Southern Vacation

Per the usual, we spent a long labor day weekend with E's family in the South.

We leave the big city and head up to the northern hills, where we enjoy waffle house, barbeque (the noun of the South, not to be confused with our weekly summertime verb of California), sleep, the languid pace of life that the southerners do better than anyone (other than the Italians), relaxation by a lake, trips on the pontoon boat and deep breaths in the face of the heavy green mountains surrounding the lake and capped by a light blue sky, and, of course, fireworks, but more about that later.

In short, after close to a decade of visits, I look forward to this weekend as a guaranteed respite of heavenly relaxation and reading each year. This time, I finished a gift from Arvay, If you lived here, I'd know your name. I suspect she had ulterior motives. I'm in love with the Alaskan mindset now. I want to visit. I think I may even want to stay. How awesome is it when a book can make you feel like that?

But, I digress. The weekend...

E, of course, also looks forward to this weekend each year. We get to see his family and his best man and his wife. They cook southern food for us (Yes! Bacon!), take us to his favorite restaurants, and often, they take us on some southern adventure -- for example, this year, we rafted the Natahala.

All of these things are fun for me and I always enjoy them (although, for the most part, my joy pales in comparison to the Southern boy's), but rather than try to explain, in words, why this weekend was so great, I will instead post some photos which do a much better job than I could describing the highlights from E's most recent firey reunion with his best man:



FIREWORKS!




E's best man bought fireworks in Florida and brought them up for the weekend.



The fireworks in Mexico were more dangerous but less awe-inspiring than this display.



Part of me wants to say that Fireworks shouldn't be this cool. The pictures certainly only look... interesting.



But, how can you argue with the amount of fun the boys had?



Fireworks are cool! Enough said.

Also, I barely did any work this weekend in lieu of the running, yoga on the boathouse, sleep, boat rides, food, and fireworks.

Happy Labor Day!