Tag: Vacation

Summer’s Nearly Here!

Wow – time is still going Warp Speed. Tomorrow is the last day for students. Friday’s the last day for teachers. judiang is flying in Friday and we’re going to spend a week at the Lake. elsaf will be joining us for part of it too. YAY! Friends together again!

This weekend is the Troy Strawberry Festival. Currently the weather is looking… wet. But 50% chance does mean it might not rain just as likely as it might… Here’s hoping!

I think I’ve mentioned this on Twitter already, but I have made the plunge into Crazy Cat Lady-hood. I purchased a Pet Stroller for the kitties. I’m in the acclimatizing process now – letting them sit in it, trying the hood up & zipped. No movement yet. Once my vacation week with the girls is done, my *plan* is to go for walks early each morning with the kitties. My thinking is this: (a) It’ll be cooler in the morning and (b) hopefully not as many people can gawp at the Crazy Cat Lady.

I’ll also be re-upping to WeightWatchers once the vacation is over and start attending the Friday morning meetings. It does work for me (albeit slowly) and I’ve not been all that good at keeping to the program without the meetings. Though I’ll miss the ladies from work.

Here’s hoping the pool at mom & dad’s association will be reopening this summer. Last I heard from mom, the patio furniture wasn’t out yet, but there did seem to be people working on the water, at least. Cross fingers! The ActiveLink that I have from WeightWatchers is water-proof.

Oh, mom and I have started riding bikes this summer. We had a 7 mile ride on Saturday followed by another 4.5 mile ride on Monday. Wonder if I can talk mom into another run tomorrow evening? Want my butt to get acclimatized (just like my cats).

Anyhoo, hope that this summer (or winter, for you antipodeans) is a great one for all of you! If the two classes that I’m taking this summer don’t kill me, I’ll probably be stronger for it! 🙂

So, Trina, how’s summer break treating you?

Nearly done with my first full week of summer break (after a nearly full week off last week). And I will say this – it’s sooooooooooooooo nice not working for a change. 🙂

So, what all have I been doing thus far?

  • Very slowly, I’m getting my closets cleaned out. The bedroom ones are pretty much done, it’s the ones in the library and den that are taking awhile. Mostly because I hate to throw things away. But I will do it, by gum!

  • I was helping my mom’s cousin Lyn (a shut-in) with her electronics. She had several different things hooked to her LCD TV and had so many remotes she didn’t know what to use to do what. So I first got her connections set up properly, then recommended a Harmony remote from Logitech. She liked the idea, so mom & I picked one up for her and then I installed the software on mom’s laptop, but had to take it to Panera Bread in order to finish setting up the remote (requires an Internet connection, which Lyn doesn’t have).

  • I went to the Strawberry Festival on Sunday. I got two dozen strawberry donuts (some for me & dad, some for mom & Lyn), picked up BBQ chicken dinners for all of us, had a strawberry-lemon shake up, and tried a strawberry burrito. I wasn’t at the festival long – I usually just go for the food.

  • When I dropped off lunch from the Festival to mom & Lyn, I finished working on the Harmony remote (which required another visit to Panera – two, actually). I got everything working – the stupid LCD TV takes 7 seconds to warm up and it was affecting how the remote changed inputs.

  • I finished working on the B-WISER photo gallery.

  • I started working on a new Sylvester McCoy Image and Sound Archive using Coppermine as the backbone.

  • FINALLY cleaned my tub and got my kitchen cleaned up after leaving things lie for too long.

  • Decided to give The Biggest Loser/BistroMD service a try for a week. The frozen foodstuff arrived today, so I’ll start tomorrow. (As monocot mentioned in her blog, the food comes packed with dry ice, so I took some ’round to dad and we played with it. Heh.)

  • Went for a workshop on using FirstClass to build teacher webpages. I was quite pleased with the results. The pages generated are standards compliant! Yay! And it’s easy to use since our staff are already used to FirstClass.

Tomorrow I’m going in to work in order to update a few web pages and work on the student handbook for the HS. It’s the closest I’ll come to working all summer. Heh.

Spring Break ’08!

Although I had today off (being Good Friday and all that jazz) I didn’t feel like I’d started Spring Break until just a few minutes ago when I finally finished the third Data Analysis Exercise for my stats class. But it’s turned in, my proposal for my statistics final project is turned in (though originally I turned in a StarOffice file instead of Word document – whoops!) and I can now think a bit more about Spring Breaking!

