Labor Day Weekend, 2013: Girls and Schneiders and Kayaks

This year, for various reasons, none of our other kids were able to come for the weekend but Jonna and her tribe saved the day (weekend)!

The girls came up late Thursday night. Friday we rode out a bit of a storm (see previous post) but spent a lovely, clear evening on the beach with John and Sharon after dinner at Rosa's.

Jonna proved she was up to the challenge of photo-bombing family photos, a skill Adam mastered long ago.

I brought the ice cream ball along to the beach so we could all participate in the creation and enjoy the scrumptiousness of homemade ice cream. Although not all were enthusiastic about taking their turns at shaking, the resulting product was delicious indeed. The thing is pretty dang heavy, I'll say that.

While I was up at the cottage stirring the ice cream, John brought out a pack of BIG sparklers for the girls to play with. It's always fun to see the pure enjoyment on HIS face when the fireworks come out. The first time he and Sharon visited us on Black Lake, he brought along some fireworks (not strictly legal at that time), and once it was sufficiently dark, set them off on the end of the dock. By that time of night he was smoking a cigar, and as he walked out on the dock to start the show, he had it clenched in his grinning teeth, in the manner of Franklin Roosevelt. The man has a mischievous streak a mile wide.

With very few artificial lights to dim the sky, it was dark and full of stars. We all stood in amazement at the black, light-speckled ceiling, silence broken only by exclamations of wonder. I saw the longest shooting star I've ever seen, and Melissa saw it, too. The photo left isn't mine, but is the best I could find to represent the one we saw.

As we sat enjoying the night sky (and our ice cream), John exclaimed and pointed toward the horizon. "Northern Lights!" he said.

I grabbed another Internet photo to represent what we saw. Although there was no purple in our view, it was the same general pattern as above--smears of green light shooting up from the horizon and flashing gently as we watched. John wrote about it in his blog a couple days later.

What a bloody magical evening.

Seeking to re-enact accomplishments from their kayak trip two weeks earlier, the girls strapped on iPhones and set out for another beautiful trip on the lake. I was only too proud to have provided the unifying fashion theme: bandanas.

Jonna takes the little L.L. Bean kayak, Melissa the Pungo 14, and Shaina the Pungo 12. Melissa takes very good care of my best paddle, the super light one that Pa picked out to go with the third kayak he and Mom provided for our cottage boatyard.

A final shot from the weekend--one of my apricot daylilies in full bloom in Wellington Garden.