Here's pretty much everything we did in New York; I still haven't uploaded the pics from my phone, but they're on the computer (that's a big step, believe me!).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28696897@N08/sets/72157606470275568/

Odd, for some reason that's not being a link.  Copy/paste would work, though.

Again with the no pictures!  Actually, here are the pictures from Foogfest:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28696897@N08/?saved=1

Haven't dug out my drive to transfer pics from the camera for this segment, but I only really took any while we were at the Crayola factory.  No way was I going to bring my camera to the water park. 

We left NY on Wednesday around 11 a.m., arrived in Easton, PA around 1:30 and spent the rest of the day at the Crayola factory.  I must say that they did a wonderful job.  You get your tickets and 3 tokens each (which in our party added up to 27 tokens) to spend on the second floor.  Each token would either get you a box of 4 crayons made in the factory (which seemed rather chintzy to me), a marker also made in the factory, or a bag of white modeling clay.  We went for the clay and I spent the next hour (at least) playing with it.  I'm just a kid at heart. I made a bunch of flowers.  The fun part of it was using the markers set out on tables to dye the clay various colors.  Before leaving we spent all our leftover tokens on modeling clay - I need to go see what happened to it.

We checked in to the Scottish Inn near Dorny Park that evening after pigging out at Friendly's.  I can't say much about the hotel, it was on a par with the BW of Whitmore; very much a MO-tel, not a HO-tel.  Thursday morning we were up at 8, out to the park by 10.  Fun was had in Snoopy's Camp by the kids, but my back had been mostly out this entire week so I wasn't able to ride a damned thing.  Around noon-ish we headed to the wave pool and spent the rest of the day there, up until the sudden thunderstorm that had everyone running to their cars.  Got back to the hotel and changed, went for dinner to Ichiban Steakhouse (Japanese hibatchi).  Good food, but their idea of a margharita is not the same as mine - I got a fairly small coctail glass when what I wanted was a frozen fishbowl.  Oh well. 

Friday morning we discovered how careless we'd been with sunscreen.  For the most part the kids all escaped without harm (Seth has shiny cheeks and a red nose), but Dad was fairly severely burned in odd places - like his stomach.  Owie.  I got it bad on my shoulders, neck, and chest, pretty much everything from the elbow up is red-tinted.  Mom's only bad on her shoulders, and Renee, who was wearing Disney crocks all week, has little Mickey Mouse shaped burn marks on her feet.  We went back to the wave pool anyway.  Got to the park at 9:45 and had time to lotion all the kids VERY thoroughly before the park opened; we also were much more careful about re-applying lotion after leaving the pool.  (Both days we set up in the shade under some HUGE umbrellas.)  We left pool area around 5:00, not much more burned than when we started.  Stopped at the bar and grill in the part, the only place that served beer.  I had 2, dad had 1.  After dinner I went on the one and only ADULT ride for this trip, the log flume, with Ryan.  He enjoyed it and wanted to go on it again but we'd said we were leaving.  We got on a slow train around the park so everyone could have one last ride, then headed out for the night.  I turned the lights off in the hotel room at 8:45 and we all crashed out.

Saturday Ryan woke me up at 7 a.m. by asking how long we had to wait before we went to see Nana.  (They were in a different hotel room.)  Given that this was supposed to be a day for sleeping in I held off till after I'd showered and dressed before calling - and they were still asleep.  Oops.  Waited for them to get up, went out to breakfast, packed up and left the hotel.  On the way back, poor Ryan got car sick, but was able to contain it all in the ziplock bags we kept handing him.  We really need to purchase stock in that company, we buy so many of them. 

Now it's Saturday night, and I spent a good hour in my "back recovery position" - basically lying on my stomach with a pillow under my chest, my back curved as close to a "C" as I can make it.  Feeling MUCH better.  Trying to decide between crashing and finding some mindless game to play online, since there isn't a computer at my folks' house that can run any game I might play.  Not to knock my folks, but we update our computers every six months or so... well, to be honest, DENNIS takes them apart and puts them back together to make sure I can play whatever game I'm in.   In either case, I'm going to call it a night.  Sweet dreams, all!

FoogFest was a blast this year.  Many thanks to Aaron and Jen for hosting!  Dennis did his version of a vacation review here:  http://www.keyourcars.com/2008/07/13/vacation/

Dennis, Temple and I left Tulsa at around 6 p.m. on Wednesday evening and travelled all night, arriving in South Lyon at around 10 a.m.  We pretty much futzed around on Thursday, Aaron fed us copious amounts of burgers, had a couple beers, hung out with Rachel and Marcel and Mike ... not sure when other people started to show up.  At it's height we had 13, I believe, not counting Aaron and Jen's baby.  Friday an excursion to Dearborn (sp) was made for some really EXCELLENT Middle Eastern food (I had chicken kabob with oregano and lemon, with an absolutely delicious onion paste for the fresh pita).  I bowed out of a trip to the Ford living museum because, well, I find that kind of thing truly boring.  Dennis and I hung at the hotel for a couple hours, then headed on over to Aaron's again for a very late dinner.  Aaron made beef tacos, but not your typical ground beef quickie dinner.  Home made guacamole and salsa, grilled thinly sliced slab o meat (not sure what the cut was, but I do recall that he wasn't able to get a skirt steak).  More beer, many games of various types, everyone falling out around midnight.  We're getting old. :)  Saturday was paintball. I went to the field but didn't play, read a book while waiting for the guys to come in between rounds.  I took a lot of pictures but haven't dug ouit my drive to see if any of them are actually usable.  Saturday night was spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread. MMMMM good.  I was assistant chef this weekend, and I must say that Aaron is an exacting task master but the food was worth it.  Another night of games (Munchkin, Rock Band, couple of board games) and another midnight end time.

