Fourth of July Holiday Shenanigans...

I know sometimes I write about stuff in a somewhat "catch all" type of blog - and this one is one of those.  Basically I want to remember.  This is my place to save all my fun times whether that be a trip, an adventure, an experience or just a collection of days that happen to fall over my least favorite holiday of the year - 4th of July.

I hate the 4th of July.  I've never been a huge fan of fireworks and now that I'm older and my anxiety has gotten worse and there are more and more illegal fireworks that aren't even fireworks but rather mortar bombs that just make a horrendous boom noise sending my heart racing, my anxiety screaming and my poor cats terrified - I FUCKING HATE THEM.  Hows that for a run on sentence?

Honestly - I don't know why we still "celebrate" this way.  Between all the poor terrified pets, the Veterans and shooting survivors who have massive PTSD and just people like me who want to cry because we're so jumpy - how about a quieter way to celebrate?

Also - lately  - it's not a very celebratory time anymore.  Being under "Trumps America" doesn't make me want to celebrate our country at all right now.

BUT - that aside - it does give us a few days off work, and in my case almost a whole week off!  Since the 4th landed on a Wed this year, we got Wed-Fri off!  Woot!  I of course pretty much just started pretending it was Stay-Cation time the weekend before with 2 random work days in there.  This created this lovely blog of just a bunch of lovely shit I did over the last couple of weeks!

The Saturday before the 4th - I had a lovely mom date day with mom.  You can take a gander of what that entailed here.

Sunday I had a Sunday Funday with my "hubs".  We brunched in DTSA then wandered the Orange Circle and did some antiquing and as you read a few blogs back - found a cache!

I love my "husband"

That evening found me at my dear friend Rick's place catching up on life over wine and air conditioning.

Monday and Tuesday we're work days - BOO - but we got cut early on the 3rd and I ended up on my deck with a lovely co-worker friend of mine sharing a bottle of Rose' to get the Stay Cation started off right!



The 3rd of July there's a big shin-dig at Fred Kelly Stadium here in Orange that does a big firework show (Side note - I don't mind the pretty flowery firework shows that are put on by professionals) and you can see it from my mom's front yard.  Some years she's has a little BBQ.  This year she invited a few of our closest and we had a lovely evening of burgers and convo followed by the front yard show.  For some reason I didn't take pictures because sometimes I suck - but Libby did get a shot of those of us that were OHS Alumni since we were all reminiscing a bit about the old days.

OHS ALUMNI

I did get one selfie with my girl!

The actual 4th of July I headed back over to moms for a bit to hang and now that Stacy and Robin are living over there I get to see them too!  Bonus!  Stacy and I decided to grab some sushi and we tried a place that's apparently been in Orange forever and I've never been!  And IT'S DELICIOUS!  It's called Koisan.  How the hell I have not been here is beyond me - but it was the only place open and holy YUM!  We then decided to walk off our full bellies and took a shorty walk to find the cache that mom and I had to skip per dude on bench.  It was hot, but since it wasn't far we headed out - and we found it!  And Stacy has joined the geocaching as well!  LOL!

It's hot

After this I headed back home to shut up the house, turn on music and the TV and my loud ass air conditioning unit to try to drown out the sound of the holiday.  My dude came over and we vegged and watched a movie before he ran home to make sure his poor dog wasn't losing his mind.  Did I mention FIREWORKS SUCK?  So no sleep that night.

The 5th of July brought the heat.  We had a nasty heatwave roll into our fair state (and actually the whole US is kind of getting creamed with weird heat) over the rest of the weekend and it began on Thursday.  Stacy and I did get up early and head out to a new hike before it got too brutal.  She brought me up to Modjeska Canyon and we did a little version of the Harding Truck Trail.  It's a quick but tough up and back kind of thing.  We went over the hill, then down into the ravine.  I'm looking forward to coming back on a cooler day and doing more of the ravine (There's a cache down there!!!).  I looked for a cache that was supposed to be just off the trail but no luck.

