Our 4th of July weekend went really well this year. To kick things off right, I found out on Friday afternoon before the weekend that I could have Monday July 3rd off. A surprise and unplanned FOUR DAY WEEKEND!!

The 40th Annual Seattle Wooden Boat Festival was being put on and I took a Lyft down to south Lake Union and the Center for Wooden Boats on Saturday morning and hung out till about 12:00. I have mixed feelings about the show/fest this year and will expound on those in a follow up post, but while there got to see some boats and talk shop with a kayak builder and sail-maker. Before leaving the house, Stamp-With-Foot made me promise not to buy a boat. I succeeded in that, but I did look at a cute little 16’ sailing skiff that made me feel fuzzy and a 22’ day/weekend sailor…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also saw Opus again – my favorite weekend boat/trailer sailor in the PNW. She is a Wee Seal MKII, designed by the noted Australian/Scotsman Iain Oughtred. Her owners weren’t there, but I still enjoyed seeing at such a sweet little boat. If Opus were for sale, I don’t think that the promise to my wife would have been kept…

We went to a colleague’s early 4th of July BBQ on Saturday afternoon/evening (the 1st of July). It was down in Enumclaw and had an AMAZING view of Mt. Rainier from the deck and rest of the property. There was beer, laughter, wine, 4-wheelers, BBQ, and fine people. The fireworks started at dark and no one lost any fingers and nothing burned down, so a successful party.

Monday and Tuesday were spent in our yard, my shop, and the house fixing, building, moving stuff around. I hired some labor on Monday the 3rd and spent 8 hours cleaning the yard, moving bricks, pulling weeds, re-finishing the patio table, cleaning the hot tub, moving boulders, and making 2 runs to the dump. I swear the people at the city dump know me so well by now that I will be getting Christmas cards from them.

 

The yard came together about 9:00pm the night before our scheduled BBQ on the 4th. We had friends, family, co-workers, neighbors come over for charred meat, chips, dip, booze, desert, and laughter. The holiday was also my backyard’s coming out party. She was finally ready to join the world and everyone fawned over the green, luscious grass. It made me so proud! It was also the puppies first time being allowed in the backyard unsupervised. They rolled and sniffed and frolicked like I made the yard just for them. There were no fights (human or puppy), no one got sick, everyone left full, no grass was destroyed, no cuts or scrapes, no fires, nothing blown up, and we had some very tired happy puppies that night – so another successful party.