I did sleep in today (well, til 8am – went to bed at the usual time last night since I was so tired) and talked dad in to buying Chinese Buffet for my lunch today. We also had a short stop at Walmart after lunch. But for the most part I’ve been in my library working on statistics. I’d been putting it off to get teaching stuff done last week and this week. The third quarter ended yesterday, so I’ve been trying to get caught up on grading. However, I have all of the quarter exams to grade and several retests for chemistry to grade (I had an Amnesty Day since some of the test scores this quarter were pretty low on average – I blame all the days off due to weather – or maybe lousy teaching, heh). Hopefully I’ll actually do them rather than let them sit there until Sunday night of next week. Heh. (One of my seniors predicted that and I suspect he’ll be right, procrastinator that I am.)

Anyway, back to statistics. I actually like doing the Data Analysis Exercises – number crunching has always been good to me. Indeed, I understand the exercises more than I understand the reading assignments. Well, at least I can use the tools to do the exercises and maybe understand what the numbers mean once they’re crunched. StarOffice Calc has been a godsend to me (as MS Exel would have been had I had it installed on any of my computers, which I don’t – ha!) but so have some nice websites which do statistical calculations which Calc can’t do. OpenEpi has been wonderful for ANOVA and t-test results. And today I found an Effect Size Calculator to calculate Cohen’s d. Joy joy. 🙂

I usually like to visit judiang during Spring Break since it always falls close to her birthday, but with my college work (much of which needs completed this next week) calling to me, I’m having to bow out of the visit. 🙁 Judi’s making me feel guilty, which she doesn’t need to since I already feel guilty. But all that guilt will probably result in a nice present for her, so she wins in the long run. Heh. Anyhoo, I’m sure she and elsaf will have a lovely time, if Elsa’s able to make it up there.

Tomorrow morning I’ll use one of my 15-day City of Heroin cards I got for Christmas to start up the addiction again. My only concern is that the game will completely sap my break such that I don’t get my college stuff done. I shall try to be strong. However, I’m itching so much to play again that I’ve got to do it. 🙂 I’ve already decided that the first toon I play will be my archer on the Freedom server – Pointed Stick. 🙂 Those 15 days have to last me until the end of the semester (April 28th or so) when I use the 30-day retail code for World of Warcrack. Ah, I’ve missed my little Elf and Dwarf hunters. (Not hunters of elves and dwarves, but hunters who are elven and dwarven.)

If I can tear myself away from CoH long enough tomorrow, I also intend to go to Fairborn for my Indian Fud/DWM run. Should be a nice day, even if the weather isn’t nice. (Of course, if the weather is really crappy, I’ll go to Fairborn another day of Spring Break.) Other plans for the break include FINALLY cleaning out closets and getting stuff together to take to auction, cleaning the house completely, reading, doing more college work, hanging out with the kitties, and whatever else I happen to think of doing. 🙂 Should be fun!

Cornhole – the game

In Ohio (and probably other places), Cornhole is a popular game to play at family gatherings and other places. It’s sort of like a cross between a bean-bag toss and shuffleboard. And today, my folks and I went to my Uncle Doug & Aunt Charlene’s for Charlene’s birthday gathering where mom & I got to play Cornhole for the first time.

What we discovered is that neither of us are good Cornhole players. The young ladies we were playing against were 10+ points ahead of us when it was time to sing Happy Birthday to Charlene and thankfully the game was forgotten. It was kind of fun to play, but considering I’ve never seen a game set for sale for under $75, I don’t think I’ll be buying one any time soon.

In other news, I’m spending my final days of summer vacation here at the Lake with my parentals. I left work on Friday at lunchtime and picked up Subway on my way to the Lake. (I drove dad’s truck, not cuz my car is broke again, but because dad wanted his hip boots. Dad’s comment when I arrived was “Oh! It’s my favorite… truck!”) The weather here is brilliant and we’ve been having a very nice time. And mom and I have been playing gin rummy (and I keep winning, to her annoyance).

On Monday, it’s the teacher’s first day at work (though I’ve been working all through the summer). And Wednesday is the first day for students. So it’s nice to be here at the Lake and relaxing on my final summer days. 🙂

We’re going to the Zoo Zoo Zoo!

Yesterday morning, I got up at 6:30 and then got judiang up at 7am. We were on the road by 7:30 am. Pretty good for a couple of girls on vacation at the Lake!

