July 1-July 18th, 2021

  Another start to a new month and lots of celebrating! The 4th of July Holiday was on a Sunday this year, although Monday was the federal holiday. Tom and Allison had the day off. My new contract company does not pay for holidays and does not give those days off. So all of our work group was in on Monday. Naturally, all of the supervisors were off work. And Scott got the day off from Home Depot. 

Instead I decided to have neighbors over for a BBQ dinner on Sunday afternoon. We decided to go easy and make burgers and dogs, but Tom added chili to the mix in the crock pot. And naturally we had fruit salad and tomato/basil/mozzarella slices with balsamic vinegarette. The neighbors brought appetizers and dessert as well as chicken wings. I decided to make a Key Lime Pie(taste of Hilton Head) although I spotted some delicious looking Key Lime Pies at Sams Club and was tempted to buy one of theirs. However, my coworker told me how simple they are to make(they are!) with just a few ingredients which I had already purchased. So homemade Key Lime Pie which was a big hit and brownies. I also tried a new box brownie dessert with graham cracker crumb base. I made them in a cupcake pan but was not too crazy about how they turned out-rather like hockey pucks! A bit overcooked. Turns out the kids loved them, and they seemed to soften over a few days and got better. Who knew. They were topped with caramel frosting, mini M and M's and small pretzels. Not sure I will make those again, or maybe will try it in a baking pan instead next time. Anyway, we had plenty of terrific food. Scott is a great help at the grill! Allison came over early too and helped set up. I thought we'd all be eating outside, but again it was a bit too toasty. Most of us sat inside and the "kids" ate outside. We invited Gabe over as well. We haven't seen him in awhile and he brought Tom a 50 yr old bottle of brandy from his grandparents house in Portugal. Tom decided to crack it open and toast Gabe's grandparents. Very smooth! Since our dinner was late Sunday afternoon, most everyone headed home early. Allison, Scott and Gabe played some video games and when it got dark we shot off some fireworks in the driveway that Allison had bought at a local pop up tent. Turns out the next door neighbors were having a block party and they shot off some really big fireworks to cap off the night. Most places had cancelled their large fireworks displays including Baltimore City. We just did not feel like tackling the traffic at the local fireworks displays that evening. Instead we packed up some leftover food for Allison and Gabe to take home and called it a night. I was really hoping our local Baltimore Symphony Orchestra would hold their annual concert and fireworks show but they remained virtual and televised a concert instead with no fireworks. I just can't get into watching fireworks shows on tv. 

We also did not have time to get down to Busch Gardens. They are having fireworks for the entire month of July, every night! I had to work on Saturday, July 3rd so my time is very limited.  Plus on Friday, July 2nd, we had some neighbors over to watch a Stanley Cup game. Tom and I ran into our neighbor Phil when we were out walking Cookie. He wanted to come over for the 4th, or have us over, but we already had enough people scheduled at our house for dinner. Instead, he came over with his daughter Hannah who is currently in grad school in PA for Physical Therapy. Phil is currently separated from his wife Carol and I am sure needing some company. Hannah is usually away at school and their son Jack is working for Phil's construction business as well as at a Natural Foods store. Jack is a few years younger as Scott. He was not as successful during his first year at Salisbury U and had to come home due to drug issues. So now he is working and living at home. Phil is originally from Traverse City, MI and is considering a move back to the mitten. It was nice catching up with him and talking therapy with Hannah. They ended up staying very late-way after the game was over. And Scott and I had to get up for work the next day. 

