Benezra Staycation

Our Dear Dear Dear friends Anthony (An-tone) and Amy (Aaaaaameeeee) Benezra have developed the wonderful habit of visiting us in the month of July, going on three or four years now. The first time they came to visit, I had no idea what they liked to do (Amy and Heather attended the same high school together, and Amy was the Maid of Honor at our wedding, and when Amy was smitten by Anthony, Heather and I got to be in the wedding party and Anthony and I have since become great friends) so I decided to take them to Stewart Falls. It’s nice little 5 mile or so hike with a small waterfall at the of it. Well, folks, our friends are from Seattle, and if you look at a map, especially a weather map, you might notice that Seattle is pretty far North, and it rains a lot there. To say that they are on the whiter side of pasty does a disservice to the idea of ‘untanned.’ I’m not even sure we brought sunscreen, and then somebody decided to that t-shirts were too much, so Anthony and I went skins. Needless to say, our friends got f-r-i-e-d. They got burned soooooo bad that when we went on our Alaska cruise the next year in May, they still had ‘tan’ or ‘burn’ lines from the cooking they received on our innocent little hike. Man, I still feel bad about that.

Now that we know each other better, we have no problems spending quality time on the couch enjoying each other's company and catching up. Not to mention eating like we were on a cruise ship. More on that later.

We did make it out of the house to perform our sacred duty as Americans-attend a minor league baseball game with fireworks at the end. The fireworks show was actually really good, especially for such a small franchise. It was as least 7 or 10 songs long, and I kept thinking, ok, this is the climax, but no, another song would start and the show would continue to crescendo. I sat on the wall and held Jack, and towards the end, he turned to me and started saying, "Ma-zing, ma-zing." and looking at the show in awe. Thank you Seasame Street, for teaching my kid that word, and thank you Orem Owlz, for putting on a great show, and thanks to the Benezras, Hills, Petersens and Andersons that were there with us. It was a gorgeous night, topped off with shakes from Sonic, and was indeed, 'May-zing.'