First Day of Spring - Reprise

One year ago today, I was at the Ice Cream Barn with my friends, Renee and Kelsey.  We waited in line for over an hour on the opening day of the season for some of the best ice cream New England has to offer.  The yearly opening of the ice cream stands, frozen lemonade stands, and the clam shacks in New England, has become one of the things I look forward to the most.  Rhode Island absolutely shines in the summer and if the ice cream stands begin to open - well that just means warm weather, walks on the beach in my bare feet, and the sound of the waves in my ears with a lobster roll shoved in my gob aren't far off.  The best part about this year's opening was that my family was with me.  We had a nice dinner with Renee and Kelsey, followed by a fight with Hannah where she stomped off screaming and yelling about how she was staying at home, and ended with a delicious waffle cone in our hands.  Best of all, I saved 6 bucks because Hannah stayed home.  That's 6 bucks I get to use on another waffle cone for myself...  or maybe 6 Diet Dr. Pepper refills in my giant insulated mug.  Win for me.  Here's a shot from the festivities:

We only waited 15 minutes to get in this year.  There was a line out the door by the time we left, but it was colder this year than last and there was snow on the ground, so I think it kept everyone but the truly committed ice cream freaks out of my way.  Praise.  I also wanted Jared to drive by our local Del's today for some much needed frozen lemonade, but I decided to spread my joy out a little.  Therefore, I might save my 6 bucks for the Del's trucks I know I will start to see driving around everywhere soon enough.

What else happened today?  Well, my wet dry vac finally died after about 10 years of abuse including at least 1,000 gallons of water sucked up from various accidents and floods over the years.  I didn't want to let the poor gal go because she's been so good to us...  Ok, it's really because I'm cheap and didn't want to spring for a new one.  However, I know what life is like without a good shop vac, so off to Home Depot we went.  I dropped 120 bucks on a bigger and stronger model than I had before.  Jared was so happy he named him R7 D4 because he thought he looked like a Star Wars droid.  He was also VERY pleased with how much bigger the R7's hose was:

Normally I would say that size isn't everything, but in the case of a shop vac it totally is.  You can't believe the stuff I've tried to suck up with my shop vac because I'm too lazy to use a broom on my construction sites.  How wonderful to know I have twice the diameter to get crap stuck in the hose with.  Money well spent.  As I mentioned before, R7 is quite a bit bigger than my old machine.  How much bigger?

If it wasn't for the filter, Bub would have been able to fit inside with the lid on.  That translates into more room for all the water and/or trash that I plan to suck up with R7.  14 Gallons to be exact.  Best part of my purchase?  Bub and Lily started fighting over the box that R7 came in and kept trying to tape each other back into the box.  Their behavior caused Jared to yell at them to stop wasting his tape.  Yeah, because the tape is the most important part of the nonsense going on here:

      Welcome Spring.  I'm glad to see you.  Let's do it again next year...