North Fork, New York

For a baby, Sienna is quite the traveler. Last week Grandpa M., Sienna & I met the DeMay's in North Fork on Long Island at the beach. It was GREAT. The weather was beautiful and the houses that the family rented were perfect. We relaxed but mostly ate. A lot. I think I ate more dessert this week than I have had this whole summer combined. But it was worth the calories...We stopped at several of the many roadside farm markets and had delicious fruit and vegetables every night. And for dessert...Pie. Really good fresh fruit pies. We had blackberry pie, blueberry pie, peach pie and a chocolate cake just to mix it up a bit.


I took about a million pictures, but here are a few of my favorites...

HAPPY 28th B-DAY, DANIEL :0)

So, Daniel turned the big 28 on August 14. We got back from vacation on the 13th, so Daniel had to work so we had a low-key celebration with take-out dinner from the Cheesecake Factory. Yum.

To make it official, I called a few of our friends to see if anyone was interested in having a birthday dinner for Daniel the following night and because our friends are so fun, almost all of them were able to come! So we met at Todai's. FYI - I don't like cooked fish much less raw fish, but Daniel wanted sushi so we went to Todai which is a seafood/sushi buffet. At least they had a big dessert buffet too... Here are a few pictures of us all at dinner - Rob, Kailea, Edward, Allida, Zack, Gail, Ray, Aaron, Peyton, Brian, Baby Caroline, Louise, Colin...and Daniel, Sienna & me!



Gail made Daniel one of her special cookie cakes...it is hard to tell here, but Daniel did share his dessert with the group....

Next Stop: Hancock, Mass.

After our trip to Old Forge, we scooted over to Western Mass. to visit Daniel's family. On our way there, we found out that one of Daniel's best friends, Geoff, was in town. Geoff lives in San Diego these days but he happened to be home at the same time we were visiting, so we picked up by Daniel's dad (John Henry) & his youngest son, Nate, and we went to Geoff's parents house for a party. Sienna got to meet about 300 people and Daniel got to see a bunch of family friends all at once. Of course he got to see Geoff as well as Chris and Roberto, all of which were groomsmen in our wedding.

We were only there for a few days, but we had a chance to visit Daniel's grandparents. That was great, especially since they hadn't had a chance to meet Sienna yet.

We also visited his Uncle Tim & Aunt Gayle, who live right down the road from his grandparents. But most of all, we got to hang out with Daniel's friends & his Dad. The boys watched UFC one night and went to the movies the next night. Our last day there we took the jet ski's out again and the boys and Stephanie played poker. I watched - I will never figure out how to play. What the heck is a big blind, really!? Sheesh.

Old Forge!

For those of you don't know, our family has a little cottage on a lake in a town called Old Forge in the Adirondack Mountains. It is THE BEST place in the world. We always spend a week there every summer. As soon as it starts getting warm, we start counting the days until we can go. Then in a blink of an eye, the trip is already over and I find finding myself thinking..."what just happened? It's over?!" I get teary every time I leave and I can't believe I have to wait a whole year until I can go back. Here are two (old) pictures - one of the cottage and one of our view...


We had a great time this year in OF even though it was kind of chilly & rainy. We spend a lot of time in the cottage reading and hanging out. Aunt Sue and Erin stayed for a few days & that was really fun, especially since we hadn't seen them in awhile. Here's a shot of Sienna & her great Aunt Sue :)

We did have a couple of sunny days where we could go out on the jet ski's that we borrowed from family friends. Here is Daniel going on a solo ride....(before he got caught in a rain storm....)

Daniel, Dave & Kerry went to see a few movies but I was too tired after Sienna's mid-night party schedule. We did have a fun night out at Frankie's. Dinner was really good, but we waited for 2 hours for a table! We got our food at 8:40pm & we finished at 8:51pm. Pretty embarrassing, but we needed to get over to the Pied Piper (the local ice cream shop - SO GOOD!) before it closed so we had to eat fast anyway. (At least that's our story & we're sticking to it.) Here are Dave & Kerry & Daniel & me hanging out waiting for our food. This was at the beginning of our wait. We were a little less smiley an hour later...

On one of the warmer days, we decided to dip Sienna's toes in the lake just to see if she would like it....

But she loved it so we had to put her bathing suit on so she would splash around.

We got a great video of Daniel & Sienna in the lake - I'll upload it as soon as I can. Next year we are taking her to the Enchanted Forest - that will be some serious swimmin' & splashin'. Goodbye, Old Forge...Until next year... !