Another fun-packed weekend is over.
Friday we visited Armstrong Park again because I wanted to see the Purple Martins. We didn’t spot any, but I did get a few good photos of some egrets and a great blue heron.
Saturday was our rescheduled (from July) game night at my second cousin’s house. We arrived around 3:30 pm and debated whether to go swimming in the pool. It wasn’t quite as warm as I would prefer and then it started drizzling so we went back inside to chat. About an hour later her daughter, who is my first cousin, and her family arrived. I haven’t seen her in over a decade (the last time was at my grandmother’s funeral in 2003) so that was nice. Plus I got to meet her husband and 9 year old son. I also met my second cousin’s youngest daughter (she’s 22 or 23) when she got home from work. My second cousin and I were never really in contact until my uncle passed away two years ago which is why it took so long to meet her one daughter.
Anyway, my cousin made this ridiculously tasty blueberry vodka lemonade that I could not stop drinking. Luckily the alcohol content was weak since I have a low tolerance. We had a delicious dinner of grilled chicken, red potatoes, pasta salad, and a spinach salad with walnuts, cranberries, and feta. After dinner we played Uno Attack and then took a break for dessert which was the brownies I brought topped with ice cream. After dessert we played Aggravation and a game I had never played before called LCR (left right center). By that point it was 10 pm so we decided to get going since it’s about an hour and fifteen minute drive back home.
It was nice to spend time with family members we usually don’t socialize with. My mom and my second cousin never really got along so if it wasn’t for Facebook I probably never would have spent any time with her or her husband which is a shame because even if she wasn’t nice to my mom growing up she’s always been nice to me.
Sunday morning we decided to visit Armstrong Park again but to ride our bikes since it was a gorgeous cloudy day. The park has a very nice, mostly flat, paved path so we got almost an hour of riding in before I got tired.
Later the same afternoon I wanted to check out a small park in Wheaton called Hurley Gardens to take some flower photos. I brought my Canon SLR with the stock 18-55 mm lens and thought I was losing my mind when it wouldn’t focus on the flowers. Turns out something is wrong with the lens. Joe’s lens of the same type, plus my other lenses, work on my camera fine. I’m glad it’s not the camera itself since I wouldn’t be able to replace it for awhile.