Summer Lovin'

"The party's oooooooover!" My mom always used to say that to us in a sing-songy voice once the last guest had departed or at the end of a vacation- - it still makes me shudder. But my summer-long "party" is over. My youngest sister's boyfriend headed off to college (in Florida no less) on Tuesday, my boyfriend headed back home on Wednesday then it's off to MI for him on Saturday and back to his "real" job. Our friend who stays with us in the summer headed out this morning for his job in Spain, and my sister heads back to school on Sunday. Talk about a change of pace.

What a summer though... now we'll see how patient my boyfriend can be until he starts requesting my presence in MI again. :)

A Camp by Any Other Name

A new reader writes in and asked,
"What exactly do you mean by camp? I notice that a lot of the northern girls refer to opening up the camp, etc. For a long time, I thought you all ran children's camps! I'm guessing now that it's a vacation home, but is there something distinctive that makes it a "camp"?

When I first went to college and talked about my "camp" all of my friends thought that I worked at a children's camp as well- - you are not alone! In fact, just the other day my boyfriend was saying how he's never heard the word "camp" so much in one summer since he's been in Vermont.

I'm not sure the real reason behind calling it a camp, that's what we've always called it! All of my friends who have them too, call them camps. It is not so much a summer house as it is lacking many, many features that it would need to call it house (at least for me). Our camp is not insulated, heated by fireplace, has no dishwasher, no internet, no cable. Perhaps it is most similar to a cottage, but I always think that cottages should be located on the ocean and camps on the lake.

Anyone else have a take on this? I'd love to hear what you guys think.

Tandem Weekend

It was a beautiful weekend here in Vermont which I got to enjoy because our trip to PA was cancelled at the last minute... (which I wasn't too upset about, there's something about being home with my boyfriend and ALL of his friends that is less than exciting) so we headed up to my camp in the Lake Champlain Islands for a couple of days.

We went swimming, fishing, and out to dinner at this fabulous new restaurant nearby- - got pink grapefruit sorbet for dessert. It was fantasic. We were seated next to the most insecure lady EVER who wouldn't talk quietly enough for me NOT to stare at her the entire time. She was continuously like, "Why are you guys telling me to be quiet?" "Is everyone looking at me?" "You guys, I'm not like an embarrassment- - you need to leave me alone." "I see how it is, I'm on my second drink so you think I'm an alcoholic." UGH. I hate experiences like that.

My boyfriend had to work later than usual on Friday night so I had the groceries bought and the car packed when he arrived which enabled me to sneak the tandem bike- - that's right, a bicycle built for two- -on the back of the car without him knowing. :) Saturday we headed out for a ride and ended up riding 20 miles. It was awesome, being on the lake and just relaxing. My butt is still sore from that bike though.

Hope everyone out there is great!

This is our camp! A view from the water!

And this is the bay, a view from the camp! We are in a bay, and on the point there is a beautiful Lake House where many, many people have their weddings in the area. Saturday night there was a wedding, so we could hear the music over at our camp which was so fun. As you can see, the music attracts of "water-guests" too. Boats from all over come into the bay to hang out for the night and these boats ended up staying all night in the bay.

Lake Champlain & Tea Parties

I spent the better part of the weekend on the lake jet-skiing, swimming, water-skiing and cooking on the grill- - ahhhh, summer. Saturday night we all headed up to my boyfriend's work because he was playing in a tennis tournament. He won! Which, in addition to serious bragging rights, meant $100 too. Not huge, but pretty fun! After that we, in true family fashion, had a nice leisurely 3 hour happy hour.

I need some advice- -I am hosting a baby shower for my cousin's wife in early September and her bridesmaid/best friend would like it to be a tea party theme. Nothing too girly, because they are having a boy, but do you guys have any ideas? I REALLY need help with the party favors. I don't want to do anything tacky, just small and cute. PLEASE HELP!

Dog Days of Summer

I have been *so* busy lately. I do some contractual work/moonlighting in addition to my real job and this week is the big culmination of an event that I have been working on all year. Needless to say, it’s been crazy.

Yesterday was just gorgeous here and my boyfriend had the day off so I took ½ day too (unheard of around here) to spend some quality time with him without rushing from one thing to the next. It was really nice, we sat by the pool, had lunch, got haircuts (okay, we’re losers) did a LITTLE shopping and walked on a trail at the nearby river. All before I taught Jazzercise at 5:45. It was a stress-free day. Until 7pm.