We had breakfast at a Bob Evans in Lima and managed to get to the Toledo Zoo by 10am (or so). The zoo opens then, so we were able to park close to the gate, which was nice. And we headed into the gift shop/bakery to wait for elsaf‘s arrival. Turns out she was waiting outside to meet us and we were waiting inside. Thank goodness for cell phones. Heh.

We had a pleasant time wandering around the zoo and looking at the critters. One of the first things we saw were the polar bears. We only got to see one mama & son playing, but that was enough to satisfy our polar bear curiosity.

We had lunch at the Carnivore Cafe – cheeseburgers all around. Judi didn’t get us a seat in the cages, but quite a few folks ate in the cages where the various carnivores were housed until 1992 when Toledo reformatted their zoo to the current design which gives the carnivores lots of space to roam.

We spent almost 7 hours at the zoo, wandering around, sitting when tired, eating when hungry. It was quite pleasant. They had a special on dragons (like the komodo dragon) and another special on butterflies (which cost $2, but got you up close & personal to butterflies). I’ll be posting a few little vids on YouTube from the zoo one of these days.

Before we left the zoo, we purchased some cute meerkat stuffed toys and I got a tagua nut carving of a heffalump (which looks like ivory, but is a nut).

Then Elsa followed my car to Packo’s at the Park, a second Tony Packo’s restaurant that’s pretty close to the zoo. We all had the traditional Tony Packo’s hot dog, and I had their chili mac as well. It was all good (but the famous pickles are far too salty for me). And best of all, when we gave Elsa her birthday present, the waitress asked whose birthday it was. We pointed to Elsa, so she gave her a $10 discount on her bill. Woot!

It turns out Elsa enjoyed the silk embroidered picture that we gave her. Which is good, cuz otherwise we were going to take it back and share it between the two of us. 😉 I think it would look good in my house! So happy pre-Birthday, Elsa!

And now some zoopix!

Giraffes & wildebeests and more
Giraffes & wildebeests and more
Little polar bear
Little polar bear
Bald eagle recovering from injuries
Bald eagle recovering from injuries
Birdies at my feet
Birdies at my feet
Hippo on the lookout
Hippo on the lookout
Heffalumps (but no woozles)
Heffalumps (but no woozles)
Why are rhinos grumpy? Smelling rhino butts while sleeping...
Why are rhinos grumpy? Smelling rhino butts while sleeping…
Scratch my meerkat belly!
Scratch my meerkat belly!
Fishy!
Fishy!
Turtles having sex?
Turtles having sex?
Pretty butterfly
Pretty butterfly
Butterfly from underneath
Butterfly from underneath
Elsa & Judi at the Toledo Zoo
Elsa & Judi at the Toledo Zoo
Gorillas in the midst
Gorillas in the midst
Elsa receives her birthday present early
Elsa receives her birthday present early
Packo's at the Park
Packo’s at the Park


Things I learned…

While vacationing with hergrace, elsaf and judiang, I discovered some interesting things, which I shall endeavor to share with you folks.

  • Judi, Elsa and I can’t name all the state capitals to save our lives.

  • Steph’s in-laws are two of the most hospitable people you’re ever likely to meet.

  • Barns are painted red cuz the paint is inexpensive (confirmed with papa).

  • The wait for the Holland tunnel is longer than actually traveling through it.

  • Street lights in NYC are relatively coordinated with each other.

  • Grafton, VT is where the best Vermont Cheddar is made.

  • Steph’s boys are growing up so fast! I mean, the eldest has his learners permit now! Eeeep!

  • Even with a room full of geeks, getting regular DVD players to play non-regular DVDs is pretty damned difficult.

  • GPS units don’t know where you’re going if you don’t know either.

  • Garmin, the GPS manufacturer, has stock in the Holland Tunnel. (Well, that’s our best guess at its continual behavior to try and send us through it both times.)

  • You *can* go from Vermont to Philly without going through New York City.

  • Trina is still obsessing about driving through the Holland Tunnel and NYC. (Sheesh woman, GET OVER IT!)

  • The Vermont Country Store requires hours of looking in order to see (and taste) it all. I think I need another trip to VT.

  • Ben & Jerry’s is no longer owned by Ben & Jerry.

  • How much wood a woodchuck would chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

  • There are still glassblowers around using the same equipment that was used centuries ago.

  • Vermont has Deer Crossing, Moose Crossing, Bear Crossing, and Truck Crossing signs. (I always wondered what happened when trucks went wild!)

  • When the airport security check your luggage, they pack it back up even better than it was when you packed it.

