Best Weekend Ever?

We're coming to you live from the front porch of my house, two Bud Lights with lime in, where at 7:30pm it's a gorgeous 72 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Seriously, the entire weekend was just like this. Beautiful weather all around, just a fantastic weekend, lots to talk about, so go top off that cup of coffee and settle in for the next 10-15 minutes.

The weekend started off with a bang. Or maybe it was a smash, I'm not quite sure. As you'll see in the pictures below, we finally had the time to tile the walls around the bathtub. And by we, I mean my lovely wife. I got out of work Thursday around noon, and headed home to start the demo. When I took down the plastic surround that was there, there were two surprises. First off, our yellowed shower was white at one point. Gross huh. And second, mold. Not that much, but enough where we had to take down the drywall (yes, they were dumb enough to put drywall around a bathtub. they should have just sent the mold an invitation.) I've never installed drywall before (or cement board in this case), so I was learning as I was going. It wasn't all that difficult, but the cement board is sooo much heavier than drywall. In order to get it home from Lowes we had to tie it to the roof of the car.

After we took down the drywall.
Me trying to figure out the plumbing and how to cut the new piece to fit. You can tell I'm really thinking hard cuz the hair appears to be falling off the top of my head.
The wonderful wife tiling away. A couple of weeks ago, I went golfing and she tiled the bathroom floor. This time, I golf, she tiles the shower. World's best wife? I think soooo...

The completed shower. No grout yet, that's tomorrow's project. Nice huh! It sure makes life easier having a wife who wants to get in there and do projects. Makes my life easier at least!

Friday was the fourth, and we spent the day working on the bathroom like the industrious people we are. Ok, that's a total lie. I spent the morning on the golf course (where I played quite well) while the wife did stuff around the house. Afterwards, we headed over to my aunt's sisters house to spend the day hanging in and around the pool. (it was in the high 80's, not a cloud in the sky) While there I had the best food ever. Yeah, I said it, the best food ever. Steak tips, grilled, wrapped in bacon. Seriously... amazing. I was popping those bad larrys like candy. Sooo good.

Later that night, we met up with my uncle et. al. to go see the fire works. Pretty decent fire works display, but the highlight/lowlight of the night was the bugs. These things were crawling out of the ground around us, spreading their wings and flying into the trees (they looked like a small beetle). Upon reaching the trees, the (i'm assuming) male bugs would then mount the (i'm assuming) female bugs, sending them both crashing to the ground around us. Or if you were particularly unlucky, on you.

I took a video with my cell phone, but it doesn't want to work. Really riveting stuff. Bug porn...it's like the Discovery Channel in your own back yard..

After the fire works, the wife and I figured that since we were sitting directly across the street from the casino, why not go give it a look. It's actually really nice inside (we did both get carded on the way in though. when does that stop?), lots of slots (penny, two cent, five cent, quarter, fifty cent, dollar, two dollar, five dollar and ten dollar slots), a nice bar area, and two restaurants (one nice, one a buffet). So of course, we had to sit down and give it a go. We picked out some shinny new five cent slots (hey big spender!), put in our five dollars each and went to town. Twenty minutes later, I was done, and fifteen minutes later the wife cashed out with $110. Not a bad return on her investment huh. We each took five from that $110, and promptly lost it, but walking out with $100 after spending $20, I'll take that.

Saturday, the wife started tiling the shower, and I did some stuff around the house. Later that day I played golf again(played horribly) and the unimaginable happened. I lost my wedding ring. Yep, when I play sports, I take it off as it gives me a pretty bad blister. Bad idea. It was in my left pocket, all by itself, and somehow it fell out. I didn't notice though until we were done and packing up to head home. The ring only cost like $90, but that's not really the point. I'm a pretty sentimental guy, so it means a lot to me, plus I'm so used to wearing it that it feels really weird not to have it on. I can say with a good degree of certainty that I was more upset about it than the wife was.

That afternoon, we went to my uncles house for a cookout. My other uncle had family up so it was a pretty big group. Burgers and salmon were on the menu and let me tell you, salmon cooked on the grill, Tast-ey. The night was spent basically hanging out, playing Wii and playing with the heavy machinery currently in his yard (he's trying to remove a ginormous tree stump, so theres a grinder and a small backhoe there. gotta love Maine. you can rent absolutely anything with little or no training)

After we left my uncle's, around nine or so, guess where we went? Yep, back to the casino. This time we took in twenty bucks, ten each. After about thirty minutes, the wife was cleaned out, but I cashed out (again at the same nickel slots we won at the night before) at $50, so we came home up $30, not too shabby huh!

Today... well today was a day to remember to say the least. While I was outside working around the house, the wife tiled the entire surround around the shower, and it looks amazing. Seriously, the woman has a gift.

The completed shower. No grout yet, that's tomorrow's project. Nice huh! It sure makes life easier having a wife who wants to get in there and do projects. Makes my life easier at least!

While she was doing that, I went over to my uncle's house to help hay. What's haying you ask? It's basically going through all the local fields that they pay the owners to hay, and picking up all the bales and tossing them onto a truck towing a trailer. It consisted of a driver, someone on the trailer stacking the hay, and 1-2 guys on each side of the trailer throwing the hay onto the back. After 550 bails, I have very little feeling in my body right now. (after collecting, we then drive back to my aunt's barn and have to restack all the hay) The lifting/throwing isn't the worst part though, its the scratches. It's hot out, so we're all sweating like a mothertrucker, and hay and grass and dirt and bugs are just all over the place, including you.

This is what one of the fields looked like prior to starting. The truck just drives down between the rows and we throw it up on the trailer. (all photos courtesy Breezy International LLC aka, my cousin)
Each bale probably weighs 50 or so pounds, so it's not too too bad. But when you're short like me, throwing it up 10 plus feet isn't the easiest thing in the world.
Here, you can see about how high the trailer gets stacked. Five rows high, at maybe two and a half feet high each, with the trailer three feet off the ground. I'm old, I'm out of shape and I sit behind a desk all day, but I have to say, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. We'll be back out there later this week to finish the job. There's probably another 1500-2000 more bales to go.
See the smile, that's cuz we're on our way back after the last trip.

Great weekend overall, great weather, lots got down, some down time... perfect. I heard it rained some in Boston.. suckers :)