Penny Gone Wild!

Penny went a little crazy yesterday when we met Muz and D at Lake Clear for a paddle and swim date...she met Muz with lots of kisses, including kissing one of her earrings right off of her ear...she swallowed it!!!


We kept an eye on her, fed her a bunch, and waited...we won't talk about my intrusive behaviors for the next 18 hours...we both just want to forget...


After all was said and done, Penny "processed" the earring, and both she and it are fine, although it has changed color somewhat...the "Penny-ed" earring is the one on the left...


Ben was relieved that she was OK, and loved snuggling with Penny after all of her hard work...


Ben took a marathon jacuzzi today, particularly enjoying a boat powered by balloon that Muz gave him...


He played in the tub through cloudy and sunny weather...sometimes the boat had smooth sailing, other times the bubbles would come on and it was tough times for the sailors...


Muz settled in for a mid-afternoon nap, with Maggie at her feet, and Penny nowhere to be seen (she was up helping with Ben's bath)...at first...


All of a sudden, Penny's ear perked up, and she dashed downstairs and pounced on Muz to play with her and Maggie...


The field of play was Muz and the couch, and the girls played hard...this got in the way of Muz's nap, but she was giggling and howling with laughter while they leaped and snapped all around her, and jammed seemingly endless elbows into her during the game...

Moody Pond

Muz and D moved to a camp on Moody Pond for their last week in the ADKs, and although it's no Camp Sunrise, we are finding lots of things to love about this camp as well...



Ben loves the Jacuzzi upstairs, and has taken a bath every day (for an hour or so at a time)...


It's a beautiful and bright open design, and is made of huge logs, many over a foot in diameter and running 50-60 feet along the length of the building...there are also lots of Adirondack design and decorating details that make this nice house in the woods feel very campy...


We take turns hanging out with Ben when he takes his baths...Penny took a few days to work up the bravery to climb the massive log stairs (she was freaked out by being able to see through the gaps between the stairs)...


Ben loves playing a collection of card games that Muz gave him, particularly the "Crazy 8's" game, and he is becoming a master at the game...


Penny sure does take a nice picture lying on the couch in the new camp...


We went for a nice paddle with Auntie Ann on Lower Saranac before she headed back down to Washington, DC...it was a sunny, breezy, and cool day...perfect Adirondack weather on a beautiful lake...


This was Auntie Ann's longest trip in a kayak, and she did a great job, but more importantly had a lot of fun playing in the kayak...


As with any great paddle-trip in the Adirondacks, there was a section that brought us into a narrow river environment with lots of twists and turns...


Penny and Cedar are coming closer to working out their peaceful co-existence, as can be seen in this perfect puppy nap attack picture...

July comes to an end...

We've been busy during the time since the last update, and I didn't always have my camera with me to record the events, but we made a run down to Blue Mountain Lake to visit the Adirondack Museum, went on a bunch of paddle trips, saw "Dark Knight" (loved it, but Ben won't be seeing it until he's 25), and moved into a new camp on Moody Pond...


My Auntie Ann came to visit with her son and daughter, Jon and Mandy, and their wives, Frances and Dorothy...it was a great visit, and we had them all out to Camp Sunrise a couple of times for food and some paddling...


Ben loved getting to spend some time with this part of his family which he hasn't seen enough of, to date, a situation that he has made plans to remedy...


Ben made a spectacular lime pie, with some help from Muz, and it was a big hit at the dinner the night that everyone came over...


We celebrated Gail's birthday on the 24th, starting with gifts and coffee at 6am...Ben picked out this lovely necklace for his mommy, spending a lot of time and energy picking out exactly the right present for her when we went shopping together...later, Gail and I went to a movie and a great dinner at "Charlie's" in Lake Placid...


While we were doing that, everyone else went out to dinner at "Tail of the Pup" a fun barbecue place in Raybrook...


I took these final 3 pictures on the last morning at Camp Sunrise...it was a fun month at this super camp, and we look forward to coming back again next year...


I call the shot above, "pepperjack"...


A committee of me named this picture, "bib lettuce"...

Blogger's note: not really...I just feel as though every picture should have some text attached to it...

A visit from Hans

A friend of Muz and D's from Germany came to visit for a few days this week, and we had a great time paddling and lake-watching and playing soccer with him...



We went on a paddle trip from Jones to Osgood Ponds, and back up again...we could ram through the beaver dams on the way down, but with the current against us on the way back up, I had to get out and pull all 3 boats over the dam...


It's a tight little river, filled with interesting sights and sounds...


We stopped for a stretch and a snack at the bottom of the little river, enjoyed the sun and breeze and openness of Osgood Pond for a bit, before heading back into the heart of not-so-darkness...


Here you can see the beaver dam on the way back up...summertime canoers and kayakers must be really frustrating to the beavers...


Hans took advantage of the wifi, and of Ben giving him a few minutes "off-duty" to check and send some emails, and make travel arrangements for the rest of his visit to the States...


We all enjoyed trying out the teeny Hornbeck boats that live at the camp...they work pretty well for Hans and my Dad, but I'm about twice the optimal weight for this design, so they float pretty low in the water with me in it, and I sorta fill it from side to side and end to end...picture a bull in a bathtub...


Ben and Hans had a great time noodling around in the water, splashing and swimming and generally enjoying the super feel of the lake as well as each others' company...Ben has already made plans to visit Hans in Germany...

