Friday July 20th - Over morning coffee, Lisa recounts her trip to Nantucket. I hope my legs look as toned as Lisa's in 15 years when I'm her age. She looks like a marathon runner!
Léna listens attentively. If only she looked this sweet all the time.
That day, I drove back up to Vermont with the girls to Martha's. I threw the girls into the pool and turned out and went out the door to the Richmond Farmer's Market, to help Cedric sell Susan's new brainchild,
Vermont Switchel. What a great afternoon I had with Cedric!
After he came back to read the girls a story and relieve Uncle Chris who had been on duty!
Saturday morning: I ditched my rental car and Martha & Chris took us all to Colchester. Finally, I was able to go to dear Aunt Becky's grave. She died in early April, and I was the only one not at her funeral.
She is in an incredible cemetery, known as The Munson Cemetery, for her husband's Walter's family.
From there we headed straight to Shadow Lake, as it was a hot day. Along the way we listened to South Pacific non-stop, had a picnic in Johnson, and got Chris some bad coffee at the Dunkin' Donuts. We ran the back roads thru Craftsbury to get to the lake, and when we arrived, Ed & Sandy & Elijah were there waiting for us.
Estelle even caught a fish using Elijah's pole!
As luck would have it, it was the day of the annual Shadow Lake Boat Parade!
I don't know if there was a theme, but there were some funny floats. Below was Mardi Gras.
This guy was Neptune/Poseidon.
Sometimes we had no clue exactly what they were supposed to be.
These ladies were the Milfoil witches. Too funny. They threw out ziplock baggies of candy, for which Uncle Ed promptly dove right in to fetch. The bags had candy worms and eyeballs. This was for source of much squealing and excitement for Elijah, Estelle & Léna.
So lovely to be back at the lake - not to say we didn't love all those days in Lisa's pool!
Uncle Cedric joined!
And hey the gang's all here!
Peter & family and Wesley & family & Joan all joined. Martha & Chris were so nice they even took all my stuff up to Joan's and fetched some groceries so I could stay in the water with the girls. AND they even took my rental car spare key back to the airport that night. Now THAT'S love.
Corn, chips, hotdogs. What every 6 year old wants on their birthday. Plus, the most beautiful cake ever:
Look at that! Darlene is a professional!
She was SO EXCITED!
Look at all those happy voices singing!
She can't believe her good luck:
Dig in!
Whoah baby! It's good to be six, you get 6 dollars!
Look at all that loot.
Glam accessories! Heeled slippers, what she's always wanted!
Thanks to everyone for all your nice gifts and cards, that day, and many others who gave her birthday gifts at some point this summer!
Life is good when you're the Queen. Estelle loves having her birthday at the lake. It is so special for her. And for me!
What a great, great evening at the lake and we were so tickled that so many people were able to join us on a moment's notice. The power of family. There were 19 of us there. Wow!
It began a long stretch of many many days and nights at the lake for me over the following 2 weeks and 5 days. Stay tuned.....
