch of beer and a wine kit for my wife.

A highlight of the homebrew shop: my soon-to-be-five-year-old son asking when we could leave because he didn’t like this store… I guess not enough toys? Too creepy for kids? I got a chuckle out of it.

When the others got back, my daughter went home with my mother to have a sleepover, and the rest of us went back to town to check out the Saturday market, get some ice cream, and then head home again. For dinner it was Cibelli’s Pizza (had to go pick it up).

Sunday it was off to Albertson’s to return some more bottles and cans, return some movies, and run to Bi-Mart. I transplanted a bunch of plants (one of my hop plants, several tomatoes, a couple of beans). In the afternoon we went out to my parents’ place for dinner and to pick up our daughter. It was a hot enough day that I took the kids over to Reynolds Pond and we played in the water a bit.

I took Monday off from work, and it was a big homebrew day that I had planned with my friend Paul. After going out to breakfast at McKay Cottage, we spent a good part of the day brewing, and then the afternoon and evening turned into an impromptu barbecue and party with Paul and his wife, Shannon and Brian, and Simone and her husband. The day was punctuated with the power going out all over town (only about a half hour for us, though I heard other people were out for hours), lighting off fireworks that Simone’s husband had brought over, and a friendly poker game.

That night at 12:30 AM, someone rang our doorbell. I, however, slept through it, and only woke when my wife, er, woke me. Muzzy-headed with alcohol and sleep, all I knew was that the dog was barking in the middle of the night so I yelled at him to stop, only to find out he was actually performing a service for once… hilarity ensues. I stumbled around in the dark for a while, only wanting to go back to bed, my wife called the police to notify them of the “ding dong ditch” (a name I’m quite sure I’d never heard before then), and left the closet light on all night. I didn’t get a very good night’s sleep.

Tuesday the Fourth found us getting up and ready to go to the Pet Parade. After the Parade (we hung out there with Shannon and Brian), we wandered the park checking out the booths and food they have every year (festival-style), and then checked out the library’s book sale. (Scored a stack of books for only $4!) In the afternoon we were back out to my parents’ place for dinner and fireworks, and then when we got back home we did a few more fireworks when it got dark, and then watched the (in)famous Pilot Butte fireworks show. We have a pretty good view of that from our lawn.

And that, in a not-so-small nutshell, was our holiday weekend. Sometime I’d just like to relax for a day or two, you know?

It started with housecleaning, since we were hosting a party at our place. We managed to finish up in time to go to the Pet Parade, which is always fun (though, as someone was telling me later, is just crazy with too many people compared to four years ago). The highlight of the Parade worth blogging about was the flying dog. Someone had harnessed up a little rat dog of some kind to a bunch of big helium balloons, and had it tethered on a leash at about four feet in the air. My thought was, if they drop the leash, the dog is gone—I hope they have a pellet gun!

For the balloons. The balloons. Yeah, I know what you thought I meant the gun was for.

Oh, we saw Shannon in the Parade, as well. And apparently Chris was in it too. A fake monkey? What?

We fought our way to Drake Park where my wife was looking for toe rings and I bought the kids each a beanbag snake. This was the “old fashioned celebration” part of the public festivities they were advertising, I guess—craft vendors and food, though we didn’t make it as far as the food.

The party at our house was pretty good. We had my family, old family friends, Shannon and Simone for a little while, a friend of my wife’s and even some of my coworkers. The best part of course was the fireworks, especially for the kids. I set off a lot of them, and we were treated to just as many (legal and otherwise) from elsewhere in the neighborhood.

And this was the first year we let the kids stay up until 10 to watch the Pilot Butte fireworks show (which according to the news this evening is the largest in Oregon. Who knew!). We have a nice view of Pilot Butte from our yard, so it was a treat.

The only downside was going back to work the next day (today)… unpleasant. Maybe I’ll start taking July 5th off from now on…