Indian Lake, Day Six

Edit: The original post of this conflated Days Six and Seven. Below is the corrected text and illustrations.

Day Six was the day the whole family got together, like Voltron. Melissa arrived, bearing tons of supplies to include beer and watermelon. Summer!! Later in the day, Mary returned to us.

We spent most of the day at the beach, fishing, hanging out, swimming, and boating. In the evening we went into town to feast at a Mexican restaurant.

That was followed by the nightly campfire and s'mores. Then the rain started....

Suzanne was one of the few campers who liked Melissa's watermelon.

Barb and Suzanne heading down to the beach. Little known fact: Suzanne's stroller doubles as a two-person kayak.

Two-year-old Suzanne getting ready for nappy time.

The family at the beach.

Travis and Elizabeth in a rock-throwing contest. Guess who won.

Josh was proud of every catch, even the one he then tried to use as bait.

Melissa and Scott, pretty much embodying summer.

Scott and Josh returning from an epic canoe journey.

Aunt Mary, Connor, Travis, and Joshua at the restaurant.

Barb and Suzanne checking out the night life.

Uncle Mark, Aunt Mary, and Elizabeth being ne'er-do-wells in Indian Lake, NY.

A friendly stranger pointed out to us a Luna Moth hanging on the window of the restaurant.

Apparently, late at night, McKenna got a hold of the camera.

Indian Lake, Day Five

Day Five was a bit unusual, in that some of us (Mark, Andrew, McKenna, Barb, Elizabeth and Suzanne) spent a lot of time at the Adirondacks Museum -- roughly from noon to 4:30pm. (And we didn't see nearly everything!) [Hereafter, it is guest author McKenna Larrison.]  Elizabeth really enjoyed the kids cabin where she got to do some laundry and got to "cook''. McKenna really enjoyed the school house and the kids cabin but i think everyone's favorite thing was the experience. After the museum, we all enjoyed pizza -- it was way different from the pizza in Oregon. Thanks to McKenna and Elizabeth for the great fire and with the great fire we had amazing s'mores until midnight.

In the lobby, a sailboat!

Elizabeth may look amused, but she was actually annoyed that Suzanne was rocking the boat.

On top of the fire-watch tower. 

I love this chainsaw, although I totally don't get it.

McKenna trying out the stroller for size: doesn't fit.

Portrait of the Ladies.

McKenna as locomotive engineer. She and Elizabeth had a great time playing in this vintage train, and ringing the bell. They rang the everloving hell out of that bell!

All aboard!!

We had lunch at the Lakeview Cafe. The lunch wasn't much, but the view was... well, this. 

Elizabeth and McKenna as pioneer women in a log cabin.

McKenna and Elizabeth in the art gallery, making their own art on iPads.

We were all wondering: what's the deal with the Paul Bunyan-sized chairs?? The museum didn't answer the question for us, but it at least afforded a photo op.

Indian Lake, Day Four

Tuesday, after everyone was up and about, we tried to find Elizabeth Point on Thirteenth Lake. It didn't turn out so well.

First, we overshot the side road by about five miles before realizing it. Then, once we found the road we wanted, it took us to a place we didn't want to be: a dead end nowhere near Elizabeth Point. On the way out of the woods, we approached a small family with towels over their shoulders. "Do you know where Elizabeth Point is?" we asked. They didn't.

So we ended up just swimming off a boat launch in the lake. The water was warm, the view was sublime, and we all had a great time.

After we got back from Thirteenth Lake, Mark, Scott and Andrew went shopping in town with Joshua. We got enough supplies to last the rest of the week. Meanwhile, McKenna, Barb, Elizabeth, and Suzanne went to the beach to recreate. Then they got poured on! (Thus is the weather around here -- extremely mercurial.)

Once everyone reconvened at the house, Scott was ready to cook up a mess of chicken, which he did. After dinner, we had a great time sitting around the campfire swapping stories and laughing.

It was great.

The Larrison girls with flowers in their hair.

Elizabeth getting another ride on the Water Bus. In fact, she became a Junior Water Bus on this trip.

It was Scott's idea to haul the camera out into the (shallow) lake, and take a picture of the view. I did it first, and took a bunch of snaps, then gave it to him, and he got this one. The best one.

Uncle Mark cooking Spam for lunch. Deeeee-licious!!

Leisure time: reading.

Storytime: reading James and the Giant Peach.

Playing Pictionary with Uncle Mark.

