What I Did On My Summer Vacation

​In my last post I talked about all the things I did NOT do all Summer. I don’t want to leave the impression that I did nothing and have been curled up in a ball in my bed every day. I did a fair amount of that but I really did have a productive and sometimes even fun Summer.
We kicked off the season with our youngest graduating from high school.  While this can be bittersweet, the ending of the high school career, he is staying home and going to school at the University at Buffalo so we didn’t have to do any hard goodbyes. It was a very rewarding moment. He worked so hard all year in AP classes, even ones that he really didn’t need to take, and finished strong with tremendously good grades. I am so proud of him! We hardly had time to celebrate before we were off for the big family vacation.  

​The entire family-me, Mark, the boys, my parents, my siblings and their families-went to Cape Cod to celebrate my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. All 15 of us! They have been planning this trip for 2 years. We were staying at Green Harbor Resort in West Yarmouth, Ma, spread out among 3 of their quaint cottages. It was a really amazing trip. We were steps from the private beach and heated pool. The beach had lounge chairs and umbrellas so we didn’t have to haul all of our stuff down there every day. It was truly luxurious. Other than a few dinners out, we rarely left the property. We got up early to walk every day. It was so hot all week all we could do after 9am was be by the water and in shade. It was a really nice getaway and so amazing to have the whole family in one place. It rarely happens anymore. The older kids (mine and my sister’s) have school and jobs that make it harder each year for them to be around for trips. I will always cherish this trip. Not sure when we will be able to make it happen again. We can’t even get just the 4 of us in one place more than once a week for dinner.

https://redjacketresorts.com/green-harbor-resort/

​Once we were home we did a lot of house projects. Mostly it was preparation to have a graduation party for Evan- outdoor chores like cleaning the garage, cleaning the inside of the house, and getting the gardens up to par. I had started a lot of seedlings early in the Spring in the house and it required a lot of daily nurturing to get the plants to the point of giving us a bountiful harvest. The cucumbers were such a success, that I had to learn how to make pickles so they wouldn’t go to waste. We had a few tomatoes and the peppers are coming now too. The basil and mint are still growing like crazy, so some pesto needs to be made and frozen. I also started dehydrating the herbs for future use.  

​The final big project of the Summer was renovating the basement. It had been a playroom/computer room for the kids for a long time, but I had never finished painting it and it became a catchall for stuff. While Mark and the boys put in new cabinets and redid the floor on the stairs, I cleaned the back unfinished part. There is something so satisfying about putting things in bins and labeling them. It’s nice knowing that if I go downstairs to look for something, I will actually be able to find it. We also manage to get rid of a lot of stuff that we had just been hanging onto for no good reason. It has been really fun hearing the neighbor boy playing with the Nerf guns that have been held hostage in a toy box for close to 10 years. Hearing him yell “Look Mom, Mom are you watching?!” Strangely, I realized that I won’t ever hear those words again.
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We spent all of Labor Day weekend doing exactly that…labor. We finished painting the basement, the side hall, and the trim that was put in the kitchen and dining room when Mark put in the new floors in the Spring. For the first time in 22 years, the house feels “done”. There are no more huge indoor projects hovering over us. The boys’ man cave looks amazing.  The rest of the house is pulled together. The outdoor garden started getting the Fall close down. I pulled out dead flowers and started transplanting things that needed a better space to grow in. We are ready to hunker down for the Fall and Winter as the cold weather starts to close around us.

​It wasn’t all work and no play. We took a long hike and drive around Artpark, Lewiston, and Wilson in the Alfa Romeo Spider on a super hot Sunday. We went to Allentown Art Festival, Glen Park Art Festival, Williamsville Farmer’s Market , and other drives around the city of Buffalo for brunches and other events.  We went to estate sales and thrift store shopping. Visited friends and went to picnics. There were a lot of other things that are still on my “To-Do, Visit, and See list” but they will have to be scheduled into next Summer. This was a busy productive one and it’s time to close the books on it. Good-bye Summer 2018. It’s been great!