Boating and Berries

Another week gone by, which means another week of summer is gone. Not that there has been much of summer weather this year. But we are still enjoying our time on Sixberry. This weekend was a little cooler with some showers. It didn't stop some boaters though. Here is the captain and his crew. (aka Grandpa and the girls) The girls are learning quickly to be ready at the dock with their ropes. After a ride around the lake, we tested some wallpaper on one of the camp walls. Earlier this summer we put new sheet rock on another wall that had some water damage. That wall needs to be painted. We tested the wallpaper wall to see how stuck it really was. The girls learned quickly how to give it a tug.
The stripped wall after some rough sanding. Ready for a coat of paint. I think I found 4 different styles of paper. I remember the old green that we had at the camp when Mom and Dad bought the place 27 years ago. Mom quickly changed that to some floral print and the last was put up in 1994. Guess it's time for a change.
One of the fun things I remember as a kid at Sixberry, are the blackberries. This weekend was prime picking. The hill was covered with them. More than I ever remember. My summer sister, Cristina, and I would pick these and eat them before we could get them back to our camps. Grandpa and the girls each had a cup to fill.
Kelly took her berry picking very seriously. I think she stripped this whole vine before moving onto the next.

Singer Castle, Dark Island

This past weekend we celebrated my niece Kelsey's 15th birthday. We went for a family celebration at my brother-in-law's house. We were treated to some nice chicken kabob's among some other favorites. Not to mention the wine. Although, when one is not feeling well please take note not to mix cold medicine, allergy medicine and wine all in the same day. I must say I was a little bit in a fog. Well at least I'm feeling better now and it provided a few laughs for some.

Sunday we spent the day playing tourists. Gary has wanted to visit Singer Castle all summer. There is a shuttle that takes off at Schermerhorn Landing which was a nice way to travel since the other method was to go into Alex Bay and take the full tour. I didn't think the girls would last that long. A special treat for the girls was Grandpa had been there a few years ago so he knew all the secret passages. You could see where the passages were, but were closed off so that people couldn't pass through them. Still very interesting. You can read more about the castle here http://www.singercastle.com/start.html

The outside of the castle from the look out point. Walking the hill was the equivalent of 4 flights of stairs. Oh and did I mention it was raining when we got there? It cleared up enough after that we could take this picture as we were leaving.
Gary and Laura met a new friend while they were visiting the castle.
The girls and I at the look out point on the grounds. St. Lawrence River in the background. It was nice that it cleared up enough to take some river pics.

Considering the day I had on Saturday, Gary thought I should share a picture of their wine cellar.
This was one of the bathrooms on the third floor of the castle. This is a picture of the floor and the glass grate. The ceiling had a sky light in it and with this grate it heated the floor and provided heat into the next bathroom on the second floor.
After getting to the third floor, the girls needed to take a break. How fitting to find these two perfect seats for them to rest.
Another strange but interesting piece was this contraption. It was located in the sports therapy room. It included a bucket for water, a stool to sit on and light bulbs along the inside. When the doors were shut and the top flaps down, only the head would stick out. Sounded a little scary to me.
Another shot of the sports therapy room.
Since they didn't have any double beds this is how the married folks slept. Just a little different from now.
Another perk of the trip was on the shuttle ride back to shore. The captain of the boat was tired of navigating and asked for the girls to help out. After our trip to the island we went to a near by cemetery where we found my Uncle Lawrence Stanton. This was a new find for Dad and I. Happy that Gary made us turn around and check it out. It was difficult to see the imprint but was able to read Sept. 3, 1915 - Nov. 19, 1921. Interesting to find another piece of our family history.

Enchanted Forest Water Safari

Tuesday we took the girls to Enchanted Forest Water Safari in Old Forge. We met up with the Hulbert's (4) and the Bottino's (5). It was a group day. The girls were very excited and were exhausted by the end of the day. Here are a few shots from the girls fun day. Gary and Kelly on the merry-go-round.

Laura in the Enchanted Forest.
Lyndsey, Laura and Addison having some fun on the dog.
Laura ready to ride.
Kelly had to have the "John Deere" green car.
Cooling off in the water park, Kelly takes a ride down one of the slides.
The girls sitting in the chair at the front of the park.
The girls and I at the famous photo spot.

