Yay! Summer!

Yeah, we've had a pretty iffy summer this year. Early this week another of our photo-of-the-day themes was "summer". It wasn't the easiest to capture on that particular day, we were all wearing jackets, it was gray, cool and rainy. I got inventive and planted my sandal-clad foot on some playground sand - summer!

Well, yesterday it decided to heat up - way up! My min/max thermometer recorded yesterday's high in the shade at 101º and the low at 60º. It was already 80º at 8:45 in the AM. But we had plans and determined to go ahead with them, hot or not.

Auburn has an annual festival, as do most towns in our area. Auburn calls theirs "Good Ol' Days" and it's kicked off by a parade down - MAIN STREET! duh. I've attended various parts of Good Ol' Days including the sidewalk and craft sale, but never the parade. Our newly relocated family from Utah needs something to do on Saturdays so we all opted to go. We shoulda skipped it. This is an election year so all the local Senate, Congress, etc campaigners were there in force, I swear 1/3 of the parade was campaigning. There were the 3 high schools represented by small bands and cheerleading squads, which were colorful and showy. The fire trucks blew their horns and sirens down the street and local feed stores and farms had their prize tractors pulling homemade floats with waving kids riding in them. But the quirky synchronized shopping carts or briefcase squads were missing. Really, anything entertaining was missing. I don't think we'll go back, those "Good Ol' Days" are only in the past now, it seems.

I've enjoyed attending the Renaissance Faire for a few years now but you just never know what weather August will bring. Or maybe it's not the month but, rather, our area. One year it rained. One year it was so hot I nearly passed out. See, when you attend it's the most fun if you go in costume. Since I've already attended in the heat I knew what to expect so when we came home from the parade we made up some minimalist renaissance costumes. The costumes worked pretty well, we didn't find ourselves becoming heat exhausted. But after seeing the second emergency vehicle pulling in during our measly, maybe 1 hour visit to the Maris Farms in Buckley, I made the comment "They're dropping like flies!" One of the attendants at that point told us that they had had 10 emergency calls that day already! They WERE dropping like flies! I noticed at least 3 overweight females laying in the shade with cloths on their heads and partners attempting to make them comfortable.

So although feeling like we had totally wasted our entrance fee money we decided to leave. No one was having fun but we took a few pictures and Rick picked up a sling for carrying a water bottle. So we came home.

That's when our day turned around. We cooked up some dogs and brats on the BBQ. Then Markie and Bekah came up to play with Keith. Then Denny and Hunter showed up. We were just enjoying the cooler air in the back yard, since we have more shade than any of their houses. After a little while Rachyl showed up. Then finally Mark showed up and hung out with his kids at the swingset in the back. It was just a very pleasant evening and it was funny to watch everyone quietly creeping into our back yard.

Today and tomorrow promise to be just as hot, if not hotter. So far today Rick and I have just been sitting at our computers blogging, etc. We tried going to an estate sale that the kids went to yesterday but it wasn't open. So here we sit.

It sure is cool in this house.