My town does a 3rd of July celebration instead of a 4th of July bash. Tonight we’re going to head down to waterfront park for some good music, good company and fireworks at sunset.

Tomorrow we’re going to stay close to home. We’ll smoke chicken and beef brisket and have a lazy backyard picnic. The doggies really hate fireworks, and we live near an Indian reservation so there are lots of fireworks in our area. Once the sun goes down and the noise starts up, we’ll hole up inside and put on a good movie for background noise.

The rest of the weekend? Who knows? It depends on the weather, which has been cool and thunderstorm-y. (Check out Beast Mom’s pictures of the lightning strike near her home!) If it clears up we’ll take the boat out for some time on the water, and if not, maybe we’ll just stay home and get caught up on projects, movies and reading.

I love long weekends though, they’re full of possibilities. If you haven’t already talked about it on someone else’s blog post, what are you doing with yours?

To those who have gone before: thank you. You’ve made this world a better place.

Spring break is over.

It was only sort of a spring break, because spring quarter of college, the eldest son’s first quarter of college, began last week, coinciding with high school spring break.

Actually, high school spring break was inflated by the addition of two days off for parent teacher conferences and a third day off for teacher in-service. I’ve posted before on my thoughts on in-service days. This type of bloating is much of the reason why North Kitsap schools start after Labor Day, like many other schools, but get out one-two weeks later than most.

My workload was light last week as well, with most of my project team members off at a conference or on personal leave. I should have actually taken some time off.

What did we get accomplished? Not much. No notable recreation or projects. Basic yardwork and housecleaning. A videogame party for the teen boy squad. Some writing and web site design. And lots and lots of sleeping in.

Oh well, I guess not every spring break has to be an adventure. It was great to slow down for a few days.

Next year, we’ll have to cruise the Panama Canal. (Not really, but wouldn’t it be awesome?)

Happy Easter, Happy Spring, or for the secular among you, happy Near Miss Day. (It commemorates the day an asteroid nearly missed hitting the earth.)

Note: we do not actually costume our dogs, because they would then have adequate justification to kill us in our sleep. We just Photoshop them.)

I’ve spent eleven great years with my sweetheart, Bryan, and I’m looking forward to the next fifty. He tries to pretend he’s a gruff, hard-nosed, ex-football-lineman attorney, but I know better… he has the biggest heart I’ve ever known. Thank you for everything, honey!

And more thanks to all our family and friends, whose caring makes the world a better place.