Our Fresh Air Girls are Visiting from NYC and We're Having a Blast!

It was a great reunion to have our two young friends from the Big Apple visit us again this year. We're in the middle of all kinds of fun: going to Brusters for ice cream, dancing at Skyline Terrace Nursing Home, swimming, picking peaches and blackberries at Marker Miller, visiting the horse ranch to watch Anya and Bianca's riding lessons. Today we're off to the farm to milk a cow and help with other farm chores. And tomorrow will be a marathon of fun: touring Shenandoah Caverns, eating at a Thai restaurant, playing Putt-Putt and going to the Fresh Air swim party. Just take a look at the pictures and you'll see the smiles and know how much fun it is to be a Fresh Air family. (The girls were also interviewed and photographed by the Northern Virginia Daily and will be in the paper. What a souvenir to take home!)

Pick up in Harrisonburg and ready for fun!

Stop at Southern Kitchen for supper and make a couple of new friends.

"Boot Scootin' Boogie" at Skyline Terrace - Line dancing is fun!

Picking apples at Camp Kreitzer.

A bumper crop for making apple sauce.

Enjoying the breeze on the porch at Marker Miller while we wait for Anya and Bianca.

Wow, those blackberries are sweet and good!

Now if we just had a horse or donkey to pull the wagon...

More new friends at the horseback riding facility

Celebrating Anya's big seventh birthday

Mini Cousins' Camp

The past few days have been lots of fun! I'm never happier than when I'm with my grandkids, I look for opportunities for "cousins' camp" to get the young ones together. I've been trying to arrange them this summer without much luck. I tried to arrange for a boys camp with three brothers each from two families, but between soccer and swim team, vacations, etc. it hasn't worked out. But over fourth of July one little granddaughter begged to come out for "cousins camp" so I decided if I couldn't arrange a larger group, a "mini camp" was a great alternative. So Lauren and Anya are having a two-night sleepover with the daytime addition of Anya's little sister, Bianca, who's too young for over-nighting (except when a new baby arrives).

Actually, camp started on Saturday when Anya's mom met her sister to pick up Lauren. (Larry and I had a dinner for the 25th anniversary of AAA Women for Choice, a crisis pregnancy center where I used to volunteer.) We needed to get her Saturday because we had tickets to see The Little Mermaid at Winchester's Little Theater. So Sunday we went to the play and then came home to dinner, games, and a movie.

Today we had a great adventure that started with Mass. (Thanksgiving is always a good way to begin anything!) Then we went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast, came home and packed a lunch, and headed out to Marker-Miller Orchards to enjoy their super playground and pick blackberries.

Here's the adventure so far! And we have more fun planned for tomorrow. Check in to see the scary bridge and the potato chip factory.

Getting Ariel's autograph and a hug after The Little Mermaid

Cracker Barrel for artwork and breakfast -- Yum!

And a trip to Marker-Miller Farm. What a playground!

                       

A good little climber !

And another!

The sandbox is fun!

Piloting the pirate ship is fun too!

Lauren is the sweetest apple in the basket!

After lunch we're off to the blackberry patch.

It was a hard search. Most berries weren't quite ripe, but we finally got a basket full.

Paka makes a good engine.

Three hot little berry pickers choose cold drinks to cool off.

A pretty princess posing with the posies.

Bianca wanted her picture taken there too.

Lauren just wants to go home and go swimming!