  • Judi liked the last ep of Doctor who least of the four of us. That surprised me to no end.

  • I have some of the bestest friends in the world. (Well, I knew this before the trip, but it’s always great to confirm it.)

  • As lovely as Vermont is, There’s No Place Like Home. 🙂


Also, in the “It’s A Small World After All” stakes: Today at church, I found out one of the ladies there has a son who lives in Springfield, VT and attends a Unitarian Universalist Church in Chester. (She says it’s the old stone church – I didn’t know that was a UU church!)

Steph’s Birthday

Yesterday was hergrace‘s birthday, so we celebrated in grand style. But before we got into all of that, we had a whole day to experience.

Once again, we had a nice leisurely start to the day. And eventually we headed off on our 4 mile walk to Baba A Louis bakery, Chester town proper, and back to the farmhouse. At Baba A Lou’s we got some baked goods (surprise surprise!) I picked up a loaf of sour dough bread and a cheese & herb croissant. And as we rested outside of the Cathedral of Bread (well, that’s what the place looked like) we all ate our croissants.

We headed into Chester’s downtown in order to have the walk back be at a less steep incline than our walk to the bakery. The town is very quaint and quiet. We popped into a couple of stores, but didn’t buy anything. We also checked out a small suspension bridge near the downtown and walked across. Then on to the town’s cemetery for some perusal of very old headstones (some 18th century ones).

We then returned to the farmhouse, stopping only at Lisai’s market to get some bottled water. When we returned, we all crashed and felt good about getting out on such a lovely walk. The weather was simply perfect for the walk – not hot or cold, not too sunny or too dreary. A very lovely day.

The afternoon was spent geeking and reading and relaxing. And eventually the plans were afoot for supper. Steph’s father-in-law was going to grill steaks, elsaf would bake potatoes and make the salad, and all of us would eat well. Steph’s mother-in-law decorated the dining room in 4th of July party favors and decorations. And with pinwheels at every seat, we had plenty to keep ourselves entertained while we ate our wonderful supper.

Once the supper dishes were cleared up, the birthday cake was brought it. The birthday cake, made on Dairy Day Monday, was an Elsa-made cheesecake. Yummy! She also made a strawberry sauce for those who aren’t cheesecake purists like I am.

After desert was present time. Steph got lots of lovely gifts from her family and friends. Including several Doctor Who toys. Woohoo! The party eventually ended and folks started heading off to bed.

The girls and I stayed up to watch The Last September, a David Tennant movie that judiang gave Steph for her b-day. The movie was a bit hard to comprehend with all the people being introduced without proper introductions. And DT had a big furry caterpillar on his upper lip. So to keep the squee going, Steph put part 2 of Blackpool on for watching.

Rather than staying up til 2am, we actually filed out at fairly decent times. Elsa left at midnight, followed by me at midnight thirty and finally Judi ordered Steph to bed at one.

Today is Independence Day and our only real plans are to visit a local glass blower and watch them make beautiful glassware. Hopefully we’ll get to see some fireworks tonight too!

Photos from the walk and from the party.


We’ve had some very sunny days here.


The folks in Vermont call this a creek, but I know it’s a “crick.”


More mountains (Vermont has a bunch!)


I can tell a train has been here. I can see its tracks!


Lots of scenery on the walk.


A scarecrow! I wonder if he’ll come to life & attack us!


Baba A Louis – the Cathedral of Bread!


Foxglove flowers outside of the Cathedral of Bread.


Pink flowers outside of the Cathedral of Bread.


Steph’s birthday!


Present Squee!

Manchester, Vermont Vermont

The trouble with the musical Hair is the catchy music that sticks in your head. And as we traveled to Manchester, Vermont yesterday, I had the Manchester, England England song running through my head. And hopefully some of you are now suffering.

So, after the late night on Saturday, we actually got up before nine am. Even judiang got up before nine (because she misread the clock in her room and thought it was after ten – heh heh). The morning was a nice slow one as we had cereal for breakfast and chatted with folks in the kitchen. Then it was photo time. We took pictures around the farmhouse and neighboring homes. I love the stone buildings in this area and got a really nice picture of a stone church.


Stone Church

One of the neighbors saw us out taking pictures and she invited us into her house, which was a former stone schoolhouse. She even let me ring the school bell, which was very cool. 🙂 Out back of her house was some very beautiful scenery and several stone benches. We all sat on one stone bench in the back in a little nook. And then, being the geeks that we are, we all took photos of the other three on the bench. Judi posted hers already. So here is mine.


