While some people got to stay, others had to come home yesterday. But trip one to the cottage this year was good. Lots of Aunts and Uncles and cousins and overflow cottages. A trip to Niagara Falls, a retirement party, food, fireworks, sunsets and a plane ride home.

Lately, I tend to take photos with my phone on these trips, just to try and capture something different.

Oh poor blog. You have been so neglected.


Our short trip to the cottage this year was fun. Bridget had so much fun. She's proven to be completely fearless when it comes to swimming and she is definitely not afraid to get dirty. All good things. We made sand castles, skipped rocks, ate when we were hungry and generally had a relaxing time. It stunk not being able to stay longer, but we needed to save our leave.


The nursery is pretty complete. I still have to nail up some photos. And I'm waiting until the baby is born to finish an emboridery project since we will not know what his first initial is going to be until we see him. Bren and I came to an agreement: He will be named X (Brendan and Bridget's choice) if he has brown eyes and he will be named Y (my choice) if he has blue eyes. We both like both names, and were very analytical in our approach. We made a big list, then independently said yes or no to them. Then took the cross-section of the yes-yes names and then went from there. It was pretty clear early on what the front-runners were going to be.
Right now, I'm one day past my due date. I feel like I'm going to be pregnant forever. Rationally, I know that it's just not possible, but that doesn't help get over that feeling too much. I'm working at home 100% of the time and usually it's OK, but some days I just feel like I'm going to go totally INSANE. So today I'm keeping myself as busy as possible between work emails and tasks. Laundry, dishes and now, this.
Lastly, Bridget has started wanting to take pictures all the time. Some attempts are better than others.  We're definitely getting her her own camera for Christmas (if not before then).

 

It's almost time to take our annual trip up to the cottage. Unfortunately, it won't be  as long as we'd like but leave needs to be saved up for after the little man arrives. All three of us are really looking forward to it.

Brendan posted all our pictures from this year's trip to the lake. You have two choices:

1. All the pictures.


2. Or, just the ones of the child

Bridget loves the lake. She just walked right in and wanted to keep on going.

It's almost vacation time. We try and make it up to the cottage every year around the 4th of July. Last year was pretty much the only exception to that rule. I'm pretty excited about watching Bridget experience it all this year. Last August, she didn't really know what was going on. This year should be good. If the sand in her hair yesterday when we picked her up from daycare is any indication, the sand on the beach should give her no problem. I hope she likes smooth rocks just as much. A lot of things have changed at nearby Geneva-on-the-Lake but a lot of the important things (Eddie's) are the same.

I'm just ready for a vacation. Life hasn't been particularly hard or anything as of late; I'm just itching to get away. It's that time of year. For my entire life vacation has always been around this time. We'd get out of school and very soon after (two weeks later at the longest) we'd go to Ocean City. My parents' and brothers at home still go around this time. (Probably always will!) I know Dad is counting down the days.

Here's hoping that our 8 hour car ride goes well. There's no indication that it won't, but you never know...

Bridget did really well on our ride to the lake last weekend. Our timing was a little bit off on the way home, but we made it all in one piece.

She got to experience all the lake activities

Sunset:

The beach:

Putt-putt:

Eddie's:

Plus yard sales, an open house, campfires and a partial tour of Sharon.

We're heading up to the cottage for a long weekend this afternoon. We had talked about maybe flying into Cleveland, but given this morning's events, I'm glad we decided to drive.

Everytime we go to the Lake, I'm struck at how inexpensive things are. Take for instance our visit to the Swiss Chalet in Geneva-on-the-Lake (photo of part of the "strip" above).

Originally, I set out for an afternoon coffee and Brendan was going to tag along. The little coffee shop/bookstore across the road from the cottage was closed, so it was into Geneva. Then we decided that we should go someplace that Brendan had never been before -- which left bars. Annie's (aka the biker hangout) was his first choice, but unfortunately it's no more and the new bar in its place seemed to be a college/frat boy bar. So we skipped it and went to the Swiss Chalet instead. The place is really large. One long bar along the side made of dark wood, with chrome and red vinyl barstools. The clientele averaged at about 50 years old. I ordered a Jack & Ginger and Brendan a Miller Lite in the bottle. The total? Five dollars. Beautiful. Here, my drink alone would cost about that!

After a few minutes an older (natch) gentleman sat down next to Brendan and ordered a Bud (draft). His bill came to $1.35. Not a Happy Hour special or anything, that was just the price. He then went on to tell us this story about the time Benny Goodman played the Chalet. It was humorous, he started out trying to put Benny Goodman into context for us. He started out with Elvis as a cultural reference, then looked at us again and was searching for another, more recent, one when we assured him we knew who Benny Goodman (and Elvis) was.

There was a band coming on in about an hour after we arrived, but we didn't stick around for very long. We could have gotten into a lot of trouble with the $40.00 we probably had in cash at the time.