Summer Friday Nights

Finally, summer weather is here!!! We love taking walks together, especially on Friday and Saturday nights, whether it be at our lake or around town or around our neighborhood! Tonight, there was a Greek Festival not too far from our house so, with the weather so beautiful, we walked there. It was a very small festival and there was so very little to do. We spent only 30 minutes there but we had fun just enjoying our walk and being together.

There were some rides there but not the Ferris Wheel which we rode last year :(

There were clowns and, as Rob says, that is ALWAYS good!

Rob won a prize for his queen! :)

Memorial Day Weekend Barbecue

We decided to host a Memorial Day Weekend barbecue at our house this year. We had it the day before Memorial Day since no one had to work the next day and we could relax and have fun with the family!


We set up the kitchen table in anticipation that we would have very hungry guests and we would need barbecue plates (and an ant tablecloth)...

...and utensils in pineapple holders (and a netted scented candle to keep away any stray, and uninvited, flying visitors)...

...and a place for condiments and pickles.

We made sure we had barbecue books ready just to read up on some last minute tips. Our chef did not have to cook so he kept the barbecue books safe!

The outside was ready with the table all set...

...a radio...

...party lights...

...and the American flag!

Finally, our guests had arrived and we were ready to barbecue!

Rob was barbecuing steaks, burgers and hot dogs but, as the master barbecue chef, would serve no food until they had reached barbecue perfection! 

Monica wore her new hat!!!! :) 

Relaxing with family as the food was cooking. Monica is still wearing her hat! 

The kids were entertained by the bubble frog...

...while the adults could have an adult beverage in a plastic tiki or monkey glass!

The kids and Monica's brother, each wearing a Fez!

Once the food was ready, everyone dived in! A barbecue platter told everyone they were getting close to where the food was laid out!

The food...well, some of it. Rob was busy slicing the steaks so they had not reached the table yet!

Kiss the cook! Monica was very happy with the chef.

And a great barbecue and a great night were capped off with sparklers! 

Adventuring On An Early Start To The Weekend

We both took Friday off making a three day holiday a FOUR day holiday weekend!!! Lots of plans and lots of stuff to do. The Tag Sale companies either took the weekend off or had pretty bad sales but, since it was a holiday weekend, there were a few sales of promise being held on Friday so, with our bonus day together, off we went! 

The sign showed us we had arrived at our first stop! It was an old house which was really, really cluttered...exactly what we like!

Did we mention that it was cluttered? Rob searching on top of and behind the bar

The wallpaper in the basement was soooooo cool! 

A closer picture of the wallpaper

An even closer picture!

Monica searching through the rubble. Hey...there's that wallpaper behind her!

An old red phone mounted to the wall. Commissioner Gordon did not call while we were there!

This was another section of the basement. There were trunks of old clothes and Monica searched through them all!

The back door. We love these old screen doors!

We spent a lot of time at this sale and came away with some great things! Now...time to move on to sale #2...

The sign on the tree told us we were almost there!

We had arrived! This sale was really fun because of the people. It was being run by the family and one of the family members was from Alabama and looked just like Willie Nelson, gray ponytail and all! We were talking to them and they were of Lithuanian descent. Monica is too so this generated some conversation. Rob has a little Cherokee Indian in him which he told them. Later on, we found a small hatchet for sale. Rob told them that  "my people used to carry these but they were mostly made of wood". 

An amazing room divider lamp table!!! This is a picture of it in their home. You will see a picture of in our home further down! Yes, we were in love with it and we bought it! Only $25!!! 

The house had a cool bathroom floor. Pink tiles...

 ...and a cool pink sink with a cracked ice counter top!

We bought a few things other than the room divider lamp table here and had a fun time exploring the house and talking with the family. We would see them again. We had Monica's car on Friday and we went back on Saturday in Rob's car to pick up our prize!

This was the site of our third and final stop. It was another estate sale run by the family. There was some great old furniture in great shape but we really don't have room for it. We did get a few small items.  

There was an evening tag sale at a church and these are always hit or miss. We went and Monica held up the sign!

Unfortunately, there was nothing interesting at all at the sale except this. We have seen these a couple of times but never in the right shape. We would definitely have taken it if it was complete but it wasn't...it was missing the catch basin. So we did not take it home! 

There was a bunny on the lawn next to the church sale. We did not take him home either!

He watched us leave with a wary eye! 

So, having struck out at the church sale, we decided to go to dinner at this Chinese/Japanese restaurant with a really cool exterior. It has been there forever!

The inside of the restaurant was pretty cool and it had this cool paper dragon on the ceiling. We were the only customers there during our entire dinner! There were some calls for take-out but they did not seem to be doing very well. There was a bar but no Tiki mugs and the ambiance would have been better if the television wasn't tuned in to Family Guy and then Two And A Half Men. Nonetheless, the food was good....

...the company was perfect! :)

We did make a list of a few sales for Saturday, none of which seemed to hold any real promise, but we knew our first stop was to pick up our new lamp table which would fit in Rob's car. We even bought a few more things at that sale (some old cookbooks were not there on Friday). The weather had turned very, VERY rainy and it was raw outside. We stopped for breakfast and decided just to go home afterwards, take a nap and then do some things we wanted to do around the house, including preparing for our Memorial Day Weekend barbecue at our house...and that is exactly what we did!!!

Here are some of the things we brought home with us this weekend:

Our new room divider lamp table! 

Some records

Lots and lots of cookbooks!

Some other books

Lots of old tin New Year's Eve noisemakers, another old 7-inch record rack, some old Easter decorations, a lucky Tiki and miscellaneous other stuff.

A great old kitchen drawer utensil organizer

A Tiki tablecloth from New Zealand. Marked only 50 cents but they gave it to us for free. We left the price tag on for this picture.

These old ballerinas framed pictures that we had to have because....

...they match the framed pictures built into this shadow box that we found last year. This is a summer project. We have decided to repaint the shelves and frame black and the inside pink.

Well, it's time to finalize our preparations for our Memorial Day Weekend barbecue at our house. It is today!!!! Happy Memorial Day everyone!