Family and Friends

This past weekend was my niece Angelina's 6th birthday and my brother hosted a family chicken bbq. The chicken was awesome! You could smell it as you drove up. My sister-in-law also made an amazing Sponge Bob cake that I did take a picture of but was unable to get it to rotate to show everyone. Anyhow- we took advantage of us being together and took an updated picture. I told the boys I'm still the "little" sister. Leo is standing in the back, he's the oldest, and Les is sitting next to me. Dad came later and I forgot to drag him into a picture with us. He's probably grateful for that. We are quite the bunch.
Gary was a little late to the family picnic. He had some haying to do. Here is his progress. On Sunday he helped Les and Dad put up another 1,300+ square bales. Oh and remember that hornet nest earlier. My friend told me it was a paper wasp nest. And yes, they still sting since Gary was stung on Saturday. His arm swelled up and had to take Benadryl.
Looks like Kelly is having to much fun at the lake. She fell asleep in the boat while we were tubing and I transferred her to a comfy spot in the hammock.
My friend Jennifer from college came to visit on Sunday. We spent the day catching up and watching the kids play in the water. It was great to spend some quality time with her.
Our gang of kids....
Laura showing Lyndsey around.

Hornet Huge!

The weather has been great and today I thought I would mow the lawn when I got home tonight. The girls were cooperating when we got home and decided to play in the yard some more. I ventured out to the sap shack to pick up the mower and looky-looky what I found had made a home in the sap shack... Can you believe the size of that thing? I sure could as I was running the opposite direction up the driveway! Talk about scary. I called Gary right away and told him I needed the mega spray. We are still waiting for it to cool off some tonight so we can go spray. I REALLY hope they don't get us. Gary and stings do not agree. Here is a zoom picture. Don't worry I haven't gotten that close to it.

Summer Flies By

What a crazy couple weeks~ Time seemed to fly by this past week and I didn't have a chance to post pictures from the previous weekend. So here is two weekends worth of updates. Last weekend when we were at Dad's the flowers at the end of the house were beautiful. Going through some history we found that these flowers were my grandmother's. We have pictures of her with them, my mother with them, and myself with them. So it was only fitting to take a picture of the girls with them. I also realized Kelly has more of the Stanton genes in her than I thought. Gary tells me that I do quite a bit of standing with my hands on my hips. He calls it the "Stanton Stance". What do you think, does she have the gene?
Another great spot at Dad's is out back by the sun room. The flowers are in bloom
Kelly enjoying some water play at camp for the picnic last Saturday. We were celebrating Mark being home from California for a week.
What would a day at the lake be without some "raft rockin'?"
Hold on........
The gang found that if you rock the raft to hard, then you have to swim it back to it's spot because the anchor is on the edge of a drop off. Hmm, how many times did it float away? 3 is all.
After a weekend of play at the lake my flowers needed to be tended to here. Luckily, Laura and Kelly helped. Laura cut down my bleeding heart bush and Kelly was willing to haul it away. I wonder why.
It was also a good week to get some more hay baled. Here is a load from Friday night before we left for Sixberry again. It has been a slow year for hay, but Gary had a good week to get at it.
Saturday Parker and Shannon met us at camp for the weekend. Here's Parker and Kelly playing in the sand. Kelly can't ever be to safe at the water.
Parker showing his sandy hands.
And another great accomplishment this weekend was Laura at the raft without her life jacket. She has been practicing really hard and really wanted to swim without it. After some thought we agreed she could go if Gary went with her. So here she is, 6 years old on the raft without her jacket. It was agreed this would only happen if she was swimming with an adult.
Oh and look what I did this weekend.... Armed an ready for the grill. Burgers anyone?
This is what you get when you tell Kelly to brush off the table for dinner. Doesn't sound anything like dance on the table now does it?
I wonder what Parker is thinking during this moment? Oh and by the way, Parker is 2 for those of you who don't know him.
Instead of going out for ice cream, we decided to bring the ice cream in. Yummy.
What about if we add some syrup to the ice cream?
A highlight to the weekend was the return of the boat from the Marina. Here is a little sunset cruise with the kids.
Then today it was driving lessons for the kids. Here's Laura cruising by with Parker and Dan in the back. Gary and Kelly were in the co-pilot seat.
After a hard day of play, what better way to rest than in the hammock?