Mommy's Blog: July 2023

I write to you from the antepenultimate day of this year's trip, which has flown by faster than ever.

It seems that as the years pass and we get better at sinking into lake life, the days blend and blur and speed more and more. This year it seems we've left the red Adirondack chairs only to swim or boat or have family dinner. And you know what? I think that is ok.

Here's a picture tour of our past two weeks.

The lake besties picked up right where they left off. Set has been a favorite pastime, as has paddleboarding, pushing each other off the raft, waterskiing with Barb, making beaded anklets, and doing nails. Ivy also takes some time by herself to read every day, proving that she is in fact my daughter.

We've not had the Morehouse boat in the water yet this year (delayed by crummy June weather, then Randy sick with a kidney stone) so the canoe has been our main conveyance for sunsets.

July 4... and here are the girls, up early and crowded into the smallest kitchen on the point to prepare for yet another lemonade stand. We've been joking that they'll still be doing this when their 21 and home from college... and honestly I think they might. These sweet things, so grown and yet so excited about the $9 in profit they each earned.

The parade was well attended and adorable as always. Love this place.

We were happy to overlap our stay with our friends Sarah and Joe. Several enjoyable fires were had in the evenings...

Words cannot express my gratitude to our wonderful neighbor for including our boat-free kids for waterskiing and swimming in the deep end. Ivy's face here says it all.

The one time we saw all three triplets in one place. They are all doing well and it was a treat to talk to them about their three extremely disparate first-year-of-college experiences. Sarah's opinion of parties is that they are sweaty and have too many people jumping and she doesn't see why people like them; she's thriving as a math major and will be a TA next year. Hannah regaled us with tales of how often they cops were called to parties she was at :) and David loves being by the ocean and will be visiting Nantucket with a college friend later this summer. I look at their faces and see those same three babies we welcomed home from the hospital 18 years ago. Haven't changed a bit... Counting my lucky stars that I've gotten to be a part of their whole amazing lives so far.

We had the pleasure of having Anna join us at the lake for the first week. I can't believe its been 3 years since we were together. She's changed not at all, and it was wonderful to soak up lake life with her.

A beautiful evening (with very slow food service) at the Aurora Brewing Company.

And a visit to Quarry Ridge winery-- we're so fancy!

Docks and dogs and stars...

No visit to Aurora is complete without a stop at the increasingly expensive McKenzie-Childs.

Or dinner on Claire's magical front porch. We had the chance to catch up with Lauren and Matt who are happy and doing well in Syracuse. Lauren continues her often-confidential work with computer applications in military contracting, and is one class away from her Masters. Matt has a new job in epidemiology which he is thrilled about.

Notable exception to "not leaving the red chairs"- a whirlwind trip to join chorus friends in NYC for Wicked, then a stop to see Jen on our way home. Worth every minute of the "three hours longer than expected thanks to rain and accidents" bus ride. The show was terrific, and our seats were amazing (way better than I usually have for musicals-- did you know the actors have faces??) Due to our late arrival in the city we ended up changing for dinner and the show in Mika's car, before it got taken for valet parking, about a foot from the sign you see below. Where people were taking selfies. As the valet guys put things on the windshield. It was... something. :)

Out for Sake after the show. I like sake more than I thought I did, and had the best Udon noodles of my life so far.

Brunch and a lovely coffee shop and the view from Staten Island on our way west.

Jen took us on tour of Mount Hope cemetary and then out to dinner at the best Chinese restaurant I've ever eaten at and it was wonderful as always to be in her company.

Rochester: surprisingly pretty.

Nat drove Anna to the Rochester airport and then took me back to the Point. Just in time to enjoy the raft, which he and Joe and Geoff installed this year. The cove isn't the same without the raft.

The kids are learning to do flips.

Have I mentioned that Pumpkin loves the cottage? We'd debated the wisdom of bringing two cats and nearly left her home with our boarder but thought she'd be too lonely. So glad we brought the little purr machine.

Winter has been super chill and well behaved this year, as any good almost-6-year-old lady should.

Evening at Long Point with geese...

Lake hair don't care (because they ROCK it)

Annual trip to Taughanock and the goat farm! These kids keep getting bigger. I hope we are still doing this trip together, all of them squished together in our van, when they're in their twenties. I adore these young people.