Suzanne playing guerilla Pictionary.

Sasquatch grabbed the camera...

Uncle Scott: Grillmaster.

Elizabeth and McKenna are expert fire-pokers.

Indian Lake, Day Three

Today was a settled-in day. I think we need to spend tomorrow shaking out of the vacationland torpor we are in.

We went down to the beach for a brief visit before most of us (not me and Barb and McKenna and Elizabeth and Suzanne) fled for the house because there was thunder rumbling in the distance. There seems to always be thunder rumbling in the distance!

Travis went back to Utica today, following Aunt Mary, who departed late yesterday. Now we are nine.

After the beach, we just hung around the house doing random things: a game of Scategories, playing Magic Schoolbus with dolls, building a fairy village in the woods, etc.  McKenna had some good luck with the angling, hooking seven fish. We saw the turtle again, and Elizabeth got to pet its shell. Josh had some sort of heartbreaking result of a hockey game.

Such is life.

And here are some pictures:

Elizabeth and I started this fairy house yesterday, but she and Uncle Scott took it to a whole 'nother level today.

Barb at sunset. She and Elizabeth had just come back from flower-picking along the road. Why is Elizabeth not in this picture, you might ask? Grumpiness, is why.

Elizabeth is not grumpy when she is eating a s'more.

A photo of historic value: McKenna biting into her very first s'more. Despite the way her face looks, she liked it.

Firemaster Elizabeth, roasting a marshmallow. 

The beach.

Elizabeth swimming.

Elizabeth annoying McKenna by swimming close to where she was angling. McKenna was concerned that Elizabeth was going to scare away the fish.

All the girls in the water.

McKenna with her first fish of the day. (She later caught six more, from the canoe.)

Daddy and Suzanne messing around.

The Accidental Tourist

The girls are both great travelers. We got compliments from other airline passengers about how well-behaved they were. Essentially, they were thanking us for having kids who didn't scream the entire flight.

However, Elizabeth is not perfect and she did get a bit cranky from being up so late, and moving so much, and when we were in the jetway waiting for Barb to get the stroller which we had gate-checked, she gave me this look:

Indian Lake, Day Two

We are still adjusting to the change of time zones! Elizabeth got up at 8:30 local time (5:30 Portland time), but at 11:00pm local time was still allegedly not ready for bed.

In any event, Day Two was a good one. After a leisurely morning, we made the semi-short walk to the beach. McKenna was the first one to take the plunge into the cold waters of the lake, followed shortly by your humble scribe. It was glorious. The view from the beach is fantastic (better, if you aren't wearing your glasses and thus can't see certain elements of infrastructure, such as power lines). The lake was comfortable, after the initial shock. The beach was sandy and clean, and we had lots of sand toys brought down from the house.

After beach, Barb and I took the girls out on a canoe trip that was cut short by dual-girl crankiness. So we went back to shore, hiked up to the house, and had a snack. While Barb took Suzanne for a nap-inducing stroller ride, I read a neat book to Elizabeth; we both learned some things about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

In the evening, Elizabeth discovered a great game called The Honey-Bee Tree, that we played with McKenna, Connor, and Travis in turn. It was fun. We had grilled steak and corn for dinner, and then a campfire out on the lawn (with obligatory s'mores).

Tonight was the so-called Super Moon -- apparently, Luna is 10,000 miles closer to Earth than usual, or some such. We saw the moon, and it looked full, but not Super. I was more impressed by the lightning bugs ubiquitous on the landscape, or the day's constant rumble of thunder.

Both of the girls were difficult to put to sleep, and by the time they were down, and Barb and I were free, all of the adults save Joshua were in Dreamland with Elizabeth and Suzanne.

Aunt Mary's portrait of Elizabeth on an Etch-a-Sketch. As if we needed proof, Mary is truly an artist.

Elizabeth led Daddy into the woods to build a fairy house. It was cool in the woods, and beautiful, but buggy. 

Later in the day, the girls returned to the woods to continue work on the fairy mansion.

On the way out of the woods, I ran across a turtle digging a nesting hole in the gravel right behind Travis's brand new car. The girls were so interested (see above) they scared the poor pregnant (?) mother off. She relocated a few yards away, lay her eggs, buried them, and trundled off into the woods. McKenna found some tiny fencing to put around the nest and finger-painted a sign warning humans away from the area. 

The first campfire of the week!

Elizabeth and McKenna around the campfire.

Suzanne roasting a marshmallow.