Water for Elephants

On the way through Ontario, Canada we stopped by the African Lion Safari. I had gone there once when I was about 13. It has really come a long way since then! One of my favorite events of this visit was watching the elephants parade down to the lake for a swim.
I think there were about 6 or 7 elephants. When they saw the water, they ran into it! You could tell that they were filled with joy at the prospect of swimming. They reminded me a little of the way Sherman acts when I take him swimming somewhere.
The lake is deep enough that they actually do swim. They are very social animals and several came over to where the crowd was standing to say hello.

On our way

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line...which is why we cut through Canada on our way to Michigan. This naturally calls for a stop at Niagara Falls.
It never ceases to amaze me that although I only live 2 hours away from this marvel, I have come here only a few times.

Been Away!

On Thursday morning, the girls and I took off with Jamie's sister Laurie and her husband Kevin to go to Michigan for a family wedding. (Allen was scheduled to go to Beaver Camp so Jamie stayed home to take him there.) We had a wonderful time! I will post more about our trip soon. Here we are on the way home from Michigan today when we stopped in Ohio for some eats. We brought home an extra kid. Paige, one of the girls' cousins who lives in Maryland came home with us. She is staying at our house tonight. Tomorrow, my girls, Paige and two other girl cousins who were not able to make it to the wedding, are gathering together at Laurie's house for "Camp Butler"-a girl cousin camp for a good share of the week!

There is a winner!

Thank you to all who participated in the Mina Project board game drawing. Thanks to you, $225 will be going to Haiti Relief efforts!

Congratulations to Ben and Karen!

Projects...

It started out as a curbside find. It is a wicker table that I decided would look good with my other wicker furniture on my front porch. It was blue (no before picture). I primed it...
and spray painted it a dark forest green. I'm planning on spray painting the rest of the porch furniture to match.

Check out my kid

Audra is home from camp now. She and Abby had an absolute blast! There are some pictures online of her at camp. This one picture in particular is my favorite of her doing the ropes course (click on link to see it)! Aren't summer camps the best?

Photo of Audra on ropes course Here

And another of her rock climbing HERE!

Wish I were a kid again!

Full Moon Over Canandaigua Lake

When I dropped Abby's mother off at her house, I drove down West Lake Rd and saw the full moon. I just had to stop and get a picture.

Audra goes to Camp

On Sunday, I drove my daughter and her friend Abby to a camp in the Adirondacks. Abby's mother came along for the ride too. The girls are there for the week and I'm sure they are having a great time. Audra has been looking forward to going since she left camp last summer. This is her third year going. I'm glad she has the opportunity to do this...but I must say that I miss her and that the house seems very different without her here!

Robert Treman State Park-part 2

On the way down the gorge, we took the higher trail. What you see in the photo is the gorge trail that we hiked up. It is way way down there! I have a pretty good zoom lens on my camera so you really can't tell by the photo how far down it is.Here are Allen and Alicia reading....this sign.
I thought I saw a little orange plastic dinosaur on trail that a kid dropped...but discovered that it was a living creature. A newt. We saw 6 newts in all, a couple of snakes and a few chipmunks.
Allen holding a newt just to show you the size of it.
Looking down on the swimming hole. I remember coming to this swimming hole when I was a little girl. I was very impressed that my big brother, Dan could dive in. Somewhere, I know my mom has a picture of him diving in. I wish I had it. But I do have this one!This was taken at the swimming hole at Robert Treman State Park in the summer of 1970. I am the little girl in the blue. Martha is next to me and Mom is holding Rachel. That's Dan behind us.And here I am just 40 years later! Still wearing blue!
At the end of our hike, we had a picnic "lunch." I put quotes around it because by then it was 3:30 and we were starving! At that point I stopped taking pictures. I guess I was too hungry.

Robert Treman State Park

On Wednesday of this past week, Jamie took the day off from work. I suggested that we go to Letchworth State Park, but Jamie decided that we should take the kids to a park that they had never been to before. We decided on Robert Treman State Park. I hadn't been there since I was about 12 or 13.
We hiked the beautiful gorge and enjoyed the outdoors.
About half way up the gorge, we could hear the rumbling of thunder and it seemed to be drawing closer along with darkening skies.

When we got to the top of the gorge, we went in the old mill just in time to be sheltered from a torrential downpour. It rained for quite a while. I amused myself by taking pictures of the old gears, signs and other relics.It was a wonderful day! I'll post more about our hike down another day.

