Vacation Time

Swimming and hunting for sea creatures at Oak Island

 Lots of family time, and water, water, everywhere is how we can best describe our annual summer vacation on Long Island.  We hit the ocean, the bay, the pool, Oak Island, and even dabbled in some lawn sprinklers.  Which was all a good thing, because it was really HOT most of the week.  We stayed at Oak Island the first few days, fishing and swimming and relaxing on the porch while also making time to attend the Rising Family reunion and a little birthday brunch for Phoebe.  Phoebe and Haley got a bit of squealy giggle time together at Oak Island, and Aiden ate a stack of raw onions and went around trying to get HaPa, Grandma Sally, and Grandpa Dada to pass out from a whiff of his onion breath.  Crazy kid.  Uncle Dan and Aunt Paulette came out and spent the day on Sunday too.

At the Rising Family reunion

Hapa with the little ladies

cool face painting

Handsome Fisher 

Trouble x 2

Charles, Emma, Elizabeth and Carrie

Phoebe's birthday 

Enjoying Great Grandma Rising's pool

Kimball enjoying Oak Island

Goofball

 On Andy's birthday/ our anniversary, we drove into the city to visit the Museum of Natural History with Grandma Chris.  In retrospect, I don't think driving in Manhattan was how Andy would have chosen to spend his birthday if he'd had his choice.  Schedules are always packed during our L.I. vacation week, though, so we made the best of it and Aiden thoroughly enjoyed all of the animal dioramas, dinosaur bones, and the giant blue whale at the Museum.  We had a long stroll through Central Park with Jeannie after the museum and ate dinner at a Mexican cafe nearby.  The next day was a bit more relaxing with a trip to Watch Hill on Fire Island.  We were going to try heading to one of the little communities on Fire Island this time (there are different ferries that go to each of them) but with free parking, dirt cheap ferry rides, and basically a deserted and pristine beach at the Fire Island National Seashore's Watch Hill, we decided...why go anywhere else?  It's absolutely perfect for us, especially with the mile long boardwalk birding trail that winds through sunken ocean forest and salt marsh for excellent birding opportunities.

Aiden checking out the prehistoric mammals

Trail through beach forest, Fire Island

Watch Hill

Sand Tag with Grandpa DaDa

Another highlight of the week was Aiden's first trip to a major league baseball game--- at YANKEE stadium!  The horror!  Actually Aiden was entirely fine with it, and thanks to Grandpa Dada's friend Daryl, they were treated like total royalty with a gigantic buffet dinner, third row seats, and a wall (yes, a whole wall) of FREE candy.  Who knew there were even seats like this available!  Aiden came home with a new batting helmet and a bagful of candybars and lolllipops, and lots of tales to tell.  I think a game like that might turn me into a Yankee fan too!  No worries even that the Yankees didn't win...can someone pass the skittles?!

Yankee Fan?

Hugs from Crazy Uncle Dan

We also made it out on Grandpa Dada's boat on Great South Bay for some swimming on a sweltering day and a tour of the Amityville canals (including a pass by the real-life Amity Horror house....shiver....).  And we had a great Kulis family BBQ at Dan and Paulette's houose to cap off our week on the island.  An unbelievably full week, gone in what seemed like a flash.  We can't imagine summer without it.

On Grandpa DaDa's boat

Too cool for the party

Allison and Aunt Mary with random dog passing through Dan & Paulette's yard

HMS Bounty Replica in Port Jefferson

On the ferry home 

Summer Love

Summer is officially here in New Hampshire.  Soccer Camp, trips to Elkins Beach, concerts on the green, the farmer's market, and evening sparkler parades are just some of the telltale signs.  We're drinking it in.  Get it while the gettin's good.  It was 95 degrees today and we got lemonades and mexican takeout from an airstream trailer at the farmer's market and drove it all over to Elkins Beach to eat and cool off in the clear lake water before bedtime.  That's what I love about summer.

Molly and Aiden at British Soccer Camp this week.  Aiden's tongue is in danger of being bitten off constantly!

Adirondack Girls Getaway

On Father's Day weekend I gave Andy a really lousy present - stay home and watch the kids while I take off for two days of relaxation with college friends in the Adirondacks.  He was good about it, and it was the only weekend all of our Colgate friends could do, so we went for it.  Off to Whitney and Will's new house on Great Sacondaga Lake in the Adirondack Park.  The house is amazing, with long sloping lawn down to the sandy lakeshore and the mountains rising green out of the opposite shore.  We indulged in every indulgence we could think of- we drank white wine and ate olives and fancy cheeses; we lounged on the shore in the sun; we slept late (830!); we had a yoga session on the lawn; we ate a gourmet-style on a gorgeously decorated picnic table in the evening sun, overlooking the lake.  We only had one full day, so we had to pack it ALL in!

