I took a blog break while we were on vacation with our friends Adam, Tracy, and their daughter, Sophie. The trip was way fun. By day we waterskied, kayaked, boated, and swam. Tracy has a small problem with clothes pile-up, so she did laundry. Every day. Mostly at least twice a day. Sometimes she’d ask us to take off the clothes we were wearing in order to wash them.

Look, we all have fun in our own ways.

By night, we played a card game called Smear, which is native to the U.P., from whence Adam’s family hails. This was a re-match between Team AK-47, comprised of Adam and me, and Team Dumb Tits, comprised of Dan and Tracy. AK-47 prevailed on Grand Cayman in 2001. In fact, we dominated. The Tits, as Adam would say, they were a-saggin’ big time back then on our first vacation together.

So, I tell you, I felt confident coming into Grudge Match 2007, an event that spanned six nights. And AK-47 certinaly had our ups, for sure. But in the end, I’m sorry to say that the Tits, well, they pushed up, if you will.

Still, I want you to know that I when I won, I won graciously; and when I lost, I accepted defeat with maturity and a zen-like disposition.

Really!

I only swore and swatted at Dan a couple of times, I swear. And I apologized sincerely for all of those.

We're in Vail, Colorado. This is Dan's dream, as we've been here many times in the winter, but never in the summer, and he's indeed dreamt of seeing it  in the summer.  I'm out-of-this-world happy because I was raised on out-west mountain vacations.  Of course, in my time, we got in the Dodge Ram Conversion and drove 12 hours at a time, my brother Kevin and I sprawling on the floor without seatbelts.

That's not the way Dan rolls.  We flew into Denver yesterday and rented a Ford Expedition, which is huge and requires safety.

We're in a fab VRBO with our bosom pals, Adam and Tracy and their three kids. Today we spent the whole day at a mountain-top adventure park with zip lines, ropes courses, and alpine slides. We're all tired and tan and ready for a chill evening of Netflix and hot-tubbing and of course, the card game that Adam and I generally lose but pretend to win.  Things could be so, so much worse.

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We’re back from a fun weekend in Philly with excellent friends Adam and Tracy.

The air temperature in the city of Brotherly Love was almost always between thirty and fifty degrees warmer than Minneapolis, the kids were very cute together, and Team AK-47 once again claimed victory over Team Dumb Tits in our on-going, mixed-doubles Smear competition.

I especially enjoy the banter at the table.

"Adam, you're such a butt wad," Tracy said at one point.

We all considered this for a minute.

"What is a butt wad, exactly?" Adam asked.

"Oh you know," Tracy said, exasperated. "It's like a plug." Here she made some flicking motions with her hand. "An ass... plug."

We all got a lot of mileage out of this comment. It's hard to explain why.

Had a beach reunion today with our fabulous pals, Adam and Tracy and their kids, Sophie, Ryan, and Nick.  Nick is new since the last time we'd seen the fam, and he is way cute. Toddling around and saying a few words with bright red hair.  Just adorable.

When he was napping, the older kids and the parents went for a walk while Nick's grandmother guarded him.  We jumped in the surf and looked at shells and stuff.

Mac became characteristically petulant at one point, just when I was trying to take a wonderful picture for posterity.

We're having a fab weekend here in Nashville with bosom pals Adam and Tracy. We saw a fascinating songwriter session at the Country Music Hall of Fame yesterday featuring Jonathan Singleton. He's a successful songwriter, and told us lots of interesting things about his work, interspersed with some singing and playing of the guitar. Since Dan is a country music fan, he knew the songs by Singleton. It was exciting to hear them performed by the writer. One highlight of the Singleton session was his description of co-writing. He only writes with people, never alone. He says he's more creative and more focused when he has a collaborator. Isn't that neat? I took from it this message: We don't have to do it alone.

Now, we're going to try to catch a show at the famed Bluebird Cafe. We have to get there 1.5 hours early and hope to get in. The Bluebird is extra hip now since being featured on the hit show Nashville, which I now feel compelled to watch.