The Last Of Our Kids Depart---Back To Reality! Back To Reality!

Beth and Family

Tommy and Family

Jill and Family

It's 6:40, and both Evie and Beth are already up.  Beth and Marisa want to get an early start for home, a seven hour drive, thus the early wake up.  It's a wet, gray, foggy morning, after a night of heavy southerly winds, some rain, a morning temperature of 61º.  It's supposed to cool off and rain the next  few days.

7:45

I thought yesterday was going to be another warm and sunny day, but by noon, it became partly cloudy, and mid afternoon, it looked like rain.  No sitting on the dock yesterday or sunning but Evie and Marisa did swim for about an hour.  The last day of a vacation is always hard because you have to pack, you know the vacation is over, that you won't being seeing family again for awhile.

Another Kayak Morning With Beth

Beth and I did get in a long kayak paddle, mid morning, down to Warner Bay and back, a windy paddle over to Long Point, then a calm paddle around the bay.  Evie helped fill the day by making Marisa's favorite, sticky buns, enough so that she can take home a dozen for her brothers.  It's a time consuming task, with making the dough, letting it rise, making the carmel sauce, then baking.  But the end result is worth it, as Marisa must have had three or four during the afternoon and evening.  We also did some rock painting, putting a varnish on the one's we made earlier in the week, and we did three larger rocks, with 2014 on them, to remind us of this summer.

The only excursion was to pick up some corn, for dinner.  The rest of the afternoon was spent playing cards with Marisa, either Speed, which she is a champ at, or Pounce, a card game we used to play with our kids in Turkey.  You can tell it's a last day of a vacation.

For dinner, Evie made chicken picata, rice, corn and a salad.  Marisa loved the chicken, the corn, Silver Queen, was exceptionally good, and we sat around finishing off a bottle of wine, listening to an old favorite, Charles Trenet, a French singer we learned to love when we lived in a house just outside of Paris for a month in the summer of 1975 or 1976.  My sister Ellen, who was studying in Paris at the time, befriended a guy named Emmanuel and his sister let us live in  her house for the month of August, rent free, as they were on vacation.  It was a mile or two from Versailles.  Amazing generosity.  And when Beth went to Paris for junior year abroad, Emmanuel met her in Paris, called us from there, to let us know she was fine.  Who said the French were bastards.

Marisa And Granny Tango Before dinner.

After dinner, Marisa and I watched an oldie but goodie, BORN FREE, a film made in 1966 which won two Oscars, one I assume for best song.  It was a little slow, even for Marisa, but she enjoyed it.  Better than The Baby Sitters Club!  We hung out in the living room, talking, reading, until about 10:00 when we all went up to bed.  It's now 7:15, and Marisa is up, and they both are ready to go.  Marisa picked out a couple of rocks, a favorite which Beth painted, a couple to take home to paint.  The quiet, when they leave, will be deafening.