Yesterday was just what it should be, a day full of kids playing, family gathering and a few fireworks to boot. For me there were several highlights of the day. The first was watching the littlest one win (the top 5 kids won) the coveted donut eating contest. At the pool (where we were from 11:45 until 3:15) they had numerous games set up for the kids, one being a donut eating contest. They had donuts hanging by strings and the kids had to keep their hands behind their backs and eat the donuts off the string. Our little guy had chocolate all over his face as he tried to get a bite out of the donut. Finally he knocked it to the ground where he ate it with his hands still behind his back. Turns out the oldest also won his age group of this contest as well. Looks like all those donuts the kids ate growing up finally paid off! For the rest of the afternoon at the pool the boys swam, competed in sack races and played with their friends. A bit after 3pm we headed home to get ready for the bbq at 5. We rushed to clean up the house while fending off requests to shoot off some fireworks every other minute. Finally 5pm rolled around and Grandma, Uncle T and Aunt B, Aunt Shelly and my Mom’s friend Betty and James (who is helping take care of Betty) showed up. Everyone visited and had some drinks while Uncle T’s bbq brisket was warmed up in the oven. Our meal consisted of beef brisket, baked beans, potato salad and apple pie. You can’t get much more American than that! Grandma made the beans and the potato salad and the whole meal was really good but for me, the potato salad was the highlight. The problem is Grandma makes small batches when she cooks nowadays so there’s never any leftovers, what’s up with this Mom? As soon as everyone ate it was outside to watch the boys light some fireworks. The wind was blowing pretty hard so we nixed a bunch of the things that would blow hot ashes around but everyone still had a good time, especially the boys. Finally we all settled in for the night around 9pm with the dogs in too. We watched some fireworks on tv and then listened to the loud booms outside even though we couldn’t see anything. Overall it was a good 4th with family and friends and the kids had a blast.
Today it’s back to work. I think/hope my wine gets delivered today as I need to get it re-packaged and shipped around the country. It was supposed to arrive at the Denver Airport on Saturday but I have no information due to the holiday. My back is real close to going out, I think I worked out too hard yesterday morning at the gym. I sure hope it doesn’t as I have a lot of wine to move, about 160 boxes that weigh 40 pounds each. On my weekly conference call with my team of employees around the country, I’m going to try something different today. I’m going to move away from micro-managing (which I try not to do anyhow but am sometimes forced to) and let them have more freedom to achieve their and the company’s goals on their own. Sometimes you have to just step back and let people do what they need to do on their own. Remember yesterday?
Swim team starts again tomorrow which is good because Mom and the boys are still sleeping. Uncle T and Aunt B offered to have the boys sleep over this weekend so the misses and I might head up to Wyoming on Saturday to ride and look at some horses. The house is clean and the boys need to get back to their school workbooks this morning. Then I’m sure they’ll want to head right outside to get into all their fireworks they didn’t get to light yesterday. Thankfully this is mostly snakes and smoke bombs, nothing loud.
It’s now 7am and I need to loosen my back up on the elliptical and get ready for my 8am call. Everyone is still sleeping which must be needed. No politics today as I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything, just sharing my thoughts. You all will do and believe what you want, I’m just trying to be a filter for all the mis-information that we’re bombarded with on a daily basis from the boob tube. It’s easy to see why we all have so many different views or opinions on what to do or in some cases, if we even need to do anything. On one hand you have politicians telling us everything’s ok and then the next day saying it’ll be armageddon if we don’t do this or that. Ok ok, I’ll stop as I guess I’m heading into politics which I said I wouldn’t do. Hey, I’m just like a politician! Tell you one thing and then do another. Sorry, I’ll stop now, promise.
Enjoy the day, it’ll be fall before you know it. 90 days from now it’ll be the first week of October and the cold weather will be fast approaching. Life moves fast, don’t waste a day as when it’s gone, it’s gone. Take care and have a great day.