05/24/19: Memorial Day Weekend
We had a relaxing Memorial Day Weekend celebration. We started off Friday with a kick off spaghetti dinner with wine and garlic bread. Saturday was so nice and cool that, after taking Beau for a walk in the woods, we spent several hours organizing things out in the barn.

Kayaking on Brindle Pond

We made great progress in what we wanted to keep or sell at a yard sale. We actually uncovered some pretty neat stuff. Sue had also been wanting to localize all of her gardening gear in one of the back corners. We worked on that and managed to move everything around so that she got everything set up the way she wanted.

We got the following text from Chuck as we were shoving crap around in the barn:

"It has been such a hectic week at work as is typical leading into a holiday week with adjustment of hours and schedules and all of that.... Anyway last second prep and we're jumping in an Uber to the airport and heading to Fort Lauderdale for the weekend! Just a quick trip to catch a few rays!"

Braden, Denise, and Chuck in flight to Ft. Lauderdale.

Terrific! Nice to see someone is doing more than 'shoving crap around in the barn'.... Just to tease us, we were to be gifted with quite a few shots of them in town and on the beach. The weather was just great down there, and we lived vicariously through their adventures!

After having just about enough for the day organizing the barn, Sue had some fun mucking around in the garden for awhile. Of course, Beau was out with her the whole time, rolling around in the grass. And so before anything else, we had to check him for ticks.

He's a scream because he knows exactly what's going on when one of us announces, "Tick Check!" He flops down on the floor, and rolls onto his back. It's hysterical to see.

Tick Check!

We got the following picture from Chuck with some comment about dipping his toes in the water:

'These toes were made for dipping' — thanks to Nancy Sinatra for her song that popped into my head as I saw this....

Marissa responded, "As close to the water as I'm getting today!", and sent the following picture of her on her deck at home by the pool:

Marissa's toes aren't going anywhere!

To which Colin replied simply, "Ha! Ha!", and sent the following picture of him doing what he loves: working on a friends boat, that at some point he'll be out on.

Colin's reply....

Having completed the barn work, we settled into the evening with some wine, and backgammon, which didn't go well for me. Well, the wine was fine, but not so much the backgammon. It wasn't long before she had me 3 down when I had been 11 up on her from the previous time we had played Friday evening.

Not sure what I'm smiling about here Saturday night as Sue has me down 3 points, and it got only worse from there. What happened?

We got this final picture for the day from Chuck. Denise is pointing up to the 'YOLO' (You Only Live Once) sign confirming that all was well in Ft. Lauderdale.

Braden, Denise, and Chuck out on the town!

Sunday, we had our friend Kathy over for dinner as her husband Steve had to leave for a few days to see his mother. I fixed an interesting Sauteed Chicken and Vegetables In A Spicy Coconut Sauce which came out splendid, and went great with the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc had opened. While we watched the 2019 Melissa McCarthy movie, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, we enjoyed a mango and raspberry tart and ice cream for desert.

And Monday, Memorial Day, after Sue got back from walking Beau, we headed off for our Annual Memorial Day Weekend Kayaking Adventure.

Last Fall driving around the Barnstead area, we had discovered Brindle Pond off Pineo Road, and had decided it looked like a really nice place to kayak. And we had a lovely time, though we had to take it a little easy with Sue's wrist still sore from her surgery.

Everyone out on the water had life jackets on as even the state had put out a warning that though the air temperatures were nice and warm, the water in the lakes and ponds was still so cold that hypothermia could overcome you in literally just minutes.

Is she having fun, or what!

Exploring along the shoreline.

It's not a huge pond, but large enough to spend a couple hours investigating.

Toward the end, the wind started to pick up. You can see the swell in the foreground getting pretty large for such a small pond.

"Pasquinel" Rose guides his steady craft toward the beaver dam in homage to Michener's great novel, "Centennial".

By the time we pulled out of the water, the air had started to cool, and clouds skated rapidly across the paling sky. It wasn't supposed to rain until later on Tuesday, but it sure seemed like things were setting up for it already.

After we got back home, Sue took Beau out with her as she worked in the garden again. Another Tick Check, and then we settled into some wine and backgammon. By the time I had to get going on cooking up some dinner, I was 7 down, and out of wine. Both rather annoying conditions.

I had planned on getting the grill out, and having our first cookout. But because we were just having quick sausage dogs, we figured I could just do that on the stove, and get on with the movie of the night as it was getting on after 6:30 pm.

Though we were both fairly tired, and had planned on an early night, we watched a little more tv before turning in around 10:00 pm. I didn't come to until 7:00 am, and just stumbled down to grab a shower while Sue headed off to walk Beau before it started to rain. We had a nice, relaxing holiday weekend, and — we didn't have to mess with traffic or crowds. How much better could it get!

Sue winding down fixing a post holiday breakfast.