A big point of the weekend was to catch up together (this whole group of girlfriends has not been together all at once since my wedding in 2004) without having to wipe noses and change diapers and act as lifeguards for the swimming tots.  But we did have one small tag-along in Allison's 3 month old daughter Abigail - technically she joined the group because she's still nursing, but really we all enjoyed having one tiny babe to pass around between the seven of us.  She was a total trooper and didn't hamper our weekend of indulgence one bit.  Thankfully, she'll never remember all the things we talked about... lots of reminiscing about college escapades and beyond... most of it not suitable for young ears!

Voyage of the Honeybadger

Last year a bunch of our friends rented a pontoon boat which they christened "The Honeybadger" and tooled around Lake Sunapee for a lazy Saturday in June.  Swimming, sunning, eating, drinking, relaxing... I can't exactly remember why we couldn't go...something about gardening chores or maybe laundry piles?  Anyway, we weren't about to miss it the second time around, after hearing everyone else rave about how much fun it had been the previous year.

This year the Honeybadger "sailed" on June 9th.  We won the meteorological lottery with a blue-sky, 75 degree day, and headed down to the docks with all our gear right after t-ball.  The kids hopped aboard like old salts and had great fun "driving" the boat, fishing, and swimming (freezing) in the still very chilly lake water.  The adults ate finger sandwiches and drank rum punches and put our feet up while we cruised around the lake gawking at all the multi-million dollar homes that line the shore of Lake Sunapee.  We think we even identified Steven Tyler's house.  Maybe.  Kyle, or as we like to call him, Captain Kennedy, navigated the Honeybadger neatly over to Sunapee Harbor in the early afternoon so the kids could get gelato at Marzelli's and then it was back to the ship for more fun.

The highlight of the whole day (certainly from the kids' point of view) was when Molly, Aiden and Ben all got out on the tube behind the boat.  When they tried to pull themselves in using the tethered rope, all the weight on one side flipped the tube over dumping the three of them into the drink unexpectedly.  It looked like the tube was going to fall on top of them, maybe trapping one of them under there or causing some sort of panic (they were all wearing life jackets), and when Sonya yelled "GO! GO! GO!" to the guys near the stern, Rich and Mike jumped in with clothes and sunglasses and hats on to rescue them.  Of course, by the time the dads hit the water, the three kids were up and smiling, already swimming back to the boat saying "THAT WAS AWESOME! LET'S DO IT AGAIN!"  Honeybadgers don't care about being flipped, obviously. 

Cape Cod Sog Fest

 This year we did NOT luck out with the gorgeous weather we had last year on our late-spring weekend on Cape Cod.  Thankfully, we took Friday off and headed down early that day since it was the only nice weather day we were going to get.  We thoroughly enjoyed the sunshine that day, walking out on the Sandwich boardwalk to have a picnic lunch near the dunes and then spend the afternoon picking treasures on the beach.  Aiden found part of a lobster shell, among other wondrous and stinky things, and he stuffed it full of irish moss and declared it a delicacy.  Haley just poked her fingers in the sand and marveled at little periwinkles half embedded in the tidal mud.  HaPa and Grandma (Mema) met us at the beach, and when we were done with exploring, we headed off to get ice cream cones before arriving at the Seaside Cottages.

Sandwich Boardwalk

near our lunch spot in Sandwich

Yum!  My second ice cream...already had a dish of peppermint!

That night we hooked up with the Perlmutter/Stevens clan and also saw the Rockwell family, and had a nice BBQ dinner.  Already we had to eat inside since it had turned cooler and very windy...and it didn't get any better.  Saturday was a total wash-out, with rain and 30 mph winds.  The triathalon that Andy was scheduled to run in Onset didn't seem like a fun prospect, so he skipped it and joined us with the kids at the Cape Cod Children's Museum for the morning.  After lunch the skies cleared for about 1 hour, which was enough time for a quick (and I do mean quick...Oliver and Aiden may have set a course record for speed) game of mini golf at Pirate's Cove.  For dinner we hit a local seafood place for lobster, chowder, clams, and cod.

Mini golfers

Oliver puts Nate in the stocks

Arrrgh...

Oliver meets Jaws

Sunday the weather was still gloomy, windy, and cold, but the driving rain had subsided, so we headed out to Provincetown for the day.  We did manage a little birding at Race Point Beach, and the strong winds had blown some pelagic birds like shearwaters and gannets close enough to spot from shore.  There were also many large seals popping their heads out of the surf to gawk at us, which the kids thought were great.  But it wasn't pleasant for the little ones being out on the exposed beach with the howling winds, so we headed into town to stroll Commercial Street.  P-town was just as I had remembered it- kind of like the Key West of the North - lots of cute bed & breakfast places, quaint houses, and shops from cutesy to kitchy to kinky.  We had lunch at a Cape Cod diner with lots of Portuguese specialties, and made sure the kids got their hands on some penny candy afterwards.  After shopping a bit we headed back to the cottages in South Yarmouth for some last chilly beach play and another BBQ dinner.  There was a lot more time spent inside the cottages this year, and they're small for adults plus a quartet of rambunctious kids... but we made the best of the weather and had a good time still.  Hopefully next time we visit the Cape the weather will be kinder!

Aiden surveys the saltwater taffy in the penny candy store

Ben with his haul of penny candy