Friday Funny

At one time or another, we've all wanted to be a fly on the wall.

Happy Friday.

Send in the Clowns

My husband's employer is a major sponsor at the NJ Festival of Ballooning. So this past weekend he was "on duty" at the festival all weekend doing what needed to be done to represent the company.

One of the good things is that while he is working all weekend, I was able to join him for Saturday and Sunday and enjoy the sights and sounds too. Part of this was a hot air balloon ride - my first. And it was totally cool.

The director of the festival loves to torment my husband, and most appropriately chose the following balloon for our ride - "a clown for a clown!"

Does this remind anyone of the clown in Stephen King's "It?" I must admit, clowns can be a little creepy.

Here we are in front of the chase trailer waiting for our ride. Nervous? A little. But mostly excited as we watched the balloon being inflated.

Here was our view looking up into the balloon.

The view as we floated away from the festival grounds. Our Clown was inflated next to the giant panda. I wonder how much bamboo that one eats? And poops!

Looking down at the houses below was certainly a unique perspective. If you look closely, you can see a few leaves in my hands. Our pilot buzzed a few trees and picked these from the top most branches for me. He also buzzed the balloon of a friend on our ascent. The festival director was not too pleased, but he didn't know that they were friends.

Northwestern New Jersey is beautiful - hilly and rural. The way I like it!

We landed at a small office complex about three miles from the festival grounds. Five balloons in all landed at the same place. Here are three waiting for crews to help with the deflation and loading of the equipment on to the chase vehicle.

Our pilot Eric. Had he been dressed like this at the beginning of our flight I might have had second thoughts. But he wasn't. He is an awesome pilot with over twenty years of experience flying balloons. His wife and son were with him as part of the chase crew. They live in Vermont and came to NJ to fly this balloon for a friend.


John and I at the end of our flight. Other than being a little wind blown, we were no worse for the wear.
It was, without a doubt, one of the best and most unique things I have ever done. And I hope to do it again sometime.

Summer Fun

Nurse Nancy and Junior Birdman came to visit for a few days. Yesterday we made a trip, by train of course, to Philadelphia to the Franklinstein Institute to see the Galileo exhibit. It was interesting to see one of Galileo's original telescopes and many instruments that were used for mathematical calculations. While we were there, Nurse Nancy purchased the Male Nurse Action figure that Jr. Birdman and I saw on our trip there in February. He'll be gracing the Health office at Nurse Nancy's school in the fall. I think he's a hunk!

Today, my fireman neighbor C took us to the Trenton fire museum so Jr. Birdman could check out all the cool fire apparatus including two old trucks and an awesome collection of helmets. Jr. Birdman imparted us with his vast knowledge about fire equipment - which is pretty extensive for an almost eight year old!

Hide and Seek

I've been picking beans from my garden the past week and a half or so. If you've never had a garden with bush beans, you don't know that picking beans is like playing hide and seek. You see, the beans hide among the leaves. It usually takes me at least a half an hour to rifle through the plants to find mature beans that are ready for picking.

So how's the harvest been you ask? I picked about 20 to 25 pounds of pea pods and so far, I picked about 20 pounds of beans and two cucumbers (with a many starting to grow). Not bad for an investment of about $4 in seeds, about a dollar of slow release fertilizer and this year, because of all the rain we've had, a bit of watering.

Friday Funny

And sometimes we do it just to annoy our children!

What a weekend!

Had our bestest friends Nurse Nancy, Fly Boy and Junior Bird Man here this past weekend. What a blast. I'll start with Friday.

Nurse Nancy and I traveled to St. Martin a few years ago for a girls weekend. While there, we took a bus from the French side of the island to the Dutch side - Sint Maarten to the town of Phillipsburg. On our trip, which included jewelry shopping and souvenir shopping, we popped into the Guavaberry Store. Guavaberry liqueur is the island's specialty. While browsing around, the store salesperson offered to make us Guavaberry Coladas to sample. Of course we felt obligated to taste then as to not offend the lovely woman who was kind enough to make them. We were offered a small cup to sample. They were delicious. Had there not been other people in the store, I might have begged asked for another sample.

After making our purchases, Guavaberry Liqueur included, we started our trip back to the jewelry store to pick up our purchases and meet the bus back to our resort. About 100 yards from the store, we simultaneously looked at each other and began laughing as the drink hit us at the same time. And knocked us on our butts. I have never in my life been hit by a single drink so fast.

Back to the weekend. So, five years later, both our bottles of this sweet goodness remained unopened. Until Friday. I made two pitchers of Guavaberry Coladas. Nurse Nancy and I drank all but one glass which Fly Boy sampled. Shortly after our first few sips, our feet became numb. And we started laughing. And didn't stop for a long time.

Needless to say, dinner was not served until after 8:30.

More stories to follow.

Three Words

These three words say it all.

Spending this Fourth with Nurse Nancy, Fly Boy and Junior Birdman. Enjoying the good friends, the pool (finally) and some baseball. It doesn't get more American than this!

Have a wonderful Fourth! And God Bless America!!!!!