more vacation ramblings

Uncle Allan had been planning to come over and take Carl for a ride in his Ford Falcon!   Carl was excited, but so were Gretchen & Lew!  Thanks so much!!!  This was a real treat and really meant a lot to us!!

The next day, early in the morning, Gretchen and I headed over to the animals to watch the tree guy out in the woods.  The peacock doesn't like loud noises, so every time the tree guy was successful, the bird squawked so loudly!!!

 Look!  They named one of the baby goats Angus!  Awwww!

 Cousins!!

 with a chicken

OK.  Now things get exciting.  We were heading to camp.  Before lunch or after lunch?  We were split on opinions, but in the end decided to go after lunch.  wrong choice, I guess.  As we were making the last trip to the car with gear and coolers, Gretchen came running in screaming bloody murder.  She was holding her lower left arm.  And screaming.  Not crying like normal.  There was no swelling.  No redness.  No bruising.  But, there was screaming.  I knew something was not right because I never heard her scream like this.  So, Mom & I looked up the urgent care places we normally go to.  Yes, last summer I think we were there 4 times on our trip.  Well, they didn't have an x-ray.  So, I checked online and found one on the way to camp with an x-ray - and they took our insurance.  Cool.  We headed there.  Honestly, we expected them to say, Not broken.  Take it easy."    Instead, they said, "It looks broken to me, but I want you to see an orthopedic doctor.  There is an ortho urgent care I can send you to."    OK.  So, we headed to that office.  You need to know that RUSH was playing at SPAC that night and Lew had a ticket.  The concert was to start at 7:30 and it was now just about 5:00 as we got to the ortho office.  So, Lew, Carl & Mom left Gretchen & I at the office to meet the doctor and they headed back home for a second car so Lew could go to SPAC if we weren't done in time.  (priorities?  ha ha)

Well, that dr said "Her break is bad enough to warrant a visit from me".  He said if it had been at all shifted, she would have needed surgery right then, but it looked like we could put a cast on it and recheck it in a couple days to be sure pins were not needed to heal.  Turns out, it was not the lower arm she had been babying - by this point, her upper arm was swollen and hard.  She broke her arm at the elbow.  The dr said, "It is bad."    But, the cast guy was pleasant and she left happy with a bright pink cast on her arm.  Lew & Mom got back before she was done and we all headed out - Lew to the concert and Mom, the kids and I to camp.

"Hey Mom, didn't we say we did not want to learn how they put casts on in New York?"

 We had a good dinner at camp.   Carl's favorite, Tacos In A Bag that he learned at Cub Scout camp.

Gee, everyone slept well that night.  Oh, no pictures, but they did great in the bunk beds.  Carl is ready for us to put them together here at home.  Guess we need to get that last piece of hardware needed to assemble our set!  WooHoo - more floor space in their room!

OK.  That was 2 more days of vacation pictures and stories.   But wait.... there's more......

what I did on my summer vacation

OK.  I think I will just do this kind of randomly because if I take the time to get creative about posting, it'll be December and time to travel back to NY again before you see our summer break photos.

We got there on Saturday June 22nd early enough for some tire swing and scooter play time.

 OK.  Here is blurry scooter photo number one.

 How about trying to capture motion shot number two?  These are B.C.    before cast ... more to follow on that soon.

On Sunday, Carl couldn't wait to get to the zipline.  In NC, one of their classmates broke his wrist on his zipline so we had joked talked about how we did not want to learn how they put casts on in NYS.

 Gretchen had never tried the zipline before.  She always chickened out and even tried to do that today, but we pretty much made her try this morning.  Well, you can see from her face how that went.  Thank goodness she loved it and got to do it several times before she broke her elbow.

 This is the only picture we have of Claire with either one of the kids....

Cousins!!   Carl is as tall as Katy now.  

A quick dip in Uncle Kenny's pool to cool off.

 This is how she is the most happy.  Carl, too.  They love swimming!  maybe when we move the next time, we'll get a pool.

 He thought he was really something because I let him forego his rash guard swim shirt in NY.  Y'allsez sun just is not as intense as ours is.  Here, 5 minutes outside without it and you would see red on him!

 

After they cooled down in the pool, we headed over to Grandma's to visit with her, Aunt Kay & Ryan.  The kids enjoyed some time on the playground behind Grandma's house.

Back to Uncle Kenny's pool..... with Uncle Kenny in it!  2 happy kids - just add water!!!

 Trying to get the three of them to be serious enough for even one photo was impossible.

 I love this shot.  I am telling you, they are part fish.

 Grab towel in the local school colors!

 We bailed on the kids and took advantage of the free Grammie Babysitting after they got out of the pool.  we got to go to the Indian restaurant we like in town.  So good!  Well, the night before had been a Super Moon and I did not take any photos of it.  So, as we drove home from dinner, the moon rose up - all orange and big and calling to me.  So, we got back toMom's, grabbed the camera and tripod and headed back out to chase down the moon where I could see it with no power lines.  I wanted the Albany skyline, but it wasn't silhouetted right where we were.  So, I settled for this shot with trees for scale.  Not very good.

 But - what was cool is that the field I had Lew pull over in was filled with lightning bugs!!!  Tons of them!  Now, I know nothing about shooting fire flies, but I gave it a shot.  I wish I did know a little more about how to go about it so I could have gotten something more than this.  But, still - with a long exposure, look how many blinks you can see!!

That was only 2 days!!  Phew.  Well, you know there are more to come....   and, as always... after you read the post, click on the photos to make them bigger and crisper.  I wish they would post as crisp in the actual blog post as they really are.