We had a GREAT visit with our son, his beautiful wife and our newest grandson, Weston.


I did figure my primary job was to hold that little guy, but Gary felt that he could be a little more useful. And useful he was, transforming an ordinary closet

into a Super Closet!

Weston, of course, was amazing! At the tender age of 6 weeks, he is just beginning to smile and I even caught him chuckle. I know it was a chuckle. Don’t look so sceptical! He even had several nights in a row of sleeping 6+ hours, so while I’m sure there will be other nights of interrupted sleep, it was a very hopeful sign of better things to come. We were certainly smitten by him

and I’m sure you can see why!

It was so hard to say good-bye to these guys – one of the very hardest parts of our life on the road!

(There are more Weston pictures HERE – bet you’re surprised about that!)

So, Irene.
With all the news coverage of this storm, we decided to leave Lancaster a day early in an effort to beat the hurricane up the coast. Not that we could actually do anything about whatever the weather would bring, but at least we could “tip” the house a little to avoid any major leaking from the driving rain. (Let’s face it, we live in a tin can with two gaping holes in the side that are filled with moving parts. The chance of rain coming in in a bad storm is pretty high.) The rain arrived right on schedule, but I’m happy to report that aside from a good hard rain most of Sunday with a couple spells of some gusty wind, Irene has been mostly a non-event up here. Oh, there have been a few power outages due to trees down, and the nearby rivers are running wild, but I think basically the area is breathing a huge sigh of relief. We made it up to the cabin (after checking that Lizzie was is good shape) with only one detour to find that we were (as expected) without power. We pulled out the kerosene lantern, lit a couple of candles, built a nice cozy fire, and enjoyed the rain on the roof.

Pretty romantic, don’t you think?
OK, so going out in the rain to the outhouse wasn’t all that fun, but in the overall scheme of things, it was a good day all around!

Hope you were safe with all this crazy weather too!

P.S. Power came back on before dark, but those candles were pretty nice…..

Saturday we took one last (well, until the end of August) drive up to Bradford, VT, for a day at the Cabin with ALL of my siblings and their spouses! What a treat! We left early Saturday so we could stop at the Fairlee Diner in (you guessed it) Fairlee, VT (about 8 miles south of Bradford).

Although this lacks the classic “Diner Car” look on the outside, it is Diner All The Way on the inside-

(That’s real Vermont Maple Syrup in that little container 🙂 )
Breakfast was a real treat – blueberry pancakes for Gary and a wonderful cheddar/spinach omelet for me. Yum. Yum. Yum.

We were set until dinner!
I couldn’t resist just one shot of the row of counter-sitters – This was one hoppin’ place on a Saturday morning!

But, of course, the main event of the day was not Breakfast, it was an afternoon with my siblings and their spouses. Although the four of us siblings have been pretty regular in getting together each year (it’s pretty easy during Girls’ Week since Dewey lives about an hour away and we get together to talk over any “Cabin business”), to have us all there with our husbands and wife is a whole other story. I can’t tell you we accomplished great things or solved any of the world’s problems, but we did spend lots of time catching up with each other, comparing memories (it’s really amazing how the same event is remembered differently by each of us!), and looking forward to what is ahead for each of our families. We shared a delicious meal, enjoyed some late afternoon sunshine (after 3 days of rain so that was real treat), and thoroughly enjoyed each other! Here we are –

Not a bad looking group for a bunch of “Seniors”, if I don’t say so myself!
We have been so blessed to have this cabin property in our family (thanks to my grandparents!) –

but oh, even that blessing pales in comparison to the blessing of being part of this family!
Love. You. Guys.