 The following weekend, July 10th and 11th we were very busy as well. I decided to help celebrate Allison's birthday on Sunday. She wanted to participate in her Dungeons and Dragon group on Sunday evening, so we opted for a luncheon. I wanted to meet at her place and have her invite Gabe. Turns out she invited a few more friends as well as the girls were visiting from out of town. Her friend Sophia recently graduated with a Masters in Opera from New York and is living with her fiance in New Jersey. He is a substitute teacher, full time and she is going to take on some part time work as a concierge in a Sr center as well as teach voice lessons until they get married next fall. Then they plan on moving to Germany so she can perform in operas(apparently they are more appreciated in Europe than in the United States). So Sophia was passing through after visiting with her parents. I decided it would be fun to make all the food, including a cake. We thought kabobs would be easiest. I made some tasty chicken kabobs and we cooked them on our grill before taking the food to Allison's apt. Sadly my shrimp kabobs did not turn out well-too mushy. And I was hoping my new cake recipe for blueberry lemon cake would be light and fluffy for a summer dessert with cream cheese frosting. Instead the cake was very dense, like a pound cake but not terribly moist or sweet. So that recipe went in the garbage! Even still, the cake disappeared! I knew I should have bought one of the mango cakes from Whole Foods that I tried recently for my bosses birthday. That was incredibly delicious! Maybe next time. We also had rice and tomato/cucumber salad to go with, so a very light lunch. And we opened Allison's presents. I bought her some work out clothes, especially shorts and a few dress shirts for work since she is back in the office and working out in the apartment gym. She also will be starting Ultimate frisbee again, so Tom made sure she had the perfect tshirt. And since it is summer, I picked her up a set of chairs and small table for her patio, as well as a very comfortable camping folding chair. And Tom bought her an inflatable double kayak(inspired by our niece Stacey), so Allison and Gabe can go paddling together. Thank you Amazon Prime Days! Plus we set her up with a Disney gift card since she and Scott are planning a trip to Orlando in the fall. I'd say she had a very successful Birthday celebration. After our lunch, Gabe headed home to work on his very extensive deck painting and patching project before he traveled to New Jersey for the week on work related business. So we all went out to see the new Marvel movie, Black Widow afterwards, minus Scott. He could just not get into this character. Then Allison had to get home to head over to her friends house for an evening of D and D. I was hoping we could have held Allison's birthday party poolside at her complex. But they limit the access to the residents only and everyone else needs a guest pass. However, they have not yet been offering guest passes. They do have a recreation room with a large movie screen and video games, but no one could really stay very late, so we did not bother using that space either. Still, I would love to take a dip in Allison's pool since it is finally open! 

It has been plenty hot this summer, or raining/tstorms. My plants were all finally looking so good. The peppers and tomato plant are starting to put out some useable veggies, along with my herb garden. And the potted flowers were really taking off. I spent some time hunting down a few more items to plant, including some potato vines for my big pots, some new orange and deep purple colored cone flowers for my butterfly garden and a potted plant for my patio table centerpiece. When I was out shopping in the spring, the amount of plants available for sale was very slim this year. And now that it is into summer, Scott tells me places like Home Depot don't restock. Sadly Tom decided to spray the house with an anti moss and mildew spray that usually is devastating to my plants up around the house. Sure enough, it fried my pepper plants, green onion and any flower pot close enough to the house to get sprayed. Now I am trying to resuscitate everything or replace and there really is not much out there to buy. Fortunately the jalapenos seem pretty hardy and are growing back all their leaves. Half of my marigolds are done for, but at least the tomato plant was far enough away from the house and it is protected from the deer and squirrels. So we should have plenty of tomatoes. And I told Tom he has to remember to do the housecleaning very early in the spring before I plant anything! And naturally just when I planned on using all of the beautiful basil leaves in our garden, the Japanese beetles hit with a vengeance this year and started nibbling them all up! I managed to save some of the leaves though. It's been a tough growing season! I did manage to do some repotting for my indoor plants. They sure needed it and now I have some very happy houseplants. I was also very sad to see the bluebirds did not nest in our new nesting box this year. Instead the wrens built a nest there as well as in the wren houses. We have two different wren species-one very small and one very large that loves to visit the inside of our garage. It seems that they had a family and were very busy building stick nests in the bird houses. I like them around since they eat all the insects. And they are very chatty. Although they are also busy eating the mealworms I put out for the bluebirds. Occasionally the bluebirds come by for a visit at least. 