Three on a Bench

Next we returned to the farmhouse and gathered up hergrace‘s boys and then headed off to the Vermont Country Store. The last time we visited Vermont, Steph took us there and I loved it. (Well, I’ve always loved their catalog, so being there in person was even better.) I sampled almost every sample they had in the place (well, I was hungry) and bought quite a few small items. And still hadn’t seen the entire store before we shuffled off to a late lunch in Manchester.

When we got to Manchester, Steph took us to Flat Road Grill for lunch. I had the Crocque Monsieur (grilled roll with ham, apples and Vermont cheddar), fries and a very nice cream soda. I enjoyed the sandwich – apples are a fun addition!

We parked at the bookstore in Manchester and shopped there. I bought a book (surprise, surprise) and enjoyed looking at the store, which had lots of neat other items.


Interesting Sculpture Outside Bookstore

We then walked around Manchester, which is an Outlet Town (like an Outlet Mall only all throughout a town). Steph and I were foot people, so we went into a shoe outlet store and looked at all the nice shoes. And oggled at the Mephisto shoes. Someday, baby, I’ll buy a pair of Mephisto. When I’m rich.

Our next stop was a sock outlet. Mmmmm, socks! Steph recommended The World’s Softest Sock, so I found some nice lavender colored ones. Only to discover they were mediums. I needed large. And the large socks weren’t nearly as fun colors as the mediums. Ah well. I bought red, green, and white – 3 pairs for $15.

One of the neat things about Vermont is that they have mountains! And while we were shopping in Manchester, we had many lovely views of mountains. (Ohio is rather bereft of mountains – at least where I live.)


Mountains!

We returned to the farmhouse and dropped Judi and the boys off. Then Steph, elsaf and I headed off to a local market for supper supplies. Alas, they were closed, so we went to a grocery store in Springfield. The grilling decision was made for us when we discovered they didn’t have enough wild salmon for everyone. So we got some chicken breasts and salad fixings. Plus two types of sour dough bread.

Steph and Elsa worked on the supper – Steph made the marinade while Elsa chopped up the veggies. Then Steph’s father-in-law grilled the chicken. Supper was WONDERFUL. We sat around the dining room table and had a very nice evening.

We then ate ice cream in the kitchen while folks cleaned the supper stuff up. Then the girls and I (and Steph’s youngest) sat down to watch the new Doctor Who. Only, due to many, many technical difficulties, we were only able to watch 15 minutes of it. Still, we did get to watch Curse of the Were-Rabbit while things were getting resolved.

Around 1am, we shuffled off to bed, and now it’s the next morning. We’re going to celebrate Dairy Day Monday. 🙂

Chester Without a Map

For those who’ve seen the David Tennant movie, LA Without a Map, you’ll know what I’ve based the title of this post upon.

So yesterday I headed off to Columbus to fly Southwest to Philly. I arrived on time and had an overpriced Wolfgang Puck sandwich. Southwest has Open Seating, which means you stand in line (either A, B or C) and wait for your overall seating to be announced. I got in near the front of the plane and in an aisle seat (the joys of traveling solo – don’t have to negotiate for seats together in a situation like that). I missed the window seat, but was happy to sit near the front. Take off was a little delayed, but the air stewards were hilarious.

I arrived on time and found a text message on my phone from judiang saying they were in baggage claim D waiting on me. So without checking the arrival boards, I headed for baggage claim D, assuming my friends knew where I was supposed to go. 🙂 Turns out they did, but Philly Airport sucks and took ages to get my bag to me. Bah! (And one fellow was waiting for his and saw his sock come down the conveyor belt. “Hey! That’s my sock!” Shortly after that, we saw his open bag come down the belt as well. Whoops!)

Once we were all ready, elsaf, Judi and I headed outside to wait for the Budget van. Four billion Avis vans and all the other rental agency vans went through before the Budget van finally came. The car we got (in slot A13 – you think we’d’ve known bad luck would be forthcoming) is a Ford Focus and Elsa got us a GPS to go with it. We stuck Garmin up on the windshield and programmed the destination. Well, sort of. It turns out none of us remembered to print the address off of the Vermont farmhouse we’re staying in. As hergrace was most likely on the road, we didn’t want to phone her. So we used some random Chester address instead.

