End of July

Last Sunday we visited Joe’s brother and sister-in-law. We haven’t been to his place in years even though it’s only an hour and a half drive because a) all the other times we’ve visited I got ill (I think it was the water out there) and b) we were (incorrectly, we learned) under the impression the best day to visit was a Sunday and we don’t usually have the kids and have to work the next day so it wasn’t convenient. Joe took this past week off, and I took Monday and Tuesday off, since we had E for the entire week, so it worked out perfectly. We got there around 11 am and bullshitted for awhile, then my brother-in-law’s friend came by and took us out on the lake in his pontoon boat. E got to drive the boat, which he loved (and which made me nervous at first but he quickly got the hang of it). After that he went out on the tube and we pulled him with the boat. Then BIL’s friend was tired so we went back to the house and had a nice big meal of steak, baked potatoes, hot dogs, corn on the cob, potato salad, cucumber salad, etc. We played Uno Attack afterwards and ended up leaving sometime after 8 pm.

We slept in on Monday and didn’t do much but run a few errands (I scored a nice case for my Kindle at Half Price Books for only $4.79) and Tuesday we went to see Ice Age 4 which I thought was pretty good. I went back to work on Wednesday, which sucked, but Joe and E came by and took me out to lunch which was nice. We went to Meatheads because they have the best patty melt ever. I like to get mine without onions and a side of thousand island dressing. Then we went across the street to Red Mango which has the BEST frozen yogurt. I had the vanilla bean with chocolate chips and fresh strawberries and blueberries. Thursday and Friday was work and Joe and E had their pool time and went to some garage sales. Then E left Friday afternoon before I got off work.

Today we went out to Whiting, Indiana for the Pierogi Festival. We stopped at my parents’ house to pick up my brothers. We walked around the fest for nearly three hours and enjoyed lots of food. In addition to the headlining pierogis we shared some of the following: chocolate covered bacon, chocolate covered banana, deep-fried cannoli, chocolate filled churro, fried chicken on a stick, polish sausage, ice cream and more. We were total gluttons but it was so much fun and we met a nice family with a last name of Kielbasa. The boy was munching on a polish sausage and said, “I’m eating my own kind!” You’d think after leaving the fest everyone would be stuffed but the “boys” (that includes my husband) all stopped at Speedway and got massive slurpees. Where do they store all that junk? I passed on that, but you have to admit, 69 cents for a 44 oz slurpee is pretty awesome.