Last Wknd of Summer

Why does the last week of summer always feel so rushed?  School is starting and it's our last 3 day weekend to go out and do any camping or other summer affairs.  Here in Seattle we have our annual "Bumbershoot" weekend which is a music and arts festival held at the Seattle Center, a park area at the base of the Space Needle.  Ironically Bumbershoot means "umbrella" and it usually rains.  This year was actually not too bad, some sprinkles on Saturday, Sunday was beautiful and today it finally rained.  And the rain is to continue through Wednesday at least.  Fine with us cuz Thursday we get to LEAVE FOR HAWAII!!!

Yeah, you could say I'm excited.  

But this weekend was anything but uneventful around here.  Things were going on in all our neighboring family households, all but mine that is!  Well, one event was held here but didn't really involve us, we were merely observers.  That would be Kevin and Shirley's repeating their wedding vows.  Their "re-I do".

That was small and went off well.  There was no officiant, we all dressed up with a 50's theme and played oldies, motown, etc.  Then Kevin and Shirley read vows to each other, gave each other rings and kissed!  It was actually kinda cute, and after everything they've been through in the few years since Phil's demise it looks like things are finally taking a turn for the better.  They went out that night and got hammered, then Kevin took Shirley white water rafting, I guess that wasn't too pleasant with her hangover.  I haven't gotten the whole story yet but I guess there was some kind of mishap that involved her falling out of the raft!  She's OK it looks like, so all's well.

In the meantime Denny took out the sliding glass door that was in the front of his house where the garage door once was and replaced it with a large (4' x 8') window.  Not a small job.  And while that was going on Rach and Tony removed a fence that split their back yard into 2 yards and put it back up between them and their neighbor, where the previous fence had fallen down years ago.  Busy homeowners!

After the K & S event that was held in our back yard I kinda collapsed Sunday.  I finally got up and took down the remaining decorations since it was supposed to start raining.  It was such a beautiful day it was pleasant to be doing anything out of doors.

Today while Rick and I were just vegging after having gone out and done some shopping at the "stupid" mall (aka Supermall), gorging on a Papa Murphy stuffed pizza I got a text from Mark that he was on his way to the hospital with Rachel to have her appendix removed.  So I flew down to the hospital to relieve him of some children, he had taken all 3 with them.  I knew that they would be there for hours and it's just not necessary (or fun) to have all the kids there.  Once Rachel was going into the O.R. I brought Markie and Bekah home.  I attempted to figure something out for dinner and it wasn't easy.  Then Tony called to see if I would like him to throw a few extra dogs or burgers on the BBQ - my savior!  The kids ate and then we came back and they found electronics to keep themselves occupied.  Markie ended up playing "Need for Speed" on the PS2 with Rick and Bekah was playing on my Ipod.  Rachel came through the laporoscopic surgery fine and was spending the night so Mark came and got the kids just at Rick's bedtime.

Whew!  Like I said, that last wknd of summer can be hectic!