Home and away (and all of the waterfalls in between!)

Our Farley's vacation may have come to an end but SUMMER vacation continues full-tilt!  So much so that I am having a hard time keeping up with it here.  I keep having the goal of making this space more reflective, capturing moments of memory or expressing my views on issues that matter to me as a mother and a human.  I have all these thoughts to express!  And all these facets of my children that I want to process and hold and share and capture!  Yet it seems to be all that I can do to keep a running log of the events of our (rich and beautiful and ever-so-full) days...

Poor me!   

As far as problems go, I'll take this one.

Ok, where did we leave off?

Our last weekend in NY:

A short day trip to Seneca Falls.  Visited the Women's Rights National Historic Site and got our parks passport stamped!

 Also, had ice cream.

Did NOT tour the magnificent historic home/ history museum due to dog in car.  Did stop in to find out if there was actually a waterfall in Seneca Falls. 

Nope.  Never was.  There were some rapids that people used to portage around, hence the need for a village in this spot.  Then, the canals came through and took care of those.

Saying goodbye to Emily and her family.  The "bigs and littles" together.  Weren't they all babies just a moment ago???

Friday:  A visit to Mackenzie -Childs.  We were ready to move into this fully decked-out dollhouse!

A quick trip to Great Gully-- which is not so great when there is no water!  Too stagnant and sad to hike up the stream at all.  We did catch tadpoles in the shallows and there was enough in the pool for Jack to go for a swim...

Date night for Nat and I, courtesy of Claire.... we went to Ithaca and revisited Cascadilla Gorge, because why not?  I think I would be there every day if we lived around here...

My husband takes nice pictures of me.  

 We also visited a favorite antique store and had delicious Thai food,  On the way home we detoured through Ludlowville to find the waterfall there.  After a "scenic" detour down Dug Road (can you say "backwoods??") we finally found our way to the town park, where we enjoyed the last half of the last song of a little concert, and took in the lovely waterfall...

Home in time for Sky Lanterns before bed!

 Pure magic.

 Saturday-- Farley's Point picnic day!

The day dawned grey and still and not so perfect for the sailboat races...

Morehouses were well represented with David and Randy taking first in the Junior race and Nat getting second in the Seniors...Way to row that sailboat with the tiller, Nat!

 Did manage to have a nice time at the 10am cocktail-and-dog party for the sailboat racers..

Farleys is just so cute.

 After a bit of downtime and little swim-- kids games!  Jack and Ivy look forward to this day all year, I think.  They love this stuff!

And they love this troupe of friends.  We had 22 kids at the games this year, ranging in age from 4- 16.  They played together with grace and kindness and enthusiasm and it was so fun.

The wind picked up in the afternoon so Nat took our kiddos out to try sailing for themselves.  They dig it.

 Picnic Time! All of the cottages, gathered in family groups at the park.  Some tables set with cloths and china... Love this place!

 The food was to die for.

 And time for playing and relaxing on the porch...

 ... and watching one last amazing lake sunset...

Our last morning.  Ivy was woken up by her friends and this was what was going on in the bedroom when I went in to see what all the giggling was about!  These three!  I will never forget the way they call each other "girl" and the way Ivy gets the inflections wrong so that it sounds more like she is talking to a dog.  She is too much.  These girls are too much.  Can't wait to see what they are like at 16.  No, wait, I CAN wait.  Because I think they are going to be Trouble.

Ivy was heartbroken to leave.

 Jack and Alex, giving each other a "man hug,"  They were great friends this year.

Annual picture in the ugly lion chair.  They won't fit side by side much longer.

We decided to make our "same old drive" more interesting by detouring to see Niagara Falls.  It IS waterfall summer, after all!

When we couldn't seem to find parking by the State Park, we headed a bit north of Niagara to find a turn-around-- and discovered Whirlpool Park.

It was awesome.

 See the whirlpool?

 Not pictured-- the perfect shady picnic table 5 feet from our parking spot and the overall calm of the this place after (and before) the insanity of the Falls....

We headed south again and found parking, and schlepped our tired crew through the park... and it was so worth it.

 There is a reason this place was mobbed with tourists.  It is amazing.

We've spent the last two days at home doing laundry and playing catch up with life before we leave home again at the end of the week.  We're also packing in the playdates and family time, with friends over on Monday morning and a great dinner with Bec and Gram on Monday evening.  After our time at Farley's I am not certain I remember how to be a full-time, engaged parent! And we need to wean our kids off  of the "24-7 friends around" environment before we head out on a road trip with only ourselves for company!

Today, an adventure in the Brecksville Reservation (with the RNC in downtown we are looking for fun outside of the city....)

Our friends took us to a creek with a clay slide and oh!  did our kids have fun getting as wet and messy as possible....

I love watching them out in nature.  They spent a good hour and a half wandering along the stream, swimming, splashing, sliding, stacking rocks, playing with clay, pretending to be baby coyotes, and having a blast together.

On the way back we added Blue Hen Falls to our list.  It was stunning and again, the littles had a blast being together in this simple, beautiful spot. 

It IS nice to be home,  even if the complexities of real life can't hold a candle to the ease of lake life.   In these two day we  have had to pay bills, clean house, go shopping, shore up the chicken coop (did I mention we lost two birds to predators while we were away?), deal with the ongoing pest problem in the backyard (starts with r and ends like ats... ew), and plan for our next adventure in the spare moments in between...  But a day like today thrown in the mix reminds me that I AM still on vacation... and I am enjoying the heck out of it.

Best get off to bed-- in the spirit of "All the playdates" we are hosting a few young friends for an overnight and that means the children will be up extra early.  We have a busy day of playing Pokemon Go and relaxing on the  beach ahead of us.  Wish me luck!