Hi Canyon!

Love this girl!

Trying to be candid

Hikers!

Such a pretty flower!

Me shooting said flower

Looking for the damn cache I couldn't find!

There was a cache though apparently inside the little gift shop at the Trail Head.  We finished hiking just before 10am and the lady let us into the store as they were opening up - and guess what -  there was a cache!  It was called a "letterbox cache" which I hadn't seen yet.  This was a huge ammo box full of stuff!  It had the log, but also a journal like think and a stamp (but no ink) and all kinds of goodies.  We looked around, but when Stacy asked the gal - she was like "Oh Yea!  Here!" and pulled it out from behind the counter - so yeah.  No searching on this one.  Ha!

Next time I'm here I'm bringing a stamp to add to the journal!

Added a unicorn to the box!

After this we wandered over to Tucker Wildlife Center which is across from the gift shop and it was so cute!!  We didn't stay long though since it was warming up and we were getting hungry.  But it's a super cute little thing and there's a bird porch!  I must bring my mother here!

Hi Blue Jay!

Hi Hummingbird!

I'd also like to interject and say that also during my time off - my land lady was Kitten Sitting.  That's right - KITTENS!  Her friend rescued three kittens from a feral situation and was going away and couldn't leave them - so guess who played with them every day and named them and loved them and Keri called me the "Kitten Whisperer" because they were scared and underweight but would purr and come out for me and we cuddled and OH MY GAWD.

I named her Midnight

Keri's grandson named him Whiskers

I named him Boo

Kittens

Can you even?!?!

Anywhoo - the rest of the afternoon/eve I kinda did my chores and got stuff done since we were rolling into a scorcher.

Friday - The Sun landed on the earth and it was hotter than balls.



It got to 110 degrees where I was, and hotter in other spots.  It was too hot to do anything, so I hid inside my house I shut up like a tomb and DIED.  I did paint my toes and a bunch of rocks (yes I paint rocks sometimes) and they dried in like 3 seconds.  There were a couple of hours that were just miserable and I did everything I could to cool me and the cats down.  Best part - my landlady finally did something to make my rent increase worth it - got me a 2nd air conditioner.  My place has no insulation but it made a huge difference and helps so much. So hopefully future heat waves I'll be more prepared for.  JESUS.

That night - I did go out.  I KNOW!  It was hot.  So fucking hot.  But my friend had an art show and I was hoping night fall would bring a little coolness (HA! NOT!).  The boy and I met up with Rick at one of my favorite spots in Downtown Fullerton - Twisted Vine for some yummy dinner before walking over to the gallery.  It was so hot.  They were handing out otter pops.  Seriously.  My poor friends putting on the show were melting - but he still ended up having a great show!  Yay Bryan!  I didn't take any pictures (again goddamnit) but here's one from the night that someone else took.

Great show Bryan!

I forgot I took an Insta pic (that's my Insta people - follow me if you like!) of this creepy dude

Afterwards Pat and I wandered over to Fullerton Museum to check out their exhibit then to Bourbon Street for some drinks and caught a great brass band!

Saturday brought a pretty chill day, little pool time with Libby and the kiddo, then off to Corona (yes Corona because I like to go where it's fucking hotter) for a 40th birthday party.  One of Pat's good friends whom I also adore decided to have a Halloween Themed Birthday Party.  Yes in July.  This is why I like her.  So  - that was hot but fun!

Welcome to the 40's Club Miss Mandy!

Sunday was the last day of the Stay Cation (Sad Face) but it was a lovely day.  Pat, his kiddo and myself tried to beat the heat wandering around Mainplace Mall then back to his complex for pool time fun then dinner at BJ's.  The kiddo and I were playing around with my slow motion feature on my phone and we capture a perfect summer fun video!

Aside from the blistering heat it was a lovely few days of fun with friends and family!  Yay to making more memories!!