Since tomorrow is 4th July and it falls on a Saturday this year, I had today off work, which makes for a nice 3 day weekend.

Fortunately I was allowed to go and see my daughters (4 and 8), so I took them out to eat at Einstein Bagels, which is where my eldest daughter likes to go for breakfast.  They are usually pretty good when I take them out to eat, and after breakfast we headed down to Topeekeegee-Yugnee Park (popularly known as T-Y Park), which is only a couple of miles up the road from where they live.  T-Y Park is pretty large, 150 acres, and they enjoy not only the playground, but also walking around the large lake, feeding the Squirrels, and especially petting each and every dog that passes or comes close to them.

Today it was pretty hot and sticky, close to 90 degrees and not much of a breeze at first, so I took them to the playground, where they had a good time, and then we wandered across to the lake.  It has been raining so much the last couple of weeks, that the level of the lake is close to 2 feet higher than normal, so it’s larger, deeper, and the fish seemed to be having a good time, as well as the dogs that were swimming in there.  Walking around the far side of the lake we found someone who had 2 large black dogs that enjoyed swimming, and they would race each other to get to every stick that the girls threw into the water.  They had a great time.

We also fed the Squirrels, or at least I did.  Someone had left a pile of peanuts on one of the picnic tables, so I grabbed a few and had the Squirrels eating out of my hand.  Unfortunately the first Squirrel who I tried to feed wasn’t too sure, so instead of reaching out for the peanut, he clawed my finger and then bit it, his claw drawing blood, but so far I don’t seem to have suffered any infection.

Being a Friday there were fewer people there than usual, and subsequently there were more Squirrels, Birds and Iguanas out.  We usually see quite a lot of Squirrels, and birds too, but today I managed to get some good photos of a Blue Jay, almost got decent ones of a Kingfisher, and I got excellent ones of a couple of the larger Iguanas that were out sunning themselves on the grass.

Their Mom wanted them back by 12:30pm, so after the park we headed to Wendys, usually easy to get a quick bite for lunch, but today it was packed, and since this must be about the slowest Wendys in the country (service is always horribly slow, pathetic, and they take an hour to clean up and mess or restock too), we headed to McDonalds instead.  Now this isn’t the best either, but today it was practically empty and at least the service was quick.

Back to the house, dropped them off, got my usual myriad of hugs from my eldest, much to the disgust of her Mother, who usually just wants me out of there as quickly as possible, and back home, via my local Walmart to do my weekly grocery shop.  Now for the last 2 months they have been completely revamping the food section, and it’s a nightmare trying to find anything.  So since today was chaotic in there, I just got most of the essentials and then headed to the Farmers Market down the road for the rest.  The service here is really good, friendly, and the prices are good too.