We came home from jazz, showered and ate dinner when a friend of the family (also the person who house sat while we were on vacation) stopped by to say hi with his roommates dog. We don’t have dogs, we have a cat, but we’re always pretty relaxed about people bringing their dogs over, even though (sorry dog lovers) I personally loathe having them in the house. I know, I know, I’m SORRY. You all remember my last experience with a dog anyway.

We’re in the kitchen about to eat and I hear this intense panting from the family room- - at first I panic because I thought my boyfriend was having a heart attack after all of that jazzercise (I’m now realizing how stupid that thought was) so I look down the hallway and it’s our friend with this HUGE dog, tight on the leash. He asks, “Is he okay?” I’m like, “Is WHO okay?” He goes, “the dog? Is he fine?” I’m like, “WHAT?” He’s goes, “can I let him off the leash?” I’m like, um, no, no, no, no, NO, NO, NO F NO, “oh, sure!”.

The dog comes careening into the kitchen runs around the house, takes a lap around the dining room table then just kind of hangs out. At this point, my boyfriend and I are ready to jump in the pool for a bit so we leave my mom to visit with the friend. My boyfriend is swimming and I’m on the diving board ready to jump in when our friend comes out to visit with the dog, who by the way, is still leash-less.

Well, it took about .0000876 seconds before the dog was in the pool. Did you read that? IN. THE. POOL. IN THE POOL WITH A VERY NICE, THIN LINER. IN THE POOL WITH NO STEPS FOR THE DOG TO GET OUT. IN MY POOL DAMN IT.

Now, let me tell you something about the pool. It’s nice, pretty big, 10 feet deep, 3.5 feet in the shallow end and it doesn’t have any stairs. That’s right, just ladders to get in and out. Not a problem for humans, BIG PROBLEM for unsuspecting dog who is used to just walking out gradually of the lake. He, appropriately, dog paddles for a little bit before he gets nervous and wants to get out. He can’t. So the friend struggles to pull him out enough to he can grab him and then lifts 150lbs of dog out of the pool. Dog shakes off and I throw a tennis ball OUTSIDE of the pool area to occupy him for a bit. Fine. Crisis Averted. Or so I thought.

The friend stays for a while, has a drink, I go inside, boyfriend goes inside, get ready to go out for the night. My mom is walking out to say bye to the friend who is leaving. While they’re visiting the dog is running around again, disappears for a while and then comes back. SOAKING WET. That’s right. The dog ran around the back of the house and jumped in the pool. AGAIN. And he must have managed to get out by himself because, like, he was in the front yard all wet.

My mom and friend panic, run to the back yard and- - (insert sarcasm here) you’re never going to believe this- - there is a HUGE tear in our pool liner and water is GUSHING out. Out of the pool. Like a waterfall in my backyard. A really chlorinated waterfall that I didn’t WANT THERE.

Everyone starts yelling, friend tries to hold the liner together and stop the water while I, lucky me, put my bathing suit BACK on, jump in and perform emergency liner surgery to our pool. If you’ve never performed emergency liner surgery you should try it sometime. It’s really fun. In fact, it’s so fun I still have the adhesive stuck to my stomach and fingers to remind myself how fun it was. And just in case I make a mistake and try to forget, another reminder will come this afternoon when I meet with the pool guy about how to fix the GAPING HOLE in our liner a little more officially that my emergency liner surgery last night.

In a seriously bad mood today. :)

Memorial Day!

It's Friday, it's beautiful, it's the start to a long weekend. Enough said.

Here's to a gorgeous three-day weekend; white shoes, pants, skirts, and bags; and the beginning of summer!

One of Those Days

Do you ever just have "one of those days". You know, where nothing is quite going right? It's not as if the day is HORRIBLY, TERRIBLY BAD it's just that little things are very annoying and extremely unimpressing. Well, yesterday was ONE OF THOSE DAYS and I'm having a little bit of a difficult time snapping out of it! Sometimes it just seems that people (i.e. coworkers/bosses) could be kinder but instead choose to be snippit-y and condescending. It's frustrating at times and makes me weary. I would just like to put a sign in my office saying, "I'm TRYNG, alright?". And (although I do this to myself...) having three jobs ("REAL JOB", tennis, Jazzercise) means three bosses, means the occassional inability to please three people at once. Okay, I'm done. :)

On another (MUCH BIGGER AND BETTER AND HAPPIER) note, my boyfriend is leaving MI today, heading home to PA, spending a couple days in Philly with his best friend, then coming to VT for the summer at the end of next week.

Mix me up some Sangria, summer is here at last.