Our Trip to the NE

We had a wonderful road trip with a fun stop in Maryland and on up to the Boston area for Grace's Baptism.

First we visited with Uncle Adam and Aunt Maricel and Cousin Des. They were wonderful hosts with our midnight arrival and long morning visit. The cousins had so much fun! Well, Michael slept a bit after driving for about 5 hours of the 8+ hour drive while Mom and Kathryn hung out a bit.

We got to see their home and neighborhood (very cool and close to DC), visit with Mari's Dad, look at paint colors and just relax.


We headed North around nap time/lunch time. This would be our first time driving the East Coast like this. Mom took a picture of Michael (green shirt) and Kathryn walking into a Rest Stop in Delaware. We loved the rest stops. They had gas and food and clean bathrooms!!!

On the way to the Boston area we went right by NYC and with the light reflecting just right, we were able to see the Statue of Liberty. Very COOL.

With Jim out of town, we just drove by Manhattan and waved.

Mari and Adam told us to make sure that we took the "upper" level of the George Washington bridge. We only hit a little bumper to bumper traffic there and in the first part of Conn.










Once we got to the Menzie's town we were home free!





We helped get things ready for visitors the first day and on Thursday we were able to see some of the wonderful Boston sites like the North Church, USS Constitution, and Bunker Hill.








In the afternoon the girls had a fun Spa Birthday party with Grandma Ilene running the show.




































While the girls played the boys went fishing. They caught, they skinned and all had fun.













































On Saturday evening we all went to the baptism for Grace. It was wonderful!


The next morning Michael, Kathryn and Mom headed back to Lexington for the week ahead. The drive back took us more west through beautiful countrysides in NY, CONN, NJ, etc. Michael got tons of drive time in just in time to be well ready for his drivers test the next week. It was really helpful, too!

After the Amazing Rainstorm We. . .

Went to Boyd's Orchard and picked huge Blackberries. Oh are they good!!! Fresh, juicy, local, blackberries. Taste 'em?!!

In the pictures: Michael is the big guy :), Kathryn is in the cute rain boots, and our friend Ales is in the cool green shirt.

Kathryn and Peanut Butter

Kathryn was given full reign to make peanut butter crackers at the hotel during our break in Louisville. Things got crazy in mere seconds!

We had a swim meet in Louisville, KY which is not very far from us, over the past 3 days. The first day we were stormed out with lightning and thunder, rain in the morning on Friday and good weather to finish through Saturday.
I wanted to share the pictures I took because the venue is really interesting.
The swim meet was at Lakeside Pool. It's a neighborhood private pool made in a quarry. The limestone sides were beautiful. The quarry is divided up into sections and pools. I took most of the pictures from the far end. We sat with our team against the high limestone rock wall at that end on grass. There is a walkway all of the way around the water. You can see that there is a 25yd warm up pool right in front of us and then the long course (50M) pool just beyond that where the competition was.
But on the left you can see basically roped off open water. Across the way are some pavilions and buildings housing restrooms, a concession stand, 2 more pools with a high dive and more sitting areas. The pictures with Kathryn by the water were taken right in front of where we were sitting at the side of the warm up pool. You can see that there is about a 6 foot wall of limestone before you even get to the water on our side.

It was one of the most beautiful and interesting swim meets we've been to.

4th of July Weekend Fun

We love the 4th of July with all of it's celebrations with friends and family. We had great reports from our grown kids and had fun at home as well. With Mark with us, we BBQed, swam, ate at our friends' the Kramer's home, and played with fireworks. We worked and played all weekend :)