S.O.S (Summer of Schacalieu

Chapter 2: Cruisin' on a Sunday Afternoon

As many of you know from previous posts, Jeremy and I got ourselves some pretty sweet cruisers. The weather has finally warmed up (now too much) and we’ve been crusin’ all over the fine town of Fairfield.

It took a while for summer to actually warm up, but once it did we had a few weekends of pure beauty. Sunshine, no humidity-- it was loveliness! Those days are now gone and we are forced to endure sticky, warm, disgusting days. UGH, I’d rather it be snowing!! Seriously, I would rather be wrapped up in a sleeping bag jacket in our house because Jeremy won’t let us turn the heat on instead of sweating my ass off when trying to sleep, waking up because I’m so thirsty, oh and did I mention sweating my ass off because the love of my life won’t let us put a window air-conditioning unit in our room. I did force him to let me by another fan, so at least I got that!

Back to the few lovely weekends we had before they were interrupted by agony in the form of humidity. Yes, we have been cruising all over Fairfield and Jeremy has finally admitted to loving where we live. We’ve been going on bike rides every weekend and during the week after dinner on nights that it is nice out. Fairfield has free concerts on the green on Wednesday’s and Sunday’s so we’ve been checking those out as well. The last one we went to was an Irish band…it was hilarious…they were straight out of the movie, ‘A Mighty Wind.’ Needless to say we ate our dinner and then made a run (or should I say ride) for it.

We started a garden on the side of our apartment building with our neighbor, her veggies are soaring while ours are looking a little sad. We started from seeds and she started with starters…next year we’ll have a better plan. We planted lettuce, tomatoes, beans, basil, so far we’ve only been able to use the basil.

We’ve also been hanging out on the beach on the weekends. I say beach, but it is still like a really big lake to me. We ventured down there with some friends to play bocce ball and there were all kinds of horseshoe crabs. They are crazy looking and I think they were mating. Fun times!

In other summery news, we bought a little mini bbq at Target for $14 (hey big spenders!) and that thing is getting more action than Tom Cruise when he was in ‘Top Gun’. Jeremy is becoming a grilling pro and it’s nice to be eating outside on our little deck. Jeremy gets excited when he gets to marinade and then everytime tells me the secret is to keep brushing it on. Thanks for the news flash Jer, yeah…I know this trick already. Since I decided to stop being vegan, it’s more fun for Jeremy since he gets to cook chicken instead of tofu…he feels more manly and isn’t hungry all the time. We are now only buying organic meats that have no chemicals pumped into them. I may be crazy, but I think you can really see and taste a difference.

Ian, Alisha and the kids made an east-coast trip and stayed with us for a few days. It was great having them around. Bella and Peyton are growing up so fast. The really are good kids and fun to be around. We hung out in Fairfield with them, took them to the beach to hunt for sea shells and see some sand sculptures that were being built. Jeremy took them out for pizza multiple times and also to the Yale Museum. The only “bad” event was seeing Transformers 2. The kids were so excited to see the movie and it had just come out, so we all went. Let me just say, from the first 5 minutes, I knew it was going to be the longest 2.5 hours of my life. I will never get that time back. Yeah, it was horrible. Other than that, we had a great time and it was awesome to catch up with Ian and Alisha. We were suppose to meet them in NYC for 4th of July for fun and fireworks, but I had to ruin that weekend and get sick. It was a big bummer! What are you going to do? It was better I get sick then since I had a huge program coming up for work. Jeremy did force me to ride bikes down to the beach for fireworks and I’m glad he did. I love fireworks!!

S.O.S (Summer of Schacalieu)

So, July is almost over and I really haven’t posted much about our summer. So here’s the update…in Chapter's (beacuse our life is like a storybook story).

Chapter 1: Vegas
Summer started off in celebration. We went to Vegas to celebrate my dad’s 60th birthday. We weren’t sure what to expect (you know how family trips can be), but it turned out to be a really awesome and fun trip! My Aunt Shonda and Uncle Phil made the trip out, as did my brother and his girl friend (just a girl that is a friend, not a girlfriend?) Caroline, and so did our friend’s Myles and Laurie. It was great to see everyone and hanging out with Myles and Laurie was like old times. Laurie actually almost killed herself at a lunch outing. Now, there was some drinking involved, but not enough for what happened.

We had been lounging by the pool, enjoying a few light adult beverages..when we discovered that it was 2pm and none of us had eaten lunch yet. We went in to The Luxor and ate at whatever Mexican restaurant was there…I forget the name. So we order margaritas and food, while we’re waiting Laurie scooches up in her chair (we were sitting on high barstools) and the chair shoots back like a rocket. Somehow Laurie manages to claw into Myles’ arm and escape splitting her head open on the table (Seriously-we had not drank enough for this to occur…well maybe Laurie did…I don’t know). The flying barstool almost hit the lady at the next table behind us. It was crazy and loud! The whole restaurant just stopped. It was hilarious!

Before the fall?

Jeremy and I aren’t big gamblers, so I was hoping for some warm weather so I could try and jumpstart my tan. This didn’t really pan out, although I tried my hardest, so we did what anyone does in Vegas…drink and gamble. The good news is that I won $200 on a Wheel of Fortune game! I was stoked, but this only fueled my gambling fire. I was having so much fun, I believe I gambled away almost all the money. Seriously, I sat down to play Monopoly and it was making all these noises, and the colored lights, and I kept winning more pennies…until…I stopped winning and kept losing and the damn Monopoly machine ate my $50. Ah, the allure of Vegas!
On Sunday, Jeremy, my dad, and I started gambling together. We would take turns pressing the button and we would give ourselves a limit…if we won so much we would stop and move to the next machine, if we lost so much we would stop and move to the next machine. We did this for most of Sunday until it was time to see Love. I also got my first “free” drink in all my Vegas visits. Whoo hoo! Now we were talking!

Winners!

If you haven’t seen Love, the Beatles show in Vegas, I highly recommend it. It was one of the most amazing shows I had ever seen. I had never seen any kind of Cirque show before and this one just blew my socks off.

Being silly walking to Love

Waiting in line for Love

Posing at Revolution Bar

We also went to dinner at The Palazzo to celebrate my dad’s bday on Saturday. The food in Vegas is wicked expensive and this was one place that looked nice and the prices weren’t astronomical. It was really hard to pick a place from online menu’s and pictures that would be good for a larger group. The food was good and I think my dad enjoyed himself. We got a good picture outside the restaurant of my dad on the silver bull that was outside the restaurant doors. After dinner we headed to New York, New York (the casino, not the state) for some piano bar action. This was definitely one of the most memorable times ever! Joseph and Caroline gave the piano guys some money to sing Happy Birthday to my dad and it worked (after a couple tries). They started playing Happy Birthday and called my dad up. Once my dad was up there they started playing, “Right Said Fred- I’m Too Sexy”. This was hilarious!! My dad was dancing around and they had him take off his jacket and then ladies started putting money down his shirt. Joseph captured all of this on video, but he hasn’t sent it yet. Once he does, I will post it.

Bday Cake

Bull Riders

All in all, this was a great time and an awesome way to kick off the summer. Since it still wasn’t sunny or warm in CT, it was nice to see the sun when we emerged from the dark, air conditioned casino’s. It was in the high 70s when we were there…actually kinda cold for Vegas in June, but oh well…begger’s can’t be chooser’s right?

More of S.O.S to come in later posts!