We need a vacation from our vacation

Wow. Vacationing is tough work. I mean, sure, the kid slept in almost every day and napped like a champ. But we had people to visit and weddings to attend and sisters to move and birthday cake to eat and swimming to do and... Whew! It's nice to be home. It's nice to be back in a bit of a groove. It's nice to have the small child do independent play time again, and to know that he'll be absolutely fine if I kick his whiney butt out of the kitchen for a while, because he can go play and not break anything. And it's nice to see Dex slowly becoming less whiney the longer we're home. No constant playmate needed. Yes, dear boy. You can go play ALL BY YOURSELF. You don't need to hang on to Mama's leg while she brushes her teeth. Although it IS pretty darn cute to watch you do the "brush teeth" sign over and over and hear you say "ahhhhhh."

We did, however, have a fabulous time in New York visiting family and friends. I do, of course, have eighty-seven trillion pictures of said vacation. As I was unpacking and flipping through photo albums today I was realizing it's a damn good thing I take lots of pictures, because I have almost zero recollection of a whole lot of cool things I have done in my life. Hooray for cameras!

Bundled up but having fun at the Carpenter Family reunion near Saranac Lake in NY. John's mom's side of the family. Beautiful day, and great people to meet and chat with.

The whole bunch of Carpenters

Swinging in the Arctic Circle (aka, Massena), at the playground John helped build when he was in High School.

No playground needed. Just give the boy a nice new sidewalk at Nonna's house to run up and down and he's happy as a clam. What's with that saying, anyway? Why are clams happy?

Dex learned, at Nonna's house, how to stand up and sit down on the stair, with NO HANDS and no assistance needed. He was right proud of himself.

He also learned how to make a royal mess of Nonna's wind chimes...

When the temperature finally broke the 75 degree mark (seriously) we ventured down to the St Lawrence River to do some swimming.

The next day, at Grandma and Grandpa's house, doing some "Pop Goes the Weasel" for what seemed like HOURS. Glad it wasn't my shoulders tossing Dex in the air over and over. John finally had to call it quits. His arms fell off.

Grandpa built Dex this kick-butt sand box, which Dex LOVED. It was supposed to be an easy project, Mom said. And then a whole day and a lot of lumber later, this popped up.

Playing on the pool steps with Mama. Pool steps are cool, cuz Dex can barely stand on the bottom one without drowning. He thinks that's hysterical.

Dex and our friend Samuel play in the sand box. Samuel is really good at sharing. Dex is really good at taking his toys.

There are zero good pictures of the two of these boys. So here - you get Samuel looking cute and Dex looking all pissed off for no apparent reason.

Me and my boy on my 36th birthday. John was already at home in PA. We missed him. But we ate a piece of cake for him. Purity ice cream cake. Amazing.

Aunt Jeanne came down for the day, and our dear friend Gina came over with her son Samuel. We miss them. Wish they'd stop moving all over the damn country and just come back to the DC area, already. Although it IS fun to go visit them. New place every couple years. We plan our vacations around Gina's current home town.

Grandpa also fixed up this kitchen sink for Dex, with a cool REAL faucet. Which Dex turned on, off, on, off. On, look under the faucet to see why there was no water coming out. Pretend to wash hands. Off. On. Look for water. Wash hands. Off.

Went to a nice Cowan family reunion at my uncle's house. Dex enjoyed hijacking the drawing table from his cousin for the afternoon.

I ate AT LEAST 327 thousand clams that afternoon. I had to eat Jeanne's portion, too. Cuz she's a weirdo and doesn't eat clams. HER clams were happy, I suppose.

Fascinated by Uncle Kenny's fish. No, we are SO NOT getting any goddamned fish.

Also fascinated by Uncle Kenny's one large and four very tiny horses. I wanted to tie one to the roof and bring it home. Hella cute.

Speaking of hella cute... Also cute shirt I got for Dex over a year ago, when I went to CTB's wedding in San Fran.

Playing at the new fancy-ass trex playground at the town park in Lansing. A whole lot of people gave a whole lot of money to build that thing. That Leathers guy must be raking in the dough.

Went to a wedding in Sodus Point (never heard of it? Yeah, us too. It's in the middle of nowhere, on Lake Ontario). Dex was looking sharp.

The bride and groom. The groom is my second or third or fourth cousin, or something. Somehow he's related to me, and he's a super nice guy who coaches Division 3 basketball. He's tall, and stuff.

Four generations. My poor Grandma broke her shoulder. Not that day. A few weeks ago.

This one might be this year's Christmas card...

And, finally, John helped move in my sister's furniture on his way home to PA. Dex went home with Grandma. And I stayed for a couple days with Jeanne to help her transform her new cute house from this to something a little unpacked. A little harder for the cat to find places to hide...

Larry the cat

My sister has 1) a ridiculous number of shoes; 2) ridiculously tiny feet; 3) FAR too much lotions, perfumes, hair bands, soap, general bathroom crap. ALSO - I shall never ever volunteer to put contact paper on a shelf, in any house, ever again. Contact paper can bite me.

Jeanne's cute house. She just informed me tonight that she has done pretty much zero unpacking since I left. Good work, girl.

SO! That was our vacation. We were busy. We had fun. We ate FAR too much and gained eleventy billion pounds and now I have to cook again and that sucks and also I finally set up a TV in the basement so we can do Jillian again to try to lose at least half of those eleventy billion pounds. And thus far we haven't turned on the TV. But we HAVE housed some ice cream...

More pictures can be seen HERE, in case you haven't seen enough, already. Please, lord, stop making me look at your damn vacation pictures! I don't have everything posted quite yet, but I'll try to by the end of the week.