A Weeks Worth of Llama's and Fireworks

Well well! I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July! As some of you may know, it's one of my favorite holidays...but then again I just love holidays in general. Here's the thing: I love holidays because it's an excuse to get dressed up in some silly garb and spend time with friends and family, whether it's eating roasted duck, singing Irish drinking songs, or watching parades and fireworks! But wait, I just had a thought. I don't really need an excuse to do all that, right? I mean Andrea, Camille and I got dressed up all the time for no reason. I remember one night, Andrea and I wanted to watch The Sword and the Stone, (or was it The Road to Eldorado??) anyway, we decided to dress up like medieval princesses. (it must have been The Sword and the Stone then..) Well, she ended up looking like a British punk pop diva and I ended up looking like a Grecian harlet. Ahh, the times!

Nonetheless, the weekend was filled with fabulous and spectacular down home enjoyment. It actually started off with a trip to the UniverSOUL Circus, and let me emphasize SOUL. Haha, all I saw when I went to grab the tickets were cornrolls and finger snappin'. If you know what I mean by that, well then good for you. It was so cliche. I'm serious...fried chicken jokes included. Anyway, Mike's little sis Amy, is staying with all the boys for the summer so I decided to try and get her out of the house by taking her to the circus. Plus, I've never been! We got to see zebras, llamas, tigers and elephants. Clowns and acrobats, Chinese flippers as well! There was even a "little" sidekick, who had some killer dance moves! I'll tell ya, I've never felt so pasty in my life! And it was awesome!

Friday morning we were well on our way to go cove kayaking on Spectacle Island, but unfortunately due to "island maintenance" we had to forgo that idea and instead see the Gloucester Sea Chanty and Clogging Band on Georges Island. (yeah, would you believe there really is a 'georges island' ?) Although when we got there, there was no clogging to be had and they in fact were not from Gloucester. Oh good 'ol Gloucester! They did sing Yankee Doodle though and played the pogo bass/thingy, yeah that. :)

We stopped and had some delicious meat, burgers, rice, noodles, pound cake, more meat and soda from the family that George carried coals for on the ferry to the island. They were incredibly sweet, and would not stop handing us food. They could've rolled us of the side of the island and we'd have floated back home no sweat! The remainder of the day was filled with tourists, arm painting, cell-phone hugging, BBQing and watching fireworks from a penthouse apartment with a killer view of the entire city!

Saturday, we got up early once more to make our way to the Anheuser-Busch Brewery in Merrimack, New Hampshire! Oh and the boys were super excited! For what I say?! Ok, who am I kidding...

After learning how the brewery worked and that Budweiser, Michelob, Natural (light or ice..no just natural..) were all the same company, we sat down in the "hospitality center" to have a few samples. Our conclusions? I love the Michelob Ultra Raspberry Pomegranate beer and the Summer Ale was OK. The Clamato beer was Uck! and the Lime infused was not so bad for me, but the boys hated it. The stout definitely puts hair on your chest, so I passed on that one. And the porter was a close second. I'll stick to my pales and ambers. :)

After the brew-haha, we took off for some poolside BBQ and a little lacrosse playing. The night rounded down with some lighting of our own fireworks in which the "Grand Canyon" was AMAZING!!! Sunday the day was good enough to head to the beach where some wave surfing was definitely in order!

So what do you get when you play hard all weekend? YOU SLEEP HARD! And that's definitely what I did the last two nights. Too bad it was too much of a sweaty hot mess over here to use any blankets, or clothes for that matter....

KIDDING!

But I'll just say it was minimal. ;)