What A Great Place

While being away from home with the kids isn't exactly a break for me, it was hard to feel stressed waking up to this view every morning:

The kids were all in love with the house, from just hanging around there and watching TV or playing in the "secret living room", to climbing the stairs down and back to the water (LittleL.G. even did it solo a few times when she needed something from the house), to enjoying being on the lake- fishing, kayaking, hunting for crayfish, and occasionally swimming (possibly the result of slipping or falling in). Even the one thing MiniM.E. feared the most after a dusky walk up the first night, spiders, became one of our favorite things to check out.

While spending all day every day at the lake house might have been enough, we also took a hike to nearby Carpenter's Falls. The hike to see the falls was treacherous enough that only MiniM.E., Daddy and Grandpa ventured to the bottom. 

While we waited for them, we found a great playground downtown. 

A trip to the area wouldn't have been complete without a meal at Hunter's diner and another nearby playground... 

And we couldn't leave without seeing some of Bob's friends and spending time at their house and pool. 

Everyone was sad to leave today as we packed up our stuff and headed out. We took a quick detour in downtown Skaneateles to stop at a delicious bakery and take a walk and then it was back home to unpack, wind down and get ready for the school year!

Rochester Museum of Play

Today looked like the worst weather day of the week and the girls have been looking forward to the Rochester Museum of Play since we got in the car to drive home two years ago!

Our day started off with a visit to the Mini Wegmans, which was a huge hit for everyone, even Mr.T.

 Next it was off to explore all the interactive exhibits. SlimJim's favorite was the airplane, Mr.T. explored a baby and toddler crawling area, and LittleL.G. had fun shingling a house and chasing Mr.T.

 

MiniM.E., because she was tired from staying up late, didn't remember all the "little kid" stuff from last time and wasn't really into being at the museum before we stopped to take a lunch break. She had been talking about the Berenstain Bears exhibit, remembering how much she loved it a few years ago, but then when we finally made it there, she was surprised at how many of her favorite activities didn't seem quite as fun as a seven year old.

Despite many of the exhibits being for younger kids, she finally got into the spirit of helping out her siblings, and we also did a really fun detective challenge. When we finally got to the arcade section, she had a blast playing arcade games. Even Daddy and I played!

We stayed all day, until we got kicked out when the museum closed, and everyone was disappointed to leave, so they must have all had a great time! 

Skaneateles Lake

Yesterday we packed up and left home for a week at Skaneateles Lake with Meamaw and Grandpa. Hilariously, we had so much stuff to bring for a week away with four kids (especially a toddler and a baby) that we had to caravan in two cars. Auntie Jen bought walkie talkies for the girls a while back and it was so fun to walkie talkie between cars. The other highlight of the trip? Clearly stopping at a Cumberland Farms for lunch.

We had to stop for groceries on the way and by the time we got there and got settled in there wasn't much time for anything but unpacking and checking out the house. 

Today we hung around the gorgeous house and spent time going back and forth down the 79 steps to the water. The girls were thrilled with a mini waterfall that's at our property. I'm happy for everyone because the water is surprisingly warm and there are kayaks and stand up paddle boards for us to use! I took MiniM.E. and out for a kayak ride and tried the stand up paddle board, which was a blast. LittleL.G. and SlimJim hitched some kayak rides with us too. The girls were more excited about fishing than anything else, so they were down at the dock a few times today, fishing with Grandpa.

A great start to a great week!

Summer is Winding Down

With six weeks of swim lessons and four kids to keep from drowning this summer seemed to fly by faster than any other. It's hard to believe it's the end of August and in just a week we will be starting school and soon the leaves will be changing and we'll be barrelling into the "holiday season" starting with the girls' birthdays in October!

One thing we never had a chance to do this summer since the kids have been sleeping later was get to the racetrack to watch the horses train in the morning. Nothing like waiting until the second to last day to get it done! The girls were really excited to go, since it had been so long since we'd been. I especially thought SlimJim would love it, since he gets really excited to see any animals up close.

It was exciting for a couple minutes, but I think the girls were more excited to have Dunkin Donuts and surprisingly SlimJim wasn't very into it. Maybe the horses were too big that close? It was still a beautiful morning and a great way to spend the first morning of September and our last "summer morning" at home.