Jeez O Pete it's getting hot!

I think this blog is forever going to be one week behind. I'll do my best to catch us up...

The weekend before last was spent in the Tri Cities! J was going home for her 5 year high school reunion, so she offered to drag C and I along with her. Obviously, we never pass up a chance for a weekend adventure, so we worked it out. J wanted to stay longer at home, so she took C with her on the trip there and I had her on the trip back. I'm sure wonderful things happened on the 'there' trip for them, but mine was uneventful.

I detoured through my parents' place for a little organization and relaxing alone time before the weekend. That was nice. My brother had a girl over from Lynden, WA. [Lynden is approximately 5 miles south of the Canada border. When people turn 19 they have a 19-run, thus when they get to college and all of their friends are stoked for 21 runs, it's sort of old hat for them.] They didn't get back from sightseeing until pretty late and that meant that mum and I had a lot of time just the two of us, which was really good. My mom and I are pretty darn close. She poured herself some wine, I make up some daiquiris and we talked about romance novels and work and puppies and life. It was a good night.

The next morning, I left for the TC via the long way. It was really nice to see all of the people camped at the fishing/hunting spots as well as the weekenders at the dunes. It wasn't very nice to be stopped at the top of the hill past Vernita Bridge while we watched a truck go up in flames. It made me late getting to our pedicure appointments. The pedicure was fun, though, and we all got fun/outrageous things done to our nails. Afterwards we walked around the Pasco farmer's market for some asparagus, apple juice and pastries from the local panaderia. We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging around J's mom's house reading romance novels and playing Blokus. We took a walk around the neighborhood, lamented the lack of swings on J's niece's playground and returned to home base so that J could get her primp on.

J looked stunning for her reunion. C and I were extremely under-dressed, so we walked her into the restaurant then took off to find a bar and some food. After about an hour of aimless wandering and disappointment at cover charges, we ended up at Red Robin. We enjoyed ourselves immensely chatting with the waiters, making fun of the bartender and laughing at other patrons. (As I was washing my hands in the restroom, on of the guys from the bar walked in, realized he was in the women's and quickly ran out.) We might have also ogled a lot since we were sitting next to the door. It was a good time and our waiter gave us his myspace address. (He definitely wrote a song about his love for his...banana.) We picked J up and went home, deciding that none of us were up for a night on the town.

The next morning, we got up and had breakfast with J's dad, stepmom and stepbrother. We went to Andy's, which is a nice little diner, reminiscent of Frank's, but in different ways. The food was good, the conversation was interesting, and we got to meet/sass yet another member of J's family. Jam was involved, as was Barack Obama.

We then went to J's grandfather's house where we sat on the porch reading more trashy romance novels, drinking coffee and occasionally picking raspberries. The porch with the reading and the berries is pretty much my ideal lifestyle. If someone could pay me to do that, I'd be a happy camper. Sadly, this was the end of our trip. We said our goodbyes to J's grandfather (who is a nifty old guy, reminiscent of my grandfathers when they were in their early 70's) and the rest of the family, and C and I drove home. The drive was pretty uneventful (we listened to the radio, talked about life and things, and I forced her to listen to the Ray Stevens cd my brother had made for me) until I decided to take the long way home. Detouring off the freeway toward Airway Heights is in no way, shape or form a shortcut. It never has been, never will be. After driving generally north/northeast down back country roads and wooded areas, we finally found Seven Mile and made our way home.

All in all, I think it was a pretty nifty weekend. Then again, with those two, how could it possibly be anything but fun?