I'm trying very hard to not overschedule and exhaust my parents like I did my first few years. There's just so much I enjoyed taking them out to show how beautiful our area can be. We started our day at Claremont Distillery on 94. Padre enjoyed his Advanced Whiskey Flight Sampler. Bestie Christine said "Padre, you look like a kid in the candy store right now. We had a great time there together.

We then ventured over to Alias Brewery in Vernon. It wasn't part of the original game plan, but Padre loves breweries. If Padre wants to have a beer at a brewery after driving all this way to see me, how can I say no to him? We then ventured over to The Irish Cottage Inn. It was great seeing so many of our wonderful friends there. Besties Artie and Margie, Buckeye Paul, Ed, Roy, Paul M, George, and more. I was worried that we were going to coincidentally be there during Music Bingo. I warned my parents earlier I was trying to dodge that. I am trying to not show them my dark side and how annoyed I get during Music Bingo. I don't think they necessarily believed me, until all of my friends there backed me up. I told them how some friends like Music Bingo more, and make it a point to go because they get a kick out of me getting so annoyed. Later that night on my deck, Padre and Madre both told me "okay that was hilarious. It's like the whole bar of your friends loves it literally because it annoys you." Yep. Their son is clearly quite the prize, lol.

I have to admit we had fun playing and it made my parents very happy. There were many tears and triggers, but also much needed laughs too. It was great to be in the comfort of our friends. Sunday night while pulling into my parking lot, I spotted a big bear out of the corner of my eye and pointed him out to my parents. I hadn't seen a bear yet this year! This was a huge win, because whenever my family visits they always want to see the bears. We went to my deck and for 20 minutes I was on the lookout to see if the bear would walk past my deck. After 20 minutes, I gave up, and sat down facing my parents. I let them have the chairs that face my mountain so they can enjoy the beautiful view I get every night. After 30 minutes, the bear walked right by my deck as my back was turned to him. My parents spotted him. This bear was probably 300 pounds or so. He then went to the dumpster as we predicted. Fortunately our neighbors did a great job locking the dumpsters, so no bear problems there.

After leaving the dumpsters, Padre predicted the bear would go back onto my mountain into the woods. He was wrong! All of the sudden we see the bear walking back in our parking lot. He then did something I have never seen a bear do in person. He opened up the driver door of a black Jeep Wrangler across the parking lot from us, put his head inside to smell real quick, didn't smell anything, and took his head out of the car. He then closed the door and walked away from it. Wow! We were joking about how polite the bear was. The previous night, while leaving my Jeep Compass Madre didn't close her door all the way, then reclosed it which set my car alarm off. It went on for a full minute because it just wouldn't turn off no matter what we tried. That minute of my car alarm going off felt like hours. We were so relieved when it finally stopped. We joked that even a bear shut a door better than Madre did.

Steve Allan