On our last day at home, I got to spend a gorgeous day outside with Tanner and Kylie, and my brother Jeremy, and Todd. Jeremy and the kids and I looked for a few geocaches at the lake where Todd's folks live.
It's hard to explain how a small man-made lake in southern Ohio could have such a hold on my heart, but it is one of my very favorite places in the world.
Then in the afternoon we headed to Beaver Creek State Park, which is a gorgeous hilly spot along Little Beaver Creek. You can canoe, hike, fish, and also see remnants of the old Sandy and Beaver Canal from pioneer days. I hadn't been there since high school, and we didn't have a whole lot of time, but it was really idyllic.
Kylie has a dragonfly captured in her hands here.
We practiced skipping stones.
It wasn't super hot, but it still felt great to take off the shoes and socks and do a little wading in the cool water.
Wish I'd had time to get a few more pictures, but no photo can capture a perfect summer day, the wind blowing in the trees, the sound of the creek flowing, the sight of puffed white clouds floating past in the blue sky...aaah. I want to go back!
Two posts in one day! Surely this is a sign of the EndTime!
I'm finally able to access my pictures from our Ohio trip of two weeks ago, so I thought I'd share. We went home to be there for the sale of my grandparents' possessions and a small family reunion the next day.
My grandparents moved into assisted living in the spring, and sold their property to their neighbor, who will farm it. This past summer my mom and her siblings have been going through everything in the house and outbuildings and dividing up the heirlooms and getting everything else ready for a big yard/estate sale. Since my grandparents have lived in the house ever since they were married in 1943, you can imagine how much stuff there was to go through.
Here are all the tables set up in the yard. We grandkids used to swing on that big weeping willow all the time, back before it was pruned. Just grab a handful of branches and take off!
All the kids and grandkids who could be there worked the sale. This is my mom with my uncle Ron (her brother) and my cousin Melanie (Ron's daughter.)
My dad talking with my mom's cousin's husband. (How's that for complicated?)
My aunt Charlotte and my grandma. My uncle picked up my grandparents and brought them over for the sale, but it was hard on my grandpa, and he left after a short time. Grandma hung in there all day, though.
My aunts Molly and Doris:
This is the orchard, which back in the day was a big grove of plum, peach, apricot and I'm sure other fruit trees that I've forgotten. Cherry, I think, and apple too, probably.This is all that's left. There was a huge blueberry patch to the right as well, and every summer Grandma would beg everyone to come pick the blueberries!
Here's a picture I took in the morning of the view just to the left of the orchard. People don't seem to think Ohio is pretty, but farms and fields are plenty pretty to me.
Morning glories blooming on the summerhouse, which was a summer kitchen way back in the day, and which sits right outside the front door.
I was running the cashbox at one point and had to take a picture of this wagon when someone brought it up to buy...it's one of several red wagons around the place that we used to fill up with little grandkids and ride down the hill beside the house. The "hill" seemed like Everest when we were little...now of course it's just a gentle slope. Funny how that happens!
Here are my cousins Alan and Krista who came up from Charlottesville and Atlanta, respectively, for the sale.
My aunts Carol and Kathy, who are my mom's sisters:
My sister Jenita and me:
Todd directed traffic in and out of the long driveway...here he is at a lull:
My uncles Bill and Lowell, Krista and Grandma taking a break:
My niece Kylie (with school spirit day face paint) was very fascinated with helping me count the money:
And my nephew Tanner decided to price himself (one sticker says "$10" and the other says "Make Offer.")
And a last shot of the mailbox. This used to be way down at the end of the driveay, several hundred yards down the hill by the road, but when Grandpa and Grandma started getting "up there" it was moved closer. I remember walking down the driveway with Grandma to get the mail, though.
Well, it was a bittersweet kind of a day, that's for sure. Lots of emotions and lots of laughs and a few tears here and there. This house has been "home" to a very large family for 65 years, and that's a lot of memories to say good-bye to. I was so grateful that I got to be there for one last day.
It's been so rainy here the past couple of days! Unusual for this time of year, but really nice.
Some more vacation pics:
My in-laws live in a mobile home at a small lake/state park. They've tricked out the trailer beautifully with a screened in porch and multi-level deck. When the whole family gets together for the Fourth of July, which is our annual "get-together" holiday, sleeping space is at a premium. Todd and I, or sometimes just I, sleep at my parents' house. Todd's sisters and their families sleep in two pop-up campers. It's quite a nice little arrangement:
That's my sister-in-law Lisa and my mother-in-law relaxing in front, and my brother-in-law Tony is the blurry guy passing through. Todd took this at dusk without the flash.
Some nights we have a campfire and roast marshmallows:
In the daytime the kids mill around and sometimes we have chats:
The girls and I did a lot of drawing and coloring at the kitchen table:
On the Fourth, I went in swimming with the kids and we lasted about ten minutes. It was coooooold!
My nephew has about 2% body fat and had to get out pretty quickly and wrap up and sit with his mom!
Off we go to sit on the pontoon boat and watch the annual Fourth of July boat parade.
You wave at the boats as they go by, and this year my niece found four old American flags at the flea market, so we had flags to wave, too.
My father-in-law has this little boat that all the womenfolk of the family secretly shake their heads about...it looks barely seaworthy and a little ridiculous as well. Here he and Todd and Tony try it out. I think it looks like something out of a Popeye cartoon.
Apparently the Midwest is being swept by a new yard game called "cornhole," where you toss beanbags at boards with holes in them. This is a word that has a different and unsavory connotation to me, but I managed to keep my giggles quiet as we held a cornhole tournament for the adults on the Fourth.
My father-in-law made the boards and my mother-in-law made the beanbags...then we saw the boards selling for $95 at the flea market, while a set of beanbags was going for $25. I think my in-laws could become cornhole tycoons!
A communal meal on the porch. The kids get set up on the deck when it's clear, or in the kitchen, when it's not, so the grown-ups can have a semi-quiet meal.
When we're not out on the pontoon boat, kayaks are in use:
Believe it or not, I have a family, too, and I did spend quite a lot of time with them this weekend, but you'd never know it apart from the fishing pictures I shared the other day. I'm going home again in September, and I promise to do better by them all then!
Kylie has a dragonfly captured in her hands here.
We practiced skipping stones.
It wasn't super hot, but it still felt great to take off the shoes and socks and do a little wading in the cool water.
