Company … and Another Unexpected Tree Adventure!

Hi, everyone!

This time of year, we invite a lot of people to visit us at the bay.  The last weekend in July, Uncle Steven and Aunt Kara invited Annie and her parents to come. The plan was for them to all go to Renaissance Faire on Saturday, then stay overnight at the bay afterward.  But Saturday, we had a big rainstorm at the bay!  Uncle Steven’s family didn’t come out till lunchtime, and we all did inside activities.  Annie’s family came in late afternoon.  Sunday was supposed to be nice weather, so they switched their plan to go to Renaissance Faire then.

The rain stopped by late afternoon, so Grandma and Grandpa took me to the Point to watch sunset.  There were still clouds at the horizon, but the sky turned pretty colors.   Before bedtime, there was a two-family conference to plan how to spend their time at Renaissance Faire.

Annie’s family went straight home from Renaissance Faire, so I didn’t get to hear about her adventures.  On Monday, when we were back in Fairport, Uncle Steven’s family came for dinner.  Thomas showed me his battle axe from Renaissance Faire.  James invented a new “James’ special” dessert:  three flavors of ice cream with chocolate syrup, whipped cream and peanuts!  Later in the week, we had more company for dinner.  A doe and her fawn showed up after dark to eat the apples dropped from our Red Delicious tree!

The first weekend in August, Uncle Steven and James and Thomas went out to the bay on Friday morning.  Grandma and Grandpa and I went out later and stopped to get another yummy melon at Youngman’s Orchard Farm Market.  They’re only available for a few weeks, so we get one or two whenever we can!  Once we were at the bay, Uncle Steven could take James and Thomas tubing.  There needs to be an observer watching the tuber in addition to whoever is driving the boat.  Grandma and I were happy to observe!  James did two tubing runs, with a rest in between.  On the second one, he said he was ready for a death whip!

After dinner there was a fire with s’mores.  In between, Uncle Steven helped Grandpa put up the first three pieces of the new boathouse siding.

Uncle Steven and Aunt Kara had invited the young families from our church to come out to the bay on Saturday.  Aunt Kara came out before lunch time with all the food for the party.  Everybody got at least one chance to go tubing!  I made some new friends and saw some people who were already my friends!  Baby Eliza needed a life jacket to go on a boat ride, so I shared my favorite one with her.  She liked going fast!

After dinner, there were more chances to go tubing, but there were other games, too!  Some of my older young friends played Settlers of Catan in the living room.  There was a running and freezing in place game on the lawn.  Everybody seemed to have a good time!

Grandma and Grandpa took me back into town before the party was over, because we needed to trade mattresses between the bay and Fairport.  We took a worn out set back to Fairport on the jet ski trailer and brought back a better set on Sunday afternoon.  Uncle Steven helped Grandpa make the switch!  We needed to get that done because Uncle David’s family was coming!  They arrived on Tuesday evening and we had pizza with them at Uncle Steven’s house.  Bill wasn’t feeling well, so we didn’t really have a cousin gathering!  I got to see Karin.  James had whipped cream AND ice cream on his brownie dessert to celebrate everybody being together.  Uncle David’s family is going to Ottawa to see friends and won’t be back until Saturday.

This morning when I got up, there was another unexpected tree event, right in our back yard!  A big branch broke off one of our Chinese elm trees and squashed our neighbors’ back fence!  Another branch broke off while we were in Hawaii last winter and damaged the same fence!  This time, Grandma and Grandpa and I got out to clean up the mess.  It looked like the branch did a flip before it landed, because the heaviest part of the branch was farthest from the tree.

Grandma and I cleared all the small branches with lopping shears, then Grandpa sawed the main branch into logs with the chainsaw.  It’s a good thing we keep chainsaws in both Fairport and Sodus!  After all the branches were cleared, I had another pile of sawed logs to sit on.

This afternoon, I helped Grandpa with another project.  Now that the crack between the back deck and the foundation is sealed, he’s going to put up new wallboard on the damaged back basement wall.  The new wallboard is waterproof and flexible.  Grandpa had to cut the pieces to size, and I helped make sure the cutting guide was fastened securely before he did the cutting.  It was a busy day!

Love,

Lion-san