Back to Syracuse before heading home....

The kids and I returned to Syracuse, this time to hang at Mom and Ed's. I unexpectedly received a happy surprise of Chris' best friend from college being in town with his wife's family, so I was able to meet up that first night with him...in Wegmans, well because Wegmans is the taj majal of grocery stores and they had a good cafe spot inside. John brought his daughter Emma, who is Alice's age, and it did not take long for she and I to bond...I cannot resist anyone who wants to play with my hair! hahaha....Anyway, Emma is delightful and I had a great visit with John! I hadn't seen him in 13 years, since his wedding weeks after Kristen was born.




The rest of the time at Mom's was mainly chilling out and spending time together. Mom & Ed treated me to a massage at a place they go to, and that was really nice! I considered that my early birthday present. And living near the university allowed me to enjoy the sight of SU colored shopping carts at the grocery store!! Only in Syracuse...



We left Syracuse on the 6th to head partway home, to just outside Lancaster, PA, not too far from Hershey. Mom & Ed caravanned down with us. They'd gotten tickets to see this biblical show based on Genesis and creation. We stayed at this amish inn next to the theatre, where they had livestock. The show was pretty good, although waaaayy too much singing for my taste! The sets were elaborate and they used real animals in parts of it. My kids were remarkably well behaved, considering.

a couple pics of the place where we stayed...


Lemon sucking silliness!


do you think the kids have had enough of this trip? ha ha ha...

me and my mommy =)


We were very happy to get all the way home on the 7th. 2 weeks away from home is a long time!! I did not enjoy the delays getting through DC, but that is a necessary evil of traveling on 95 and since we left from near Lancaster, it did not make sense to backtrack to go down 81.

The North Country...part 4

It felt like our time together up north went by too quickly. Our last fun before heading back down to Syracuse was ice cream at Molly's, on the way to Malone. (for those of you not familiar with Malone, it is indeed the same Malone that Almanzo Wilder grew up in from the Little House books.) some final pics of our time there...

Alice & Kayley playing guitar hero


Ken mowing hay

Can I drive??? please? =) the wheels are as tall as I am, almost!

Doesn't this sunset look like a lollipop off a stick?


Parting was made a tiny bit sweeter after some ice cream....



Alice hamming it up with Stephanie


my awesome friend Lisa and I

North Country, part 3

and more pictures...

Happy Birthday Cassondra!!


us and our friend Chris


me and my friend Johanne


Matthew with our former neighbor across the road

More from the North Country

here are a few more pictures from our time up north....

Kayley, one of the Blues Sisters, hahaha...


Alice the other Blues Sister...


Kayley & Kristen


All of us...(I swear Matthew is NOT picking his nose, hahaha)Lisa, me, Kayley, Kristen & Alice..swimming at the rec park

The North Country!!! (after a stop at Mom's)

Getting back to my NY trip fun.......



That Monday the 27th (July), we stopped by Mom's for a few hours to hang out. I did some laundry (thanks Mom!) and got an oil change so that light would go away that came on in PA during the drive up. Then after lunch, we headed up north to Lisa & Ken's for a few days. They are our best friends from when we lived up there. I love being up north; it is so relaxing and beautiful, and our friends have 80 acres and a farm. It was the perfect place for us to be. All 6 of our collective kids get along really well and it is so fun. I was happy that we got to be there during Cassondra's birthday and we celebrated by all going to see the newest Harry Potter movie. One of the days, we went down into Plattsburgh and saw some of our other friends, which was awesome. As much as I am growing to love NC, part of my heart will always belong up north!

Mom and Ed

it's puzzle time...


some more pictures...including one of the funniest lip balm products I've ever seen...Lisa found some of them at a garage sale (new, of course!)

wind technology meets bovine technology

Kayley and Alice 4 wheeling...

Matthew having fun projecting and staying out of trouble

Kristen and I chillin' in our shades...

gotta love redneck beauty products...

I interrupt my neglectful posting habit to bring you this message...

I know I have to finish catching up posting about my summer trip and the rest of August, but in the meantime...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SUPER AWESOME COUSIN WILL TODAY!!!

Will, I hope you have a wonderful birthday today and hope to see ya again soon somehow!!! Come to Raleigh again soon!

XXOOXXXOO!!

Topsy turvy traffic lights

Another thing we did while in Syracuse this time was to visit one of the city's older landmarks, in the Irish section of the city, Tipperary Hill. There you will find various taverns and such, but the most interesting thing over here is the upside down traffic light. It has been there at least as far back as 1921, and is supposedly the only one in the country. This light is special because the red is on the bottom and green on top, opposite of what we all see everywhere. When the city tried replacing it with a "normal" one, city residents threw rocks and whatever they could to destroy the light until they put the special one back. Clearly it is a source of pride here. If you go on the west side of town, it is on Tompkins Street. I took a couple pictures of it:

Time in Syracuse, part one

Well, we spent the first of our 2 times in Syracuse at my dad's house over the last weekend in July. We had a fairly low key weekend, the weather being pretty nice while we were there. We went out one of the afternoons to Onondaga Lake Park in Liverpool, which is beautiful. There is a nice playground there, as well as the Salt Museum, and a few miles of paved trails for people to skate, ride bikes, walk their dogs, etc. There is also a small yacht club on the lake and we saw sailboats and stuff. Here are a few pictures:

Road trip to NY, second edition

It seemed like before I could blink and adjust to getting back from NY at the beginning of July, that it was time for our bigger road trip. Sadly, Chris doesn't get enough time off from work to be able to take 2 weeks off, so he stayed home while I packed the kids in the car and headed back up north. Since we'd gone to Chicago and Minnesota last year, I'd been looking forward to coming up north this time.

We made a flash of a stop in DC to drop off some stuff at Sara's and continued on our way. I was happy to get in and out of DC with no traffic hassles, but once I got nearer to Baltimore, we hit the first small delay on the road. The bigger ones, of course, greeted us with a devilish smirk when we got into Pennsylvania. Right outside Harrisburg, we lost about 1/2 hour due in part to a tractor trailer fire that shut down an exit and one lane. The other one was in the same unpleasant spot as when we drove up for Mom's party, in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area. I swear, 81 in Pennsylvania has had construction cones and zones since I was a child, and after 30 something years and counting, what else could they possibly need to do to that road after all these years? Ugh! We lost another 30-40 minutes there. If it weren't for the fact that I love Pittsburgh so much, I could easily stay out of PA altogether! hahaha...or at the very least, boycott the interstates there that had an 8 in them.

We crossed 4 state lines to get to Syracuse, which always makes me happy. Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York. There is some beautiful scenery along the way, and it reminds me how much I love living where there are hills, mountains and trees.




All in all, it took us 12 hours where I could have taken 11, but the drive was good overall. One of the cool things we saw on the way up was a truck towing a prop plane on a trailer bed. The wings were detached and stowed flat on the trailer under the plane. It was really cool and the kids took a few photos of it.

Party time in Syracuse, part 3!!!

Well, we gathered the next day for some breakfast and last minute visiting with some of the relatives before they headed home again. We kept it simple, just bagels,fruit, juice and coffee. Then we got some last minute pictures. Here are a few of them:

breakfast prep

all us cousins who were here

Mom and 2 of her sisters

Will and Dave...party on, boys!

Us 4 sisters