Deep into July

Summer at Camp Sunrise continues...sunburns, ice cream from Donnelly's, canoe trips, mid-afternoon naps, good books, comfy chairs, wet dogs, early to bed and early to rise (Ben Franklin would have been proud of all of us), lots of grilled food, and so on...it's pretty sweet!


We keep some old bread at both the boathouse and at the dock for when the duck families come around...I used to rail against people feeding ducks...but Ben likes it...so now I support feeding ducks...


We went on some really nice paddles with my sister (ANTI) Sarah, including a nice exploration of Upper Saranac, the lake our home for July is on...


We paddled around all of the islands in our end of the hugely long lake on this glorious day, with me struggling a bit (and silently) in my bathtub of a canoe to keep up with all of those sleek kayaks...to be fair, Penny was in my boat, and she helped a little...


When we got back to camp, Penny tried out riding on the front deck of Gail's boat...there was a splash about 10 seconds after this picture was taken...

"How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie-pop?"

"Let's see...one, two, three, chomp..."

Penny is cute, and fast becoming accustomed to life on the water...


Another round of duck-feeding, this time from the dock while we were in the water...


An early morning picture, with the sun just peeking out from behind Dry Island and the lake as smooth as minimally ripply glass...


Another trip, this one to Jones to Osgood to Church ponds...we were foiled by beavers, who had toiled through the night to erect dams at every turn, which we didn't feel like either ramming or climbing...we instead decided to tour the Jones Pond instead, and let another group the following day ream out the waterway for us...


We had the Buerketts over for a swim and graduate study party...the younger ones did the swimming while Gail and Becca found wifi up on the boathouse deck above the noise and splashing, and worked on the various advanced degrees...


Saranac Root Beer was had by all of the waterbound crew...


The dogs, Ripple and Maggie, swam enough for 10 regular dogs...


Ben's summer soccer season began, and we've now had 4 practices...games will soon begin...



They spend their time on a mix of drills, like the one above, and scrimmaging, which resembles blob tag...


Everyone has fun, lots of kids take breaks to come and visit with Penny (sometimes one side or the other will be down all but one or two players), there are frequent and short and intense bouts of tears and screaming stemming from injury and/or meanness, and the kids are exhausted by the end of the hour-long practices...


I managed to sneak in a nap with Cedar and Penny one afternoon, all of us a little damp in the cool breeze of a perfect Adirondack summer's afternoon...


We did a long paddle from Middle Saranac to Lower Saranac Lake, travelling through the locks, a favorite of mine...


We stopped along the way to swim on one of the many islands dotting Middle Saranac, and to rehydrate and carbo-load for the remainder of the paddle down to our lunch spot...


The sun was high and hot in the clear sky, and I felt as though I could see to Montreal or into the atomic structure of the lilly pads that filled the river between the two lakes...everything was crisp and defined to an unbelievable degree...


Penny discovered that she likes sleeping with her head on my thwart bag...


Ben and D enjoyed the lunch at our traditional spot above the river, after the locks and just before reaching Lower Saranac Lake...I've done this trip about 100 times, and only missed eating in this spot once...nobody else seems to know it's there...their loss...

Blogger's Note: you can click on the picture above to see it enlarged...it's cute!

The traditional dessert, dating back to when Iroquois long boats ran these same waters, is a tootsie-pop...I like the purple ones, Ben vacillates between red (either one) and orange...


Gail has a sweet office set up on the deck of the boathouse...she is just about to start her comprehensive examinations, which are the last step before beginning her dissertation...GOOD LUCK GAIL!!!



We had some friends of Ben's come over for a swim date yesterday...Joseph and Ben, who for obvious reasons we call "Little Ben"...everyone had a great time...


The flooded kayak was, as ever, a big favorite...climbing in and out and around and under the thing never gets old if you're under 10...


Pushing and pulling the full boat and kids managed to earn me a sore back, but it was worth it...someone's got to eat all of that Advil anyway...


Before taking off, the boys all played a fun, and inventive, game of croquet...I came in 4th...


There was a beautiful sunrise this morning (Thanks Penny!)...strong coffee, wet dogs on my feet, a good book, and a comfy chair make for a great and relatively quiet hour (or two) before anyone else gets up...


A second walk a bit later looked a little different as the sun was starting to climb from behind Dry Island...


This afternoon, I paddled over to Tommy's Rock with Ben and Penny and D...D was trying out a lighter Hornbeck boat, and so I took the 2 little ones with me in my canoe...Ben paddled most of the way over there, and we were happily surprised to find nobody else on the island, so we stopped off for a swim and a lollipop while D continued on his paddle...


Ben had a great time splashing in the water, and had tons of fun scampering around on the rocks that make this island...stay tuned for pictures of me leaping off of the 75 foot cliff on the Southern side of the island...well, maybe it's more like 10-12 feet, but it seems a long way down, and there may be alligators or sharks with lasers waiting in the freezing depths at the end of the jump...


Penny was so sweet...she had a ball running around the tiny island, coming back to check in with us every couple of minutes, and swimming out to check on Ben in the water to make sure that he was OK...


It was a gorgeous day for a paddle, and I'm glad that we could Carpe the Diem, and enjoy ourselves out on the water...it's shaping up to be one heck of a summer, and we're really happy and lucky and grateful that we can spend so much of it at Camp Sunrise on Upper Saranac Lake...