July 16th, 2013
After our Adirondack adventure we said goodbye to Paul at the Syracuse airport (he’d join us in a couple weeks back in Pittsburgh) and the kids and I spent a week or so at my parent’s house. Loving the GREEN!
Home
The garden
The sugar shack. Ok, so technically this didn’t exist when I was a kid. We would boil the sap on the wood stove in the house. My father since built this for my mom as a Christmas present….or was it birthday? Either way, pretty sweet….in every sense of the word
A glimpse inside the sugar shack. Maybe one of these springs we could be home to see it live in action.
The sawmill
The Ford that keeps on tickin.’ This thing is as old as I am.
A nest in the orchard. Pears, blueberries, grapes….they grow it all!
posted by arr
June 27th, 2013
Camping and fishing was how most vacations were spent with my family as a kid. And for as long as I could remember we spent the majority of them at Lake Eaton in the Adirondacks. Contrary to popular belief, as I’ve unfortunately learned first-hand after moving away from home, the state of New York is not all pavement, people and skyscrapers. I grew up in a VERY rural area among farmlands and dairy cows (and as I type this on the porch of my childhood home a mama cow is mooing in agony across the field as she gives birth. I’m so not even kidding). New York City might as well be on another planet. And about 2 hours north of here lies a publicly protected park…just a tad piece of land…a modest portion of woods, lakes and mountains…about, well let’s see….6 MILLION acres or so. Surprise! That’s our Adirondacks.
The Adirondack Park is the largest park and the largest state-level protected area in the contiguous United States, as well as the largest National Historic Landmark. It covers some 6.1 million acres – a land area roughly the size of Vermont and bigger than the National Parks of Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Glacier, and Great Smoky Mountains combined. Lake Eaton is a small little lake pretty much dead center in the Park.
For the past couple years as mine and my sibling’s families grew, we had been talking about coordinating a trip to ‘ol Lake Eaton with our parents. It had been a good 10 years since I’d been in the park and I was eager to get my boys there – a full-circle kinda desire. So this was the big year we all made it happen. My parents and all of my siblings except for one came with their spouses, kids and significant other, as well as a couple good friends of the family. We all had a great time…the kids especially. Lillian even got to celebrate her 7th birthday there! I think I speak for us all in saying that we really hope to do it again someday.
Paul taking the kids for a spin in the canoe on Lake Eaton
Lily, Silas and Sawyer
Ivan with his grandma
Grandkids going fishing with Papa. If you listen closely you can hear Silas’ squeals, I’m sure.
Katie and boyfriend Richard doing their fishing from shore
Back to camp with no fish. Not even a bite! 🙁
Meanwhile, grandma is still hogging Ivan all to herself
Cute Jeremy taking in all the action
And then the action comes to him. Uh oh. This could end in tears.
Whew.
Dinner time with cousins!
And now it’s time for Jeremy to get re-aquainted with his other Tucson cousin. Papa is pleased. Ivan isn’t quite sure yet.
Birthday party with ALL THE COUSINS! From left to right: Ivan, Silas, Jacob, Carley, Lily, Sawyer and Jeremy.
Birthday girl
Grandma making the birthday cake and cupcakes over the campfire
Success!
Gettin’ wild with dad in the wild
The girls
A couple of the boys
Paul and I taking the kids for yet another spin in the canoe
Sawyer and Ivan wishing they’d climbed aboard
Beautiful Lily and her daddy
Our tent site and Hazel
“Happy Birthday to youuuuuu…”
Make a wish!
Last wish. Lily making certain it’s a good one.
The whole crew.
My own wish come true. I love being here with family in the gorgeous Adirondacks.
posted by arr
June 26th, 2013
Conveniently, our dear friends JR and Emily live on the route between Paul’s parents and mine so we get to see them every time we come east. And even more conveniently, they too have two little ones. Two little boys to boot! Emily is pregnant with #3 though, so perhaps there’ll soon be a little miss in the mix to keep the peace.
Here’s all 4 boys tearin’ it up in the front yard:
Cruisin’ Jackson with Sidekick Silas
Squealing Ivan
Daredevil Quentin
Ivan gaining speed with a little help from Dad
Innocent or guilty? You be the judge of these cute little faces
posted by arr
June 17th, 2013
To break up the 3000 miles of highway a little bit we opted for a quick detour into Rocky Mountain National Park. Having driven through the night to get there, we couldn’t believe our luck at finding a quiet, comfortable campsite without house-sized RVs obstructing our view of the mountains. This trip was starting off well!
Surrounded by mountain beauty that we were anxious to get into ASAP, we struggled a bit with how to spend our 1 full day in the park. This was our first time in RMNP with the kids. Pre-kids we would have likely conjured up some insane near-vertical hike over our morning coffee that would have most definitely involved peak bagging or high elevation bouldering – a full day affair for certain, with us rolling into our sleeping bags well after dark. With Silas too big to be carried in a pack now however we …for the first time… felt a bit limited.