Sunday Dennis and Temple left for Tulsa at 0darkhundred, got in to Tulsa around 9 p.m.  I do NOT want to know how fast they were going. I hung out at Jen and Aaron's till it was time to leave for the airport. 

On the trip from Flint to NY, we got to the airport at around 3:15/3:30 due to really poor signage going from Aaron's to Flint International.  NO indication in that direction of where the airport is, but when we turned around and came back it was very clearly marked.  Checked in, met up with Marcel and Rachel again, and they were getting concerned because there were multiple cancellations going to Atlanta due to severe weather.  I was feeling smug about it (sorry, guys) when they were informed their flight was delayed 2 hours (but I got my comeuppance).  I got on my plane, landed in Milwaukee, WI (cheap fares sends you in some odd directions), got off and looked to see what gate my flight was at - only to discover that my flight had been cancelled.  That's never happened to me before. 
 
I got to the nearest unoccupuied agent and asked what she could do to get me to NY.  She looked at my ticket, punched a few numbers, and said she could get me into La Guardia flight that left Wisconsin at 6 p.m. Monday.  I asked if there was anything earlier, she said no.  I asked if there was anything going to Newark earlier, because I had promised my boys I'd see them tonight... and burst into tears. I wasn't TRYING to manipulate her, honestly, I was just overcome with longing to see my sons... and it scared her into offering me a voucher for a hotel and a 7 a.m. flight to Newark.  Not being an idiot, I took her up on her offer.  The hotel was okay, Hospitality Inn, a bit old and shabby around the edges but I got a suite that was nicer than the Best Western at Whitmore Lake.  I ordered some mediocre Chinese food (not having a car there weren't any restaurants I could walk to, even if I wanted to walk in a semi-industrial area after dark) and tried to get to sleep, which didn't work too well.  I was able to nod off about midnight but I kept waking up worried that I'd missed my flight, so I looked at the clock at 1, 2, and 3:30.  I gave up and got up at around 4:25, showered, dressed, checked out, got the shuttle to the airport, and discovered my 7:00 flight had been moved to 7:35.  That was the last of it, though.  We boareded at 7:20, flew for 2 hours and were on the ground at 10:30.  I got to my folks' house, had a snack, and crawled into bed for a 2 hour nap. 
 
Our Pennsylvania trip has been postponed, but that was due to a death in the family of one of my mom's friends - the wake is tomorrow night and she wants to go. We should be back in NY on Saturday sometime, then I have to get going on finding out when all my girlfriends are available.

I decided that the silk was looking brown so it was safe to pluck.  I was so excited I didn't get the camera until after I husked it, but here's my first ear of corn:

The rows are extremely uneven, as you can see, and the kernals weren't all that plump.  Even so, I ate the whole thing raw. :)

(Frankly it wasn't much better than what I can get in the supermarket, but I've got a couple of varieties planted.  Maybe I'll find one I like better)

Although to be honest, I shouldn't have; but now I'm really confused about when, precisely, you're supposed to harvest garlic.  The sites I've read say that when the top leaves are about half wilted it's time to pull the bulbs from the ground; the leaves were way more than half wilted, I could barely tell them from the mulch.  In any case now I have to figure out what to plant where the garlic was.

The sunflowers are now so big that they can't remain upright once they start producing seeds.  These are another thing I've no idea when I'm supposed to harvest

Oh my, the corn is looking REAL good.  I keep reaching out to pluck an ear and pulling my hand back.. let it get a little bigger.. I passed a farm today (another story) where there was a patch of corn that was only about knee high.  I felt superior and vindicated.

The pumpkins are starting to form.  Unfortunately I didn't realize how lightly they were attached to their stems at first.

  Oops.

But there are more!

Same old with the strawberries; I've hopes they'll survive the winter and do better next year.

On the subject of things that are starting to fruit:

They're tiny! Yet another thing I'm not sure about. I've never eaten a fig. 

And here comes the red stuff!

Well, maybe not red yet, but hopefully before I leave for NY!

And to wind up, here is what the boys and I did this morning:

I decided to try, for the second time this week, to take the boys berrying as our daily “activity” (instead of shopping, which is the norm).  The first time, Tuesday, the directions I had were good but the farm wasn’t marked well, and it was in the middle of a road with a lot of private houses – and turns out it was closed because there hasn’t been enough sun to ripen the berries. That farm only had blackberries.

Today I decided to hit a place that had blueberries, blackberries, AND raspberries. The first problem was, Google maps was off by about 5 miles.  I had to backtrack five miles to the last gas station (this place was out in the BOONIES) to get directions, then drive the 5 miles I backtracked plus another 5 miles. Get out, get buckets, and head down the rows… which have been thoroughly picked over.  Each row was probably a couple hundred feet long; we went up a blueberry row, garnering perhaps 50 berries, and returned on a raspberry row.  We brought home 20 raspberries.. but it’s harder to say how many were picked, because Ian really liked them and was eating them as we went along.  Seth had a miserable time and announced in the middle of the blueberries, “Mom, why do you make me use up my energy all the time?” Which caused snickers from the other pickers.  Ian didn’t want to leave, Seth and Ryan were ready to go.  I bought 2 pounds of blueberries on the way out because I promised Dennis a pie of some sort and they didn’t HAVE raspberries for sale. 

So, for the 2 and a half hours we were gone, we spent one and a half in the car, about a half our berrying, and another half using the bathroom/playing on the playground equipment.  Kind of a waste of time and money; maybe we can do better with apples in the fall.