In the company of friends

That's how we've spent this weekend.  Family photos, overnight guests (8 people in a one bedroom cottage!  And it worked so well they stayed two nights!), concerts and parades and swimming with friends from afar, Sunday dinner with the gang...  We have been surrounded by love. 

And sunshine.  The children's eyebrows are bleach-blonde white and they are getting "brown as a berry" despite our best intentions with the sunscreen.  They look great, in my opinion.

See?

(photos from Long Point on Thursday in preparation for the annual family photo shoot)

She loves wearing my glasses, and insists they don't make things look funny.  Just everything looks small, that's all...

 Melinda, Will and company arrived on their way from Boston on Thursday night.  The fond reunion that started at 8:30pm led to children getting to bed just before 11:00.  That could explain why having 4 children share one bedroom worked so remarkably well...

Saturday found us swimming and playing at the beach and floating in kayaks and then taking a trip to Ithaca for pizza at The Nines and a concert on the Cornell Arts Quad.

We met up with friends Aimee, Jamo and Casey.  We knew we might see them at the concert.  We did not expect to have them walking right behind us across a bridge as we made our way to campus.  Ithaca's a small town...

This photo does not do justice to what is happening here: Nat throwing children upside down and into a backflip over his shoulder.  Repeatedly.  He even had kids we barely knew queuing up for a turn. 

The kids wanted to climb up onto this roof.  Don't worry, there were stairs.

  The concert was fun, great people-watching as all the hippies of the world converged on the green space.  A relaxed, peaceful vibe with children climbing trees and wandering everywhere.

As sunset approached we were drawn to it like moths and found ourselves at the top of this grand hill, overlooking Cornell and Ithaca and a delightful sliver of lake as the sun sank down.  The children ran and rolled-- indeed, they gamboled on the hill until  the fingers of dusk began to stretch over the grass.  We drove a sleeping car-full home that night...

Saturday morning we were up early to participate in the Aurora Run.  Jack was far more enthusiastic about it than he appears in this picture..

I do love a small run... each one of us came home with a second place ribbon in our age groups! While we do, in fact, rock-- you should know that there were a total of 5 people in Jack and my age groups, and a total of 2 in Nat's.... Still, a ribbon is a ribbon!  And our boy was thrilled that we could all match.

Home for a quick swim and then back to Aurora for the Aurorafest parade. An adorable little parade, and the kids each got a nice amount of candy, so a win for sure...

Super Aurorafest Man!!

Saturday afternoon and evening-- one big blur of swimming and sitting and socializing.  Jamo cooked us a wonderful meal, the kids ran about with cousins and stayed up too late, we went on a boat ride on a choppy lake, and I went to bed early while Nat went to a campfire with Sarah, our friend down the point..

Sunday:  Sleeping in!

The day was rainy  and windy and so we snuggled in to the cottage in the morning, where cousins painted and played with playdough while Nat and Claire and I relaxed alongside.  Then a trip to Ithaca for some errands with our crew...

And somehow by the time we made it home, the day had morphed into this:

 Nat and I went for a swim and a kayak, just us two.  We went for a sunset boat ride.  Sunday dinner (22 in attendance) was outside after all, and Jack and Ivy were on the playground with all the kids from the Point until 9:15.   It was a magical summer evening indeed.

Corydon says that vacation is exhausting.  Wonderfully exhausting.