Besides keeping our weekends busy with yardwork or entertaining, Tom and I visited with a friend from California in town on business. James Michael and his wife Myrna were wonderful friends when Tom and I lived in California(still are wonderful friends!). James was in the military -Marines, and Myrna was a secretary at the hospital I worked at-Rancho. We had a large group of friends that did a whole lot of activities together. Now James works for a company that makes drones for the military so he was in town on business at a naval facility south of DC along the bay. He also has family living in the condos in the Baltimore Harbor-his parents and his sister and her husband. So even though it is a very long drive, he did not mind traveling back and forth to the Baltimore area. He wanted to stop in over the 4th of July weekend, but we did not want to share his company with our neighbors, so we opted to spend all of Saturday, July 10th visiting with him in Annapolis. It is a little closer to where he was working and a much nicer place to visit I think than Baltimore right now. Most of the businesses in the Baltimore Harbor went out and crime has increased in the area, so we don't feel as comfortable walking around downtown as we do in Annapolis. We met up at Starbucks after lunch and took the UA Naval Academy tour. You can walk around the grounds, but it was nice to have someone telling us what everything was and how long it had been there. The school was founded in 1845 as a military school for officers in the navy and marines. It was built on the site of the former Fort Severn at the point where the Severn River meets the  Chesapeake Bay. The buildings are all designed in a french style and you really do feel like you are in Europe when walking around campus. We had about a 1.5 hr walking tour-the first tours to open since COVID last year before stopping for an early dinner. We could not believe how packed the town was that day. Guess everyone prefers to spend time in Annapolis. They had tables set up still on the street and sidewalks and bands playing outside. Even a pottery painting shop had tables set up outside. We opted to eat at Buddy's Crabs and Ribs and had no problem getting a table upstairs near the window looking out over the harbor. Needless to say we had many years of catching up and Tom and James had plenty of info to share about the military and both Northrop's and James company's products. Myrna did not join James on this trip since he was spending so much of his time working in the middle of nowhere. Maybe next time. After a wonderful meal we took a walk up to the Capital and Governor's mansion before stopping at a frozen yogurt shop for a seat on the street and even more chatting while being entertained by all the different people, dogs and live entertainment/music. Eventually we said our goodbyes late in the evening. James had a hotel near the BWI airport and was heading back to California very early the next morning. We loved seeing him and can't wait for another visit, hopefully with Myrna along!

We also celebrated the Stanley Cup win of the Tampa Bay Lightning. This is their 3rd Stanley Cup. We were kinda cheering on the underdogs, like the Vegas Knights who made it in to the finals again this year. Or our Washington Capitals. Tom  and Allison were especially enjoying wonderful hockey games late into the season. 

 Scott continues to work at Home Depot anywhere from a 4 hr shift to a 9 hr shift. Things seemed to have slowed down a bit now. He is really happy that he gets some time off, especially during the week. It gives him time to visit with his friends and do some fun activities. His high school friend Matt also got an inflatable 2 seater kayak for his birthday, so the boys took it out on our local lake. Then Matt's whole family celebrated his 21st birthday along with Scott with a visit to a new Axe throwing bar that just opened in Olde Ellicott City. Afterwards they had dinner and a bonfire at their house. 

But Scott was especially excited to have a visit from his New Orleans online friends. One of the guy's dad had business in DC and took his son with him as well as one of the girls that Scott was friends with online. Scott was very happy to drive down to DC and meet them the first night they arrived at their Hyatt hotel. They decided to have dinner at the hotel-it is hard to find places that are open later in the night near the White House and Capital and Scott drove back home that evening. But he was up early the next day and headed back. They grabbed a Starbucks in the hotel and headed for a putt putt golf course they found locally near the Capitol. Country's oldest golf course and it has a little putt putt course. So after they finished their game they headed to the Smithsonian museums. Unfortunately the museums are still being held ransom by COVID. The Air and Space museum is closed and the other museums have timed tickets that will soon cease to exist, but for that day they could not get in. Instead they paid for a visit to the Spy museum. And then Scott took them over to Silver Spring to visit Dave and Busters which they have never experienced(Louisiana don't get out much). I guess they had a great time eating and bowling and playing video games and Scott did not get home until after midnite. He was just so happy to finally meet his online friends in person. He also discovered that driving in DC is not fun! And it is expensive. At least they finally took down the barbed wire fencing around the Capital and reopened the National monument to visitors along with the rest of the museums. If anything they are a great place to hang out in the middle of summer since the museums are free and air conditioned, and it gets mighty toasty in DC in the summer. 

I had to work the following weekend. I even went in on Sunday so I could take the following Weds off to take Mom B to her dentist appointment. Looks like I could use the whole day for the event!