A Midway Amusement Park Day

Halle getting her hair cut

I woke later than usual, around 6:45, to a cooler morning, around 66 degrees, and a quiet house.  Marisa was first up, unusual, then Evie and Marlena.  It's a big  cloudy still, but supposed to be a nice day, high in the upper 70's, a good day to go to Midway.  Beth and I are going to Yin Yoga in a bit, at the Yoga Studio in Lakewood.

Kitchen Madness

The Girls and Linda

We had a wild night yesterday, as Ron and Linda came over to our chaos for dinner.  The kids were all in great form, the girls playing much of the time upstairs, the boys watching Cake Master on TV, the rest of us enjoying conversation in the living room.  As expected, it did not rain all day till we ventured out for appetizers and bean bag, then it poured, so we went inside and had our first meal in the house since the kids arrived.  A great dinner, of Mary's tomato sauce, Evie's meatballs, my no knead bread, salad, Jill's low fat banana cream pie, Tommy, Nick and Mitch's high fat content banana cream pie, and Mitch's bananas foster, made at the last minute.  All three we tasty, hard to choose which was the best, though the bananas foster were extraordinary, and both pies really good, Jill's having a bit of a bite to it because of the sour cream, Tommy's rich and cream because of the three cups of heavy cream.  How could it not be good.  The girls were pretty excited, thus it was hard for them to get to sleep and they all ended up, with the exception of Hayden, heading off to their parents bedrooms.  As I mentioned yesterday, the rain, clouds, moon must have had an effect on us as we were all busy in the kitchen, or getting haircuts, shopping, eating, enjoying the area though none of us swam much, just to cool off.  Beth and Jill both ended up loving the Artists Loft, a fairly new art shop just past the CI.  We had been there earlier in the year, for a reception for the Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy, like the art, and especially the owner, who treated us to a tour of his house.

Today we sent off to Lakewood for yoga, five of us, making it just in time.  It was called Yin Yoga, and  it works on the areas that we rarely use, the connectors, so to speak, like your muscles around your hips, core, things like that.  We held various poses for 3/4 minutes, to get the full effect of the stretch, the easing into the position.  We then had a coffee at the Ryder/Bookstore combo, also in Lakewood, before doing a bit of shopping and heading home.  We had lunch, then Beth, Evie, I and all the girls/boys headed to Midway for a couple of hours in the boat.  It was warm, but much of the time we were in the shade, and there were no lines of any wait time, so the kids had a run of the park.  The older boys seemed to enjoy the games more than the rides, earning something like 500 tickets to win mostly worthless gifts, at least none were worth the money spent to get the tickets.  We went back on a beautiful afternoon to the lake, swam and starting another extravaganza, as Mitch wanted homemade french fries, and the kids wanted juicy lucy's, so we had to cut the fries, soak them, cook them twice before serving, make the juciy lucys, and cook the corn...Jill did it in the oven with foil and it worked great.  Mitch took over the fries, doing almost everything himself, from cutting them, to sitting outside for an hour and frying them twice.  He even made some chips for appetizers, which were delicious.  It's now almost 9:00, the dishes are finishing up, we will all play one game of Farmer in the Dell, then it's off to bed for the girls.  They have been visiting with Joyce the past 15 minutes, while we finish up with things.