Camping

Chris & I took the girls camping in a tent for the first time last weekend and we had a blast. The weather was perfect: warm and sunny during the day, and chilly enough for a sweatshirt at night. The girls explored while we set up the tent, and then happily joined for hot dogs and S'mores for dinner. Everyone slept well, and the girls weren't scared at all. The next morning, the girls and Chris went for a walk and I heard Delilah shouting for help, and Chris's response sounded far away. Turns out, Chris had told the girls to stay put on a rock while he walked ahead just a bit to see if the path was clear. Noelle ignored his request to stay still, and slipped on the mossy rock, tumbling down about 4 feet into the shallow creek. There was no danger of drowning, but she did get soaked from heat to toe. She loved it: came up shivering and laughing, saying, "that was fun!" After we warmed her up and changed her clothes, we packed up our site and headed for a hike in the Catskills. The hike was pretty steep in places and the girls were awesome about it. We hiked about an hour and a half to to get to the scenic overlook, had a snack there, then climbed back down. When we were almost done, Delilah looked at me and said, "I love when we do stuff like this, Mom." We stopped at New Paltz on the way home for dinner and Chris & I fell in love with that adorable city. Don't be surprised if we end up there in a few years. Such a fun getaway and I love how much our girls love being outside!!

Last Day, Broken Arm, Solstice

It was bound to happen at some point: one of our kids got her first broken arm. We were on the log flume ride at Playland, all of us sitting on a bench, and slippery+physics+Chris's body weight+metal bar+Noelle's wrist = a tiny arm broken in two places. She was a trooper about it and miraculously, when we went back to the doctor two weeks later, it was already healed. This was especially fantastic because it meant she could be cast-free for the 3 week trip to Texas; hooray!!!

The next few pics are from Delilah's last day...we invited her best friends Emma & Liv and Noelle's friend Lucy (who is Emma's little sister) to come over for a last day of school celebration. You can see how excited they were!!

And the remaining pics are from a fun night we spent with the McNamara family. Stone Barns is an absolutely beautiful farm/restaurant/greenhouse/education center about 30-40 minutes away. They were holding a special Summer Solstice event and we spent a lovely evening creating flower mandalas, making pesto, rolling down hills, petting animals, jumping in hay, and learning to square dance. At one point the girls got irrationally mad and we were so frustrated that they weren't enjoying such a magical night!!! But you can't force these things, so we all relaxed, and by the time the sun set, nobody wanted to leave.

Mets Game, Ladybugs, and Friends

This is a very delayed post about some fun things we did in May! Took the girls to their first MLB game. Delilah has been watching baseball with Chris, so she was very into the game. Noelle was fine, but then got hot and cozy and fell asleep on me. I held her for almost 5 innings, and loved every minute of it. The rest of the pictures are from the Ladybug Festival (an adorable annual event where kids release ladybugs in the Rye Town Park), and from a fun play date we had at the Duchanaud home.

It felt like the warm weather was never going to come back, and we are enjoying every moment of it!

1st Annual RPC Family Retreat

Back in the fall, one of RPC's members, Sarah, asked me if I would consider organizing a family retreat for the church. I thought it sounded like a fantastic idea and said yes immediately. The day before she asked me, I had been visited by a woman named Susan who works for the Holmes Presbyterian Camp & Conference Center. Holmes is about 45 minutes away from Rye, and features a lake, lots of woods/hiking, lodges, etc. Holmes is co-owned by 3 presbyteries, including ours, but RPC has never really taken advantage of the facility. It is quite "rustic" and I was told that it had never seemed like the right fit for our wealth congregation. I decided that people might be more open-minded than they had been given credit for, so I asked Sarah to take a trip to Holmes with me and see if the site might work. The first sleeping facilities were waaaay too rustic and never going to fly, but the second place we saw was this cute, albeit circa-70's décor, motel-style lodge with 12 rooms, an upstairs play room, and a perfect room for holding a worship service. Sarah and I were sold and set about planning the retreat, along with another member, Julia. In the end, we had 7 families sign up to go on our overnight adventure. We had a blast!!! Most of us met at the church on Saturday morning to get coffee/snacks and travel together (2 families met us at Holmes). At first it was hard for everyone to transition out of our normal mode and pace. We started with a family kickball game that Sarah and her husband Scott had organized. Looking back, probably the only thing I'd change about the weekend was scheduling that kickball game for right when we arrived (well, technically we had lunch right when we arrived, but the kickball game was the first real activity). It was too soon. The kids just wanted to run around and be kids, and only a handful were really into the game. I think if we had let them play and explore for an hour or so first, they would have been more ready to do something structured. But after that, everything went beautifully. We had snacks, and water balloons, and giant bubbles, and a cookout, and hula hoops, and s'mores. Chris set up a Frisbee golf course in the trees around our lodge and everyone loved it. At the end of the night, the kids were exhausted but not ready for bed, so we turned on a movie for them upstairs, while the adults hung out downstairs and had some great conversations over a glass of wine or beer. In the morning, we ate breakfast, then had church in a beautiful room with floor to ceiling windows and trees all around. Sarah, Julia, and I thought it would be neat to incorporate the kids as much as possible, so we did. 3 of them played piano, 5 of them read from a St. Francis poem about creation, and the little kids held up pictures they had drawn the day before, based on the words of the poem. We went around in a circle, and everyone shared their most joyous moment of the retreat. It was so lovely. Nearly everyone had to rush off after the service, but one family, the Hollers, stayed behind with us to explore a little more. We went hiking and came across a low-ropes course. Turned out to be one of the highlights of the weekend! And now here are a ton of photos!

Every single family said they hope they can come back next year...hopefully this is the start of a beautiful new tradition!!!