Thank you for your support

Thank you to all who have helped support the Mina Project I have been involved with.

I will be collecting names until Midnight Saturday Night. I will be announcing a winner once I collect all entry fees.

I am very close to having enough entries to raffle off both board games. This is a picture of the detail of that board. If you have no idea what I am talking about, please read the previous post.

Thanks again for making this a success.

The Mina Project

At church we were given a sermon on the parable of the mina. Remember when Jesus told the story of a man who gave three of his servants an amount of money and then he went away on a journey? When he came back, he found that two of the servants had increased their amount, but the third had not. You can find the parable in Matthew 25:14-30.
Anyway, at the close of the sermon, two missionaries spoke about their experience down in Haiti. Then we as a congregation were given a challenge. Each adult in the room was given an envelope with an amount of money in it. We were asked to go and invest it in some way to try and increase it. We will be bringing all of the money back to church to give as a gift for Haiti Relief. I took my money, Jamie's money, and a friend's money (total amount of $30) and bought supplies to make 2 game boards. I have decided to raffle at least one of the game boards off. I may raffle off both of them if there is enough interest.
So: if you are interested, read on!
Each game board is double sided. On one side of the game board is the game "Aggravation" and on the other is "Chinese Checkers."They are each hand-painted by me. Here are a few pictures of the detail that I put into it.

Each game board also comes with a draw string bag that I sewed that holds all of the pieces needed for the game and also instructions on how to play.
Raffle tickets are each $5.00. All proceeds will go to the relief fund for Haiti. You can buy as many tickets as you want. Please put "Mina Project" in the subject line so I know that I can open it.
Thanks!

The man with the beer?

So this morning I had a group of preschoolers all sitting down listening to me reading The Teddy Bear by David M. McPhail. The story mentions a "man with a beard." When I read this line a little boy said, "Man with a beer? Where's the beer? I don't see it."

That got a chuckle from several of the adults in the room.

Library Success...putting it on my resume!

I have not blogged at all about the library work. It has been going great! I wish I had pictures, but I wasn't comfortable snapping pictures without permission from the parents...and I didn't ask.

Tonight was the second pajama story time and it was a lot of fun! It was a huge group of kids. Last week there were only about 10. This week there were at least 25 kids. I didn't count! Everyone seemed to have fun! Thanks to some great technical support, the videos were shown without a problem either.

Tomorrow is the last preschool story-time. I've really enjoyed it and am glad that I can give the children's librarian a positive report when she comes back from France!

Wedding at Garrett Chapel

Towards the end of June we went to a wedding at this little Chapel located on Keuka Lake. It was built in the 1930's by a family named Garrett. They built it in memory of their son who died of tuberculosis in his early 20's.The details of the chapel are amazing. The family wanted it built reminiscent of the old styles of Europe.
The view of Keuka Lake from the porch is beautiful.The Chapel is surrounded by beautiful stone paths, stairways and a waterfall.
Congratulations David and Karen!

Simon says..."I'm much happier!"

But then again...Simon says, "Maybe not!"

July 4th picnic

It was a good day for a 4th of July picnic at my sister's house in Webster. A little different from our usual custom of heading down to my uncle's in Penn Yan. He is not feeling well since recovering from pneumonia. He's in the hospital again from what I hear.
Anyway...the young people piled into the pool and made huge splashing waves.
Later on during the calm...my daughter Alicia ventured in. Here are my girls with my terrific husband.
Lucas wanted to climb all over Alicia.
Josh loves the water. Several people took turns taking him in the pool. He has no fear of the water and I think he'll be a good swimmer some day. He even asked his uncle to throw him in. His uncle Dave obliged and his daddy caught him. He's only 2.
Here's Lucas. He's a cutie...but has quite a little temper and a strong will. He actually reminds me of his father when he was his age! Dave turned out to be a fine adult in the long run and I'm sure Lucas will be too. He has good parents!
Here is Martha and the other uncle Dave on the picnic blanket. Later on we returned home. None of our kids wanted to go see the fireworks. The girls had seen fireworks the night before in Geneva. Jamie and I walked down with the dog and saw them from the pier. It was a beautiful night. I didn't get pictures but my blog friend Katya did. She and I have never met face to face but sometimes I see from our posts that we come close to it at times.