And off we went! Elsa drove us out of Philly and into New Jersey. While still in PA, we had lunch at Friendly’s, and left the GPS in the car harping at us to get back on track. After lunch, Garmin decided it had a better route picked out. But wouldn’t tell us. We thought maybe she was sulking. Finally, she told us her new route. Alas, Elsa soon made a misturn, but Garmin recalculated the result. And at the same time, she had a shin cramp, so she asked if I could drive for a bit. Sure, I said, with no idea of where Garmin would be sending us next.

So we were in New Jersey, and Garmin started sending us on surface streets to get us on this new route. And then I missed a turn, so she recalculated the route and vindictively decided to send us through the Holland Tunnel. With me driving. Me, the country girl who never drives in big cities. Me, the girl who can’t do a left turn to save her life. Eep!

4 days later, we got on the other side of the Holland Tunnel. Well, it was probably 2 hours, but it felt like days. And then it directed me to skirt around New York City on 12th Avenue. Which I did. At one time, Judi suggested me pulling over and letting Elsa drive. Um, pulling over in some unknown part of New York City? I don’t THINK so.

While I was driving, we FINALLY got a call from Steph. We’d discovered during dinner that none of us had a recent phone number for Steph. Whoops! But Judi assured us Steph would eventually call us. And we all cheered when she did. We got the address of the farmhouse from her and also took down her phone number. And told her it would be after 1am before we’d arrive.

Still, I got us out of New York and into Connecticut and finally found a roadstop 12 miles into CT where we could switch drivers and get something to drink. I became a two fisted drinker after that drive with a mint shake in one hand and water in the other. Elsa then headed off through Connecticut. After awhile, she started getting sleepy, so we found (after many attempts) an open gas station where we filled up and Elsa walked around. I offered to drive again provided the GPS didn’t send us to NYC again.

Thankfully, it didn’t. I drove through CT and into Vermont. Yay for Vermont. And then it directed us to Chester, where we began to recognize landmarks from the last time we were here. We cheered when we arrived in Chester. And then even louder when we arrived at the farmhouse. Yay! Steph and her mother-in-law greeted us (sleepily) as we got out of the car. It was just after 2am. Blergh!

Steph showed us up to the rooms where we were going to stay and then we chatted in the hallway for half an hour or so. Then finally slunk away to sleep. Ah, sleep. It is of the good.

Alas, I woke up at 6:30 then 7:30 and finally got up at 8:30. But apart from many many typing errors while writing this, I think I’m awake. Today we intend to have a great day with Steph. 🙂

Memorial Day Weekend – Lazy Day

So Friday & Saturday were actually pretty busy for me for a Memorial Day Weekend. But I made up for it today.

elsaf and I were once again the first ones up. And we booted judiang out of bed so that Elsa could leave at a decent hour. She made us pancakes again (yay!) and there were even some sugared sliced strawberries left over. But after breakfast, Elsa had to pack up her things and head north. Awwww. And she didn’t even get to see my hardwood floors or new bookshelves. I guess there’s always next year!

Judi and I geeked for a bit, then I finally showered & dressed and headed out to start the fire for lunch. Without our resident gourmet chef, we resorted to burned hot dogs and nuked baked beans. (There was only a jumbo can of baked beans, but Judi and I managed to eat them all!) ‘Twas a good lunch.

Afterwards, I read some of Special Topics in Calamity Physics and slept. Judi read & slept as well. It was a very laid back afternoon.

As it neared suppertime, I checked the weather radar and was afraid a storm might pop through later, so I’d best start supper. I made a wonderful fire and grilled us some steaks (with a sample rub that I’d gotten last year at Taste of Chicago) and veggies/fruit (onions, portabello mushrooms, and pineapple). Along with Elsa’s potato & bean salads, we had a wonderful supper.

The storm never came, so Judi and I sat outside awhile chatting and I made a couple of s’mores. But eventually the fire burned out and the mosquitoes realized it wasn’t going to rain after all and came out to have supper on us. So we went inside and geeked for awhile.

We finished the evening playing Rumikub and watching videos on Judi’s laptop. Judi was hoping to distract me with the videos (which finished off with a repeat of last night’s Doctor Who) so that I’d lose, but I won the first two matches with Judi finally winning the third. (The first match took almost an hour to complete – sheesh!)

Tomorrow will start out laid back, but around 2:30 we shall leave the comfort of the Lake and work our way to the Columbus airport (with a veering off to Fairborn for some shopping). And then, alas, our short vacation will be over. It’s been a lovely weekend and once again, I thank the girls for making it so!