My favorite lifeguard

 We shipped Rooney up to Lake Onway in New Hampshire, to lifeguard at Boston Stake's Girls' Camp for the week.

Word on the street is that she loves it, they love her, and going to girls camp as a leader is even MORE fun than going as a camper!

Toe-tapping, hand clapping, finger snapping FUN

 One of my favorite summer traditions is setting up the lawn chairs, spreading out the blanket and listening to the Monday night band concerts on the town common. 

Sunday in New Hampshire

Sister time, squishy babies, and an Eagle Court of Honor to beat all others. It was a good Sunday.

addio Teresa

We really enjoyed the month with our Italian daughter!

Too quickly, our time together was over, and she flew back to Italy.

Day Trip to Chatham, Cape Cod, Massachusetts

took these birdies mini golfing

truth or consequence

The best part of this hike was the VERY short time it took us to get to the North viewing area of Mount Pisgah somewhere between Northboro and Berlin. Our hikers were elated.

"Best.hike.EVER!" they said. 

 So the leaders became the followers, and the new and self-appointed leaders decided to direct us back to the parking lot. The truth is, we're still not quite in agreement about who led the way. The happy adult leaders were chatting it up in the back of the line. The consequence is that our short walk turned into a real (hot) hike, as we wandered around on unfamiliar trails for more than an hour before we decided to deliberate and change our course. 

 The short ending to the long hike? We lived to tell about it. We made it out of the woods. And we laughed. A little.

Footbridge Beach, Ogunquit, Maine

 This is our happy place.

Art in the great outdoors

At Andre's Art Institute in Brookline, New Hampshire, we hiked the trails and stopped to enjoy the sculptures along the way.

It's a fun, relaxing way to take a walk and see some art.

There's no place for fireworks like BOSTON

 We were extra motivated to get into the city for fireworks this year, so we could show our Italian daughter how it's done right.

Happy Birthday America!

for the family that skits together, there is wood to be stacked.

Seven sets of gloved hands, more than a few hours of hard labor and at least 15 truck loads of wood.

Our summer stage is filled with skit night memories 

and lots and lots of wood  LOVE.

Stacked and READY.

If you build it, they WILL come

A couple of weeks ago Mr. Dub directed the building of what he called a platform for stacking firewood. I watched transfixed as they recycled our old deck boards into what, in my mind, appeared to be coming together as an ideal summer stage. I was delighted! But the workers had a hard time catching my vision.

Although he had doubts, Dub is a committed believer in the phrase 

Happy Wife = Happy Life. 

LOOK! He agreed to let me use the platform, and we pulled off a really spontaneous, REALLY EXCELLENT Skit Night. The 'burg's got talent.

 Friends, neighbors and extended family showed up. We provided the popcorn and lemonade, and the guests brought their A-game music, skits, magic, jokes and game shows to share.

We cheered, 

we clapped, 

we smiled and laughed.

It was an evening of FUN!

UMass Insiders Tour (almost earned the acronym MIT)

Drove these three lovelies to the University of Massachusetts Amherst for an official university tour. We're so comfortable and familiar on the UMass campus that I never thought to take pictures. The two who toured MIT the day before unanimously agreed that the UMass tour was MUCH more enjoyable (take note, MIT tour officials) and that they would be much more likely to want to attend here. We enjoyed a delicious (free!) lunch in their award-winning dining facilities courtesy of Enrique the employee alum,

Fun Fact: Families of UMass students eat FREE! at any and all visits

and just as we were leaving town, I pulled over for this 

"if-there's-no-photo-did-it-really-happen?" picture.