Overcast, Heavy Rain Last Night, and Warm

Halle, Beth, Marisa, Woodlawn Creek

Cairns

Beth's Stones

I was up at 4:30 because of the heavy rain (close to a half inch) last night, checked the windows to see if it was raining in, then went back to bed, slept, sort of and got up at 7:00.  Drew got up shortly after me and we talked about his work with the Nuclear Regulatory Industry, which is who he has been working with over the past two years.  Sounds like thunderstorms on and off during the day, a high of 78º.

Yesterday turned out to be a really fun day though we were not sure what we wanted to do at the start. The girls had their usual 'leisurely morning' upstairs in our bedroom before getting up to have breakfast.  Hayden and Marisa wanted to go tubing, so about 10:00 Mitch and I took them out for a spin on a windy, choppy morning and they loved it, getting  their fill since they were the only ones tubing.

Beaching It at Barcelona, NY

Halle, Marisa, and Jill

The Girls Searching For Rocks

At Jack's Barcelona

Since we painted some rocks yesterday, we decided to drive up to Lake Erie, to Barcelona, with the gang, enjoy the beach, swim, and look for more interesting rocks to paint.  Although it was overcast part of the day, the kids loved the beach, loved swimming in Lake Erie, even wanted to come back one more time before leaving.  Beth and I spent most of the morning looking for rocks; Beth loves it, found mostly heart shaped rocks to paint, whereas I looked for shapes that were uniform, and different colors. We spent a couple of hours at the beach, then went and had lunch at Jack's Drive In, sat outside under umbrellas, and most of the adults had fresh perch sandwiches, with tartar sauce and home made curly fries, all excellent.

One car drove straight home, mine with the girls, the other went shopping at Topps and came home with mega junk food and groceries. Topps was having a sale...buy two of an item and get three free, so they came home with five half gallons of Friendly ice cream, five bags of Lays potato chip, Twinkies, cream soda, and a cherry pie from Portage Pie.  You could tell Evie, not me, was in this car, the one doing the shopping!

Evie, Marlena, and Hayden

Nick's Batman

Nick and Mitch

Halle, Marisa and Beth

Painting Rocks

We got home around 3:00 and Beth and I spread all our rocks out on the picnic table to see what we had.  Slowly, the girls and boys came out to see, and they all ended up sitting at the picnic table till about 5:30, picking out cool rocks, coming up with a design, then painting the rocks in various ways, from lady bugs, to American flags,  to turtles or kitties, fish with bubbles, Batman, to Inspirational Words like 'Dance,'  Mitch designed one in graphics for me, with the words 'Let Go' though Evie preferred, 'Go Away,'  All of them showed an amazing originality, rarely asking for help.   We only stopped when they all decided to go for a swim with Granny while the adults got dinner ready.

Swimming Before dinner

We had Slovenian Sausages for dinner, another favorite of our kids, which we get from Azman's Meats in Euclid, Ohio, a family who has been making these sausages for at least sixty or seventy years.  When we go in to buy them, the guys behind the counter always remember Evie's Dad, tell stories about him. We had chips  along with a barbecued beans, and a huge salad, all we needed to have a good and easy dinner.  Fortunately, Drew was able to get back in time for dinner from his meetings at the Limeriick nuclear plant,  south of Allentown, PA.

The girls went up to bed early, after ice cream cones, again with the promise that if they could have an hour of leisure, they would go to bed on time.  Fat chance.  By the time I went to bed at 11:00, they were still up giggling with Evie.  Unbeknowst to the little girls, the rest of us had the cherry pie, with Friendly's ice cream of course, and then most of us watched Shark Week.  They had a countdown of the ten most dangerous sharks to humans, along with the number of attacks each made on a person.

We all went to bed around 11:00, tired from beaching it, painting, swimming and tubing and eating, of course.