Belated birthday pictrues and that crazy water balloon silly string war the kids had

The kids are a year older now. And they are finally both riding bicycles and getting proper bruises. I'm living with my heart in my throat again, just like when they were learning to walk and climbing the stairs. They are getting better by the minute though and my anxiety will drop back to baseline any day now....

And enjoy the misc pictures from the summer, including Isabel climbing at camp and the crazy party our neighbor Shander put on. The kids spent a month making armor out of the large cardboard boxes we've accumulated in the basement.

We just got back from a mini-vacation to camp. We stopped over in the Adirondacks and visited our friends, Kerry, Claude, Hannah, Crishna, and Zack, who are heading to New Mexico. We had a delicious dinner of lasagna and garden salad, and met some new neighbors from down the street who are crazy travelers. I took pictures of Kerry's prayer flags, which I will miss dearly. I have grown so used to seeing them when we pass by. It was Zack's birthday, so we added our voices to his birthday song. Then we went up to Vermont and saw Rowley's and our friends Carrie, Mark and Lucca from Hudson. All the kids and adults played well together. It was a very nice getaway before going back to the grind of school and work for everyone.

Isabel's 10th Birthday Week: Syracuse and Hudson

Isabel kicked off her 10th birthday party at home with a sleepover with her two good friends Sophie and Olivia and then she headed off to Hudson to hang out with Luca and his dog Olive, his mom Carrie and Dad Marc. We picked her up at the end of the week to celebrate Hudson's 300th birthday with some Dutch music and a tour of the Clearwarter, a reconstruction of Henry Hudson's original boat. The picture of Isabel with the black scarf is from the restaurant where we had dinner and it reminds me of Vermeer for some reason. We got caught in the rain and had to move inside for dinner and Isabel stole my scarf to keep warm, then couldn't resist tying in around her head.
Calvin who insisted he didn't want to go to Hudson at all, had to be dragged away after watching Ghost Busters, swimming in the old tub and sleeping over. Never wants to go and then never wants to leave-- He's nothing if not predictable:)

Summer 2009

Now summer has finally come to us and we are melting. It's hot and humid. The tomatoes are coming in and a volunteer pumpkin from the Garden. Sarah got through OB/Gyn without too much grumbling. She cried at every birth whether it was in the OR with a C-section or the way nature intended. But she's pretty sure she couldn't do this for a living.

Uncle Patrick came to visit for a week and finally made it up to the cabin. It's hard to believe that in took 14 years to get him there, but hopefully he will come around more in the next while. Here is is with Sarah on top of Crane. They went to Vermont together to bury Grandma and Grandpa Rowley near Miton and saw the place where everyone used to get drunk on the weekends--Irish tea!! It's been nice reconnecting with the Rowley clan even if there's some lingering bitterness these many years later.

Margaret Rowley gave me lots of garlic which she had to pick in the mud because the rain would not let up. Patrick made himself welcome by actually cleaning up the dishes--made Anne say he was the nicest man she'd met in a long time. I couldn't agree more.

The kids have been having fun at camp--although they still want to stay home all the time, maybe just to go to POP's and buy candy. Sarah finally let them walk to the store together to buy some candy. But they had to promise not to eat it until after they have big bowl of Chili for dinner. Now, Calvin wants to eat an early dinner. Hmmm. Can't make a habit of this.

We visited our friends the Jennings --A Deep Springs Connection--up in Lowville and admired their life on a farm. They sent us home with enough Zucchini to fill the front seat of the car. I've now made two batches of zucchini bread and tried out three ways to cook zucchini--with nuts, pan fried, in soup. Andy wants to make cheese instead of fixing the windmills up there on the tug hill, one of the windiest places on earth. There's lots of farms, including some big kosher milk farms.

Heather and Sarah went for a Kayaking/Canoe trip on the Black and saw some stunning Cardinal flowers along the banks. We are hoping to get up there again for another boat trip before the weather turns. We need to get an earlier start to the day a hard thing with 8 kids.

We've also been hanging out with Hoover's, another Deep Springs connection, down Binghamton way. The kids get along marvelously, which is a huge incentive to get together. Here's Calvin and Orion on the front Porch in July. They are like puppies together.

Sarah is desperate for time to paint or take pictures. There simply hasn't been any time between clerkships and residency applications. She recently had one photo from her abandoned houses series accepted for publication in the 2009 edition of The Healing Muse. Hopefully there will be time to work on some new ones before the snow flies.