This past weekend, I was home alone. All weekend. My husband and kids were out of town. Most of you moms are now going "Woo-hoo!" because I know that most people enjoy having time alone. I enjoy my "me time" too. But I prefer mine in small increments, like hours, not weekends. And especially when I'm home alone and they go to Grand Marais. I just sit at home and sulk. This weekend was the 30th Annual Grand Marais Music and Arts Festival. I don't even remember the last time I wasn't at the festival. My best friend, Megan, and I (and sometimes my brother or sister) will take our kids over. We walk around and check out all the arts and crafts vendors, then we adults set up chairs for ourselves, with a cooler full of various beverages in the wagon (who wants to carry a full cooler when you can put your kids' wagon to good use?!?!). It takes place in a baseball field, and we try to position ourselves toward the back of the crowd. You can still hear the music and see the band, and there's plenty of room for the kids to run around without bumping into too many drunks (they have a hard enough time walking straight, they don't need a bunch of kids knocking them over). The music continues until dark, and the night is topped off by a fireworks show. Most years, we then put the kids to bed and continue our fun at the bar.
So this year, I didn't get the weekend off from work. You can't have 'em all, I guess. So Carl and the kids went without me. I think everyone knew I felt left-behind because all weekend they were sending picture messages to my phone. I now have 11 festival pictures on my phone: my sister Sarah at work, Sarah and Megan at the festival, Carl at the festival, 2 pictures of a Betty Boop decorated car, Madison (my daughter) with her face painted, an agate beach sunset, 2 pictures of fireworks and.........a picture of ketchup in the grass??? Yep. Because it looks like a question mark. They said that they missed me. Awwwwww, I know. :) I feel special and loved. I have to admit though, that a small part of me took some perverse pleasure in the fact that they didn't have as much fun without me.
Oh! Introductions! That's what this is supposed to be about, right? Ok. So there's my husband Carl. My kids Brandon and Madison. My sister Sarah - she has 2 kids. My brother Steven - he has 3 kids. And my best friend Megan - she also has 2 kids. And when I say best friend I mean BEST BEST friend. We've known each other for 19 years (20 year friend-iversary next year LOL). We've had arguments about stupid things, we got in trouble for passing notes in school, we helped each other with boyfriends and breakups, and we've had many, many mishappen adventures together.
For instance, last summer we decided to get pictures of the Au Sable Lighthouse at sunset time. We ignored a local's warning about the flies being bad, loaded our kids up in the car and drove the 13 miles or so out to the Hurricane River. From there it's a (I believe) 1.5 mile hike to the lighthouse. Guess what? The flies were bad. No, not just bad, but BAAAAAD. Swarming.....biting.....Did that deter us? NO!! Well, it did deter the kids. They ran back and stayed in the car. Megan and I pressed on, pine boughs in hand, swatting flies left and right and walking as fast as we could, laughing our heads off all along the way. We DID learn that when you have a layer of flies on your pant legs, DON'T swat them off. Know what happens? They swarm your head instead. We made it to the lighthouse, and we got our pictures. THEN came the walk back, in the DARK, through the WOODS. *Gulp* There's bears in them woods! Still swatting at flies, we hurried back to the car with headlamps lighting our way, singing songs at the top of our lungs. If that didn't keep the bears away, nothing would. We arrived back at the car - sweaty, bitten and blistered - only to discover that the boys had been listening to the radio while we were on our little trek, and they had run the battery dead. FINALLY, after getting a jump from a random camper in the Hurricane campground, we made it back home. Comedy at its best. And that was a fairly normal adventure for us. Ii wonder what trouble we'll get into next. Summer's not quite over yet!!
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