Up again at 2 am.  Slept for 3 hours, but now I'm up eyes itching, sneezing, awake.  

Friday was an extremely busy day at the store.  The tourists, the second home owners, everybody is here, it's the end of July, what I call prime summer, busy, busy, busy.  Andrew worked his first full day, there was plenty of help, so things went pretty smoothly.  I did have to have a conversation with an employee about dealing with stress, putting on a happy face, taking deep breaths, and smiling to the customers, but that was actually a good thing.  I was there to make the save with the customer, fix it, and move on.  Not in the mood to go into detail with this one.

Friday night we had our first family dinner with all of us since Jackie and Andrew's return.  I bought some fresh sushi tuna, and Jackie did most of the prep work, and we had a wonderful sushi dinner.  Jackie also cooked the boneless chicken thighs she had prepped the night before (remember the chicken thighs?) in a sweet style stir fry. She actually rolled the chicken is seaweed with rice and veggies. They were really good, but just weird to have "chicken sushi" It was Andrew's first night sleeping at home except for the very first night.  He had slept at his friend Grant's house Wednesday and Thursday night.  I saw Grant's parents on Friday at the store and I asked them both, "How's it having your son, Andrew back?"  They both laughed and said, "It's great we missed him, it's nice having him back on his couch." 

It was nice to have everybody at the table.  Which we did again for a late breakfast this morning.  I asked Andrew to tell a story about Kenya and he told the story about losing all his money and having to take a boda boda ride home on a super uncomfortable seat and having to walk uphill and then ride downhill and then eventually had to walk the rest of the way home.

Tired from work and a scrumptious sushi dinner, Friday night was actually the first night I slept through the night, fell asleep after putting my book down and didn't really wake up until morning.  Jackie was already up and out in the living room on her computer.  I read in bed for awhile and wandered out of the bedroom after 8.  Jackie and I then took the dogs for a walk behind the house and up the hill.  It was a beautiful morning, a nice walk, I don't really remember what we talked about.  Back at home, it was already 10:30 I started breakfast, making coffee, and pulling stuff out of the fridge.  Everybody was awake and ready for us to return, hungry and wanting breakfast.  I put on some potatoes and started chopping onions, and when all was ready we sat down for our family breakfast.

After breakfast I needed to head to the store to help get a grocery delivery done.  It was about noon.  I left with Jackie on the phone and Andrew and Micah planning to head to town together in Andrew's summer car (the store delivery truck).  The order was ready when I got there, so Dan and I loaded my car and took it up to Spanish Peaks.  Then back to the store where the lunch counter was busy, so I took it over and helped for about half an hour working the deli register. Then I started heading home, but remembered the pork shoulder which was supposed to come in yesterday and I never delivered it, so I went back to the store tracked down my customer and offered to bring it up to her.  Luckily for me she was on her way down to the store anyway and would pick it up herself.  Andrew and Micah arrived at the store to get some smoothies and snacks and were sitting in the deli area, so I checked in on them, told them to have fun and drive safe.  Meanwhile Jackie called me for more nori sheets, we were going to make sushi for dinner again.  Gail and Alex were coming to spend the night with their girls Anna and Laila, and go to the Bozeman Symphony concert together. When I called Jackie on my way home for real this time after 2 pm she said they were on their way and should be up in half an hour.  

Home at last, Jackie off the phone, Gail and Alex arrived around 3 and the fun began.  Alex and I headed down to the river with Murray for some fishing.  I caught the biggest fish ever, a 20 inch brown trout!  Super exciting. One of the great things is that I caught the fish with a fly that my employee Dan had tied the night before and had just given me.   Alex caught a couple of nice rainbows, one of which took a couple of big jumps and splashes and broke away before we could see how big it was.  It's fun to catch those feisty fish.   It was beautiful down by the river, miraculously the only other fisherman we saw were walking to their car as we crossed the highway.  Perfect conditions, cloud cover and tons of bugs.  

Back at the house, it was time for another wonderful sushi dinner. And then a quick clean up and off to the symphony in Gail and Alex's VW bus.  Another whirlwind concert event with great music and great friends.  The weird thing about the symphony which I had never been to before (it is an annual Big Sky event) is that it appears that one is supposed to be quiet. Not the usual for a Big Sky music event.  I found Sabine, already 12 days old, and as soon as I got her in my arms Jackie found me and stole her away.  Howie and Anna ran around, Grandpa sat and listened and really enjoyed the music.  The weather was beautiful and sunny, which is funny because when we left our house it was raining, but it looked like it was clearing back at the concert area and it was, it was hot and sunny!  The concert ended early with the famous 1812 Overture with it's 17 gun salute - by 8:30 - way before dark, so back home where it was all about getting ready for bed and who was going to sleep where.  Howie is alseep in the VW van in the driveway by himself!  That's Howie.

Oh yeah, the moose antler on our porch.  This morning I noticed this giant brown cluster attached to one of the prongs of the moose antler on the banister of our front porch.  Looking closely I saw that it was a giant cluster of baby spiders, at least 100 of them placed inside a spider web.  Well, last night when we got home they were dispersing, blowing in the wind and crawling all over the web.  Just wild.  Alex was loving it.

Well, I took lots of pictures so I will post them, they too kind of tell the story of the day. Hopefully I will be able to get some sleep now.