Victoria Pool

On a hot day last week we discovered Victoria Pool in Saratoga State Park. We had heard that is was very nice and nice it was. And we had a pleasant picnic before hand. A great day...



Picnic (entrance to pool in the background)




Katie loves her peanut butter and jelly. I like how she has her little moose next to her (who she named "Guy" - thanks Nana)




I promise, when it's January and I have a big pile of grading and snot-nosed 14 year olds have been giving me a hard time, I promise I'll think about moments like these and how truly great it is to have summers off. I promise.



Pool!


Smiley.

I told you the pool was nice. It's like an old-school country club. Can you believe they let shlubs like us in? What did you say? We're not shlubs? Good answer...

more smiles.

On the way home Katie adopted the mantra(s) Pool again and Picnic again

update

Lots of fun lately - drive-in, picnics, swimming, horsey in yard. More pictures to come.


drive in

Drive in. For the last 2 years we'd get Katie to fall asleep at the drive in. Now that she's older, she (amazingly) was relaxed and sat with us and actually watched the movie (Ratatouille). It was pretty great. She kept saying, "Where's the mouse?" (even though, technically, it was a rat. But close enough.)

"Silly hat", as she says.


Her princess/ballet outfit. Notice the pinwheel. And froggy ballet slippers .


motion

camping at Bellstock XIV

We all had a lot of fun camping at Bellstock this weekend (despite all the packing, lists, lugging, repacking, and unpacking). Katie has been saying "Bellstock again" since we got home Sunday.

Katie in the "Mommy and Daddy" wing of our tent.

The ol' booster-seat-on-a-folding-chair. Look how smiley she is.

Oh boy, there was a lot of "shoulders" this weekend. She was waving her arms and making me jump up and down - she just loved it (though my shoulders don't love it so much 2 days later)

One time she was on my shoulders and I noticed a few scattered small crowds of people look over at us, point and then they'd all laugh. I then realized that Katie was on my shoulders and she had Pooh Bear on her shoulders. This went on for a while.



She really liked the stream behind the woods. At one point she said, unprompted, "I love rocks." "Katie, so do I," I said.

All the sun and activity tired her out. We couldn't believe she napped so well Saturday afternoon, with all the action and music going on.

Our new bungee cord holder. She said, "...like a doctor" - I guess she was referring to his stethoscope.

Mommy! Get the curator at the Guggenheim on the phone!

...and a graham cracker please! So we broke out the paint today and Katie seemed to really enjoy it. She'd paint a "picture" then she'd run behind the garage to so we can hang it on the clothesline to dry and then she'd go back to the driveway to paint another. Notice how she's relatively naked - to prevent her from ruining her clothes*. Mommy's one smart cookie.

*and it was 93 degrees today, with thick humidity.


I rarely invite photographers into my "space", you know...

This is fun! Let's go inside and paint the couch!

Look at how intent she is. I've never seen her so focused and deliberate.

Somewhere in here is a "tree". And then she'd draw 2 intersecting lines and say "like a car". This modern art is a bit over my head, but a representative at MOMA said this piece "reflected the class struggle in modern day society with use of bold colors, parallel lines and yellow globs."





I'm practicing my "pained artist" look. Or I'm going poopy.

katie - video swinging

video- funny face

July 4th

We went to the annual reading of the Declaration of Independence in the park in Loudonville this morning. "We hold these truths to be self evident: Katie is a fun little monkey! Oh, and the stuff about life, liberty and pursuit of something something.." It looks like the sky is going to open up on us for the rest of the day and evening. But our BBQ will go on!

Long Island trip

We had a great time in Sag Harbor last week. We really enjoyed the beach. Katie doesn't like the ocean too much (yet!), but building sand castles was right up her alley. And she had so much fun with her cousins Jimmy and Margaret. They just ran around (and around and around) screaching with delight. It was great to witness. We were afraid she would be scared of Uncle Jim's new boat, but she loved it. Here are just a few pictures.