What We Did on our Summer Vacation (in Pictures)

On the last day of Girl Scout camp, it rained.  All day.  And where there's rain, there's mud.  And where there's mud, there's Daphne.  She came home covered in mud and very happy.  Another successful year of Camp Tag-Along is in the books.

We spent the next day doing laundry and cleaning and preparing for our annual last-week-before-school-starts trip to the lake.  We stopped near Gettysburg for lunch...great roadside barbeque and milkshakes.

Daphne and I were shirt buddies.  These are the tie-dyes we made at camp.

We reached our destination later in the afternoon:

Nothing much changes at the lake.  Same house, same hill:

Same smurfy chairs:

Same morning boat rides:

Daph had a little trouble with the jacket:

Kev and Daphne did a lot of this:

Meanwhile, I did a lot of this:

I never really go in much anyway.  I don't like to swim.  The lake has seaweed and fish and snapping turtles, so it kind of freaks me out a little. And this time, I saw muskrats in there.  No thank you.  And if that's not enough, I found out that leeches were discovered lurking in the seaweed.  And one of Kev's sisters claimed to have recently seen something she kept referring to as a sea serpent.  Um, nope.  I'm good in the smurfy chairs with my needles and yarn.

Or in the boats.  I love the boats.

There were picnics:

And lots of fish-feeding:

And friends and cousins came to swim:

Uncle Pat had a photo bomb opportunity:

There was a field trip where we did some spelunking:

and some mining for gems:

We went to Cooperstown to the Ommegang Brewery:

Where we tasted tiny beers:

We made it to the Hall of Fame but only had time for the gift shop this time:

Meanwhile, back at the lake, there were board games (I am the Clue champion!):

And music:

And Texas-style Uno with cousins and Aunt Kimmie:

(I missed the Uno game.  I had no idea there were hats for everyone!)

There were also morning bike rides.  It was very unnerving riding behind my wobbly two-wheeler novice 7 year old, flying down hills on wet roads, but she was having the time of her life so I had to just let it go. She did great.

We got to go to lots of restaurants, and we looked for rocks down by the railroad tracks on the river.

 All that relaxing wore us out.  See you next year, lake place!