My July 4th weekend was mostly low key.
I was incentivised by my boss to make sure our facilities reached budget, and since they did, my reward was: A PAID DAY OFF! I spent my Friday running errands and being impatient. I finally told the rest of the shit I had to do to fuck off, threw my (almost dry) clothes into plastic bags and hauled ass to Winchester.
Ordinarily, this drive, from Huntington Beach to Winchester, would have taken me..... about 2 hours with the traffic that I dealt with... Somehow, I made it there in an hour and 20 minutes, (thank you, dearest, Neon... for some reason, I have been calling it "Wheezy" in my head).

Chris greeted me with a surprise:


he shaved his goatee off! Hello to his handsome chin!
And! He's growing his hair back, so it's all soft and starting to get long again. It can almost hold water now!

We spent the rest of that Friday hanging out with his sister and his niece and went to bed early, like we usually do. Oh! Another highlight about Friday? I finally got him to try PBR! For those blessed enough to never have had to buy cheap beer, I am speaking of Pabst Blue Ribbon, which normally has a very bad reputation because it is cheap as FUCK. I think its delicious and prefer it to Budweiser, Coors, Miller, or any other piss-colored beer that they sell. PBR forever, please, if I can't have Sam Adams. :)

Saturday morning it was HOT! He made pancakes for breakfast and we spent most of the day socializing with his family. His parents came over for a bit, and that was slightly awkward but over fast (thought almost not fast enough.) They're nice people, his folks, but there was some sort of tension in the room and I was eager for the tension to be gone.
Here are some pictures from that day:


Bright and blurry, but they're still both adorable aren't they?!


Please stop making pancakes and hold her so I can take pictures. Thx.


Anais in my sunglasses. She actually really likes sunglasses, and kept them on for a bit. Then she put them on me. I had lots of tiny fingerprint smudges all over them. Adorable. I think she's the greatest thing since her Uncle Chris and sliced bread.

Chris and I took a nap after the parents left, and his sister and his niece went to a barbeque, and the shadows were getting kind of long, so we wondered if Lake Skinner, which was close by, was doing a fireworks show. We drove the 15 minutes to the lake, and got turned away at the Park Ranger's booth, since the sun was setting, and the park closes then.
On the way home, we stopped at Stater Bros. to buy some Boston Lager (Mmm, Sam Adams!)
When we got home, I taught my baby how to shotgun some beers.


He did jusssst fine.

First one was a little messy for him, I I regressed as he progressed, or maybe, just the third time was a charm.
Somewhere around PBR Shotgun #2, we noticed that there was something reddish brown on his thumb. We both smelled it, tasted it, determined it to be blood, and began inspecting our fingertips, lips, the tops of our hands even, when we couldn't find the place it had come from. We gave up looking, and he got our third beers from the fridge, and noticed that there was a bloody thumbprint on one of the cans. He thought maybe it was beef blood, from some meat thawing in the fridge next to the beers. After a brief pause, we laughed and realized the only way we'd know was when one of us ended up with food poisoning.
We watched fireworks from his sister's balcony and went to bed early to be young sinners in love.

Sunday he made me pancakes again! (YESSS!). AND I got to feed Anais pancakes, too. I let her feed herself most of the time, helping her by sticking pancake bits to the end of her fork. (I think she'll be a lefty!) Hmm... I forget what else we did on Sunday, leading up to visiting the lake, but I think that we were mostly lazy... Oh! No, we took a nap and hid from his sister's friends, then took a shower together, then visited with his brother-for-all-intents-and-puposes, Cesar, and met Cesar's mom and Sister, THEN we went to the lake. My phone was dead by this point, and we had forgotten the camera, so we just took pictures on his phone and DAAAAMN, was it pretty!

I've swam in a lake once in my life and it was not a pleasant experience AT ALL, so for this lake to be so clean and clear and algae free and inviting was just incredible. I wanted to swim sooo bad, but neither of us thought to bring our suits (and even if we had, his trunks and my suit were both under swine flu quarantine). He did take some pictures that came out pretty nice, and here they are:


My face in there somewhere, I promise! I just didn't condition it, and the wind blew it dry!
See how clear and pretty the water is?


I didn't notice til just now, but we are standing in almost exactly the same spot for these photos! Look at those cute, skinny legs!


These were growing all over the highway on the way there, and all around the lake. They are teeny little clusters of white flowers with little pinkish-orange accents. They look dull and ugly until you see them up close, and then they are too fucking cute for words. These flowers are a VICE magazine DO.


Hi, I'm Lake Skinner and I'm just beautiful.


This is still pretty, pretty Lake Skinner. Also, all the pictures at Lake Skinner, with the exception of the picture of Chris, and the picture of his shoes, were taken by him. I'm not so talented. :)


This was the path we walked to the lake. This is the prettiest sight I've seen all year. When we got to the edge, it was about a 4 or 5 foot drop to the shore and the water's edge. So beautiful. My boyfriend takes pretty pictures on his Razr.


I took this one. I liked that his little shoes were abandoned right at the water's edge. I can't wait to swim here with the little fishes and guppies and ducks.

The rest of the weekend is pretty much none of any one else's business.
But yes, things are going quite well.
Yes, I love him more than I thought I was capable of loving anyone, and yes, he referred to his sister as my (future) sister-in-law.
Yes, things are easy between us, until it comes time for one of us to go back home to jobs and responsibilities. That's the only hard part, and it isn't getting any easier, but the love love love keeps us going, and of course, absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Ciao for now, my pretties.

xxxx