We left the crashpads at home (figuring we could bum one off our Pittsburgh peeps should we boulder while east). Plus Paul is currently taking a few weeks off from climbing to let a tweaked finger rest up. So the bouldering option wasn’t very desirable.
We could try a big hike and if Silas got tired Paul could shoulder him. But hearing Silas ask to get carried just walking around the rolling hills of the campsite quickly instilled doubt with that option. Silas is a pretty darn good little hiker if I might say so myself. But with the elevation, Paul would probably be carrying him for the entire hike….decreasing the fun factor just a tad.
We could always do a little short 1 mile stroll…to a small lake or something. Yeah. I suppose we could. But that’s…well…just not our style. 😉
So after much deliberation, we decided upon this: We’d find a lesser-traveled mountain road that we could run pushing both kids in the double B.O.B stroller. Again, we completely lucked out. The Old Fall River Road that winds its way up to the Alpine Visitor Center was still closed for the season, meaning a wide dirt road, uphill (but still run-able) with steep switchbacks, incredible vistas, no cars and no people!!! Excellent choice.
Hello mountains
posted by arr
June 17th, 2013
As I write this I am bouncing along on the back seat of the van, cruising down the interstate with Ivan chattering to his stuffed bear next to me. Paul is at the wheel be-boppin’ to tunes and Silas is reading books to Franklin the turtle, while his Mexican Free-Tailed Bat enjoys the scenery from his roost on the window blind. Similar to last summer’s big trip we’re headed east again. And as the miles tick by each of us is daydreaming of our own easternly to-do’s: waking up in a tent next to a lush wooded Adirondack lake, roasting marshmallows and running wild with cousins, getting cuddles and smooches and big squeezies from grandparents, aunts and uncles, and sucking in that wonderfully humid air on shaded sidewalk runs through the city of Pittsburgh…just to name a few. We’ll be away from home for an entire month! (well the kids and I that is. Paul will fly back to Tucson for the mid portion of the trip to work). Our planned route will take us first to Colorado to spend a couple days in Rocky Mountain National Park, then straight east on interstate 80 to Pennsylvania. We’ll spend a day or so in Pittsburgh and then head north, stopping at Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania. Then further north to Marathon, New York. Then even FURTHER north to Lake Eaton in the Adirondacks!
Ivan getting settled in for a loooong drive
Silas’ Mexican Free-Tailed Bat doing the same
Bye bye desert
posted by arr
June 10th, 2013
It all started with Silas’ fascination with dams. Yes, dams. As mentioned here, last winter Silas took an earnest interest in all the old dams at Hueco. As a result, our entire family became a lot more educated on dams – their purpose(s), how they were built, their role in spinning turbines to generate electricity, the whole nine yards. He was into it so we jumped on it, seizing our own little educational moments with him while his interest was still so fresh and genuine. Then one evening at the Hueco campsite Silas saw an owl while peeing. And later that evening while propped up on his pillow in the upstairs of the van, peering out into the dark night he announced “Mama, I’m curious about those owls. Where are their nests? Where do they sleep?” And then it was off to the library to learn all about owls. Next was bees. This subject was actually brought to light by me. This spring while outside planning the location of our herb garden a swarm of bees on the move buzzed right through the courtyard over my head. I high-tailed into the house and told Silas all about it when he woke up from his nap. Again he was fascinated, so again we headed to the educational section in the library and checked out all the books about bees.
Which brings us to our latest craze: bats. Our dear friend Linda has recently returned from an exciting multi-month adventure down in South America and is now making Tucson her home. While helping her find an apartment we happened to pick up the Tucson Weekly which contained the “Summer Survival Guide” – all the Tucson happenings this summer. As we were thumbing through the kids and family section we noticed ALL KINDS of events related to bats. Most notably, the Thursday night Bat Bridge Discovery where thousands of Mexican Free-Tailed Bats take flight at sunset from under the bridges in the dry riverbeds, and docents from the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum are there to answer questions and offer info. Friends had always told us about this event and we just never did it for one reason or another. Well, now we had a reason. The best reason yet: Silas. Sooooo, to the library!!!
After reading the library’s entire 7 children’s educational books on bats at least 10 times over each, discussing all the info over many a meal, making Silas his own little Mexican-Free-Tailed bat friend out of paper and a clothes pin, and deciding that bats might very well be Silas’ favorite animal ever (probably because they are Linda’s favorite, I’m sure), we were armed and ready to finally witness the Tucson bridge bats.
And witness them we did. Standing down in the wash with the bats pouring over our heads out into the desert sunset was perhaps THE most incredible wildlife viewing this family has ever seen.
We usually try to add some sort of games, arts or crafts to our education moments. This is Silas’ Mexican-Free-Tailed Bat craft project. This little guy has been “roosting” in the most interesting places around the house all week.
The bridge bats taking flight
A family in awe
posted by arr
