One More Day (Welcome To The Teenage Years, Hayden)

Happy Thirteenth Birthday To Our Granddaughter, Hayden Bissell

Dinner With Marisa and Beth

6:31

It's 6:50 and I have been up for exactly one hour, watching the sun rise, now bright enough that the glare on the lake has forced me to move.  It's 63º, will get in to the 80's later today, then the rain and cooler weather rolls in tonight and tomorrow.  Perfect timing as Marisa and Beth both leave tomorrow so they will get a fine last day at the lake.

We had Marisa to ourselves again yesterday, another warm and sunny day.  We decided early it was a good day to boat to the Chautauqua Institution, to show Marisa what it was like on a Sunday in season. She's been there in the winter, not on a Sunday, when the amphitheater is packed, the choir's in good form, the church goers mostly dressed up.  It was the nearest she's been to a church other than a wedding. And like a good little secular humanist, she had enough after a song or two, when the preaching began. The hymn, however, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty,"took me back to my high school days when I was an usher at our Methodist church.  How did that boy turn in to such a skeptic, a pagan?

At The Atheneum

It was a great day to be on the boat, and Marisa had a blueberry bagel on the way to the CI.  After the brief stop at the church service, we browsed the Crafts Show at the Bestor Plaza.  I find the booths less and less interesting in their sameness, perhaps because I have no interest in buying jewelery, clothes, or art.  Bah humbug.  Evie and Marisa, however, had fun, talking with the artists, looking at various pieces.  We were there about an hour and a half, before boating home, with lots of traffic on the lake, like us, enjoying the beautiful morning.

Marisa

When we got home, Evie made Sunday breakfast for us, eggs, bacon and bagels, and we sat out on the front porch, enjoying the late morning.  Marisa, like me, loves bacon.  Evie then put together the special dinner we were having for Beth, which I mentioned yesterday was a throwback to our first years of marriage, especially our three years in Hawaii.  The dinner, hamburger stroganoff, with mega mushrooms, was our 'go to' meal when living in Honolulu.  Once that was made, it was time to play in the water with Marisa and the neighbors grandchildren.  The four of them must have stayed in the water, thinking up games, for two hours, no exaggeration.  I went out, washed my boat, then played hide and seek, but I had enough after a half hour.  So I went in, watched the PGA on and off all afternoon, reading some as well.

Beth didn't return from Lily Dale until after 6:00, later than we thought, so we held dinner until she got home.  She had a great time, enjoyed the workshop, made new friends, and came home with lots of ideas and, of course, lots of stuff, bracelets for Marisa, wind chimes for us, a purse for herself.  We ate our gourmet dinner outside, a delightful night to eat out side, as we waited for the super moon.  It finally rose around 8:30, an orange ball at first, later a white sphere, not as exciting as I expected.  In fact, I think some of the harvest moons during the fall were more spectacular.

Super Moon at 8:30

After dinner, we had a peach/blueberry crisp, which Evie somehow made during the day, with ice cream.  And we sat around as Beth told us all about the workshop, the teachers, the students, what she had learned.  Around 10:00, we put Marisa to bed, the rest followed by 10:30.

New Think: 'Either you believe you can do something or you believe you cannot do something.  And you are right.' quotation from Beth's  Lily Dale Workshop