Last Days of Summer

Over here, summer officially ends over the Labor Day Weekend, which includes the first Monday of September. So this was the last weekend before the kids go back to school and summer hours (half day Fridays) end at work.

Saturday brought a trip to Mad Dog Park for a cricket game. One of our team members works for a beverage company and so had brought along a few cases of a new energy drink - "Burn". As the day was quite hot and I wanted to drink something with a little more sugar than water, I ended up knocking back three of these things in about an hour. I was to find out that each can was the equivalent of over two Red Bulls...so I was bouncing off the walls for the rest of the afternoon. I certainly got my daily allowance of caffeine...along with "taurine" and a bunch of other healthy sounding chemicals. As to the game, it was a very satisfying victory. I bowled shockingly and now officially have the "yips". Fortunately I had a good knock, getting 39 before getting fired on a dubious LBW call. This is the team that we have beaten in the final for the past two years and while we will not be there to defend our title, it was nice to score a win over them.

In the evening I downloaded and watched the Australia v South Africa rugby match. What a waste of time that turned out to be. A horribly bad performance that cannot be defended. Hopefully we sort things out again before the decider v NZ in a couple of weeks.

On Sunday, Mindy was doing henna at a street fair, so I spent my birthday with the kids. We ran some errands, grabbed lunch and played a few games at home before I took a brief nap on the couch (a 30 minute TV show was the diversion for the kids!).

Monday was also a busy day. We went to a local nature reservation with some friends to (we thought) have a picnic, walk to a stream and let the kids play there before heading home. Well, it turned into a serious hike...not really a problem except for the fact that none of us were wearing appropriate shoes and I did not bring any water. We ended up walking around for 3+ hours, carrying Fiona for the last 1/2 of the journey as she had a blister from her shoes. Eventually we made it back and all set upon a watermelon that our friends had brought.

The evening brought more Babylon 5...we are now almost done with this and are about 1/2 way through the final season. I think Mindy is enjoying it even more than me! It will be like losing an old friend when we finish it I feel. Fortunately, we should get through it right when the new seasons of our TV shows will be starting up, so we will still have plenty to keep us occupied!