Van Buren Bay 2014

One of the highlights of our trip was the two weeks we spent at Van Buren Bay, a place we have visited many times in the past. On the way there we were able to stop in Pennsylvania for lunch with my Uncle Tom, Aunt Nikki, and cousin Meredith and her family visiting from Arizona. It was serendipity at it's finest, with us connecting just the day before on facebook and realizing we were headed right by them on a day when they would all be gathered together. My kids loved seeing their cousins.

And I loved seeing these lovely people, who all have such a warmth to them.

We were so happy to arrive at Van Buren. The evening of our first day there looked like this, with family gathered on the patio after a good dinner watching the amazing sunset.

The boys paddled out after dinner. It was like a dream, it was so beautiful.

The lake is so moody. Sometimes it looks like this, also stunning.


We spent many hours gathered on the beach, playing games and relaxing.

And on the patio.


The cousins spent days on end playing out on these two rafts, and the sailboat was taken out quite a few times.

The annual tea party on the beach.


Evenings playing and fiddling and digging on the beach.

We had a night of Gin Rummy in memory of my Grandma and the many nights it had been played in this living room before.

July Fourth brought many festivities, starting with the kids' bike parade.

It was a blessing to be able to spend some time with my Grandma. She is quite a few years in to her Alzheimer diagnosis. It has been hard. I also got to meet my cousin's  adorable new baby.

We spent a fun day at the nearby little vintage amusement park. It was like heaven for Ben, with airplanes and helicopters and cars and trains he could ride all by himself.

Turns out Ben is a bit of a daredevil and even had a great time on the Tilt-A-Whirl.

This year the cousins just had a really wonderful time playing together. Maya and Ben in particular had a special bond.

There were lots of good times together. Cousins are the best.

But the nicest thing is spending time with my family. My sister was with us for part of the time and I loved seeing her.

The amazing women whose hard work make our special summer memories possible, my Mom and her sister Lynn. They own the home where we stay and generously invite us there and make us feel so welcome. They spent their childhood summers on these same beaches as their grandchildren do now. It's a beautiful thing. Thank you!!!

Van Buren Bay

From Nauvoo, we drove to western New York, to the idyllic little community on Lake Erie where I spent several weeks every summer growing up, Van Buren Bay. It is a place my boys love, too. The home that my grandparents owned and welcomed us to each year is now owned by my mom and her sister, and it is a place they spent summers when they were growing up. There is something moving about watching generations of children loving and playing in the same places; racing bikes along the same streets, digging on the same beach, watching July 4th fireworks and sunsets from the same seawall. My mom and aunt put a lot of work into their home at Van Buren, and we are blessed that our generation is able to offer our children many of the same magical experiences that I remember from my childhood.

The Fourth of July always starts with a bicycle parade through the neighborhood, followed by donuts and juice. I don't think there is a more picture-perfect storybook place to celebrate the Fourth of July than Van Buren. It ends every year with parties, bonfires, and fireworks all along the bay.

 

Another long tradition is the tea party on the beach. We use a small tea set that my mom played with when she was a little girl and have tea (herbal, in our case) and mini cupcakes. Kids get to add as much sugar and milk as they want to their tea. Here is a picture of my cousins, friends, and me a long time ago.

Here are our children, sipping from the same tea cups and eating cupcakes baked in the same mini tins. It is kind of amazing to me, really.

 

 

 

 

Many of the best times at Van Buren happen on the beach. My aunt brought her boat and my cousin Michael generously spent many hours pulling people on tubes or water skiis. There was a bocce set, a sail boat, kayaks, very warm and reasonably clean water, perfect beach weather the whole two weeks we were there, and lots of shovels and sand to dig in. The first day we were there, I woke up at 7:30 in the morning and Joseph was already on the beach. He didn't come back up until it got dark a little after 9 that night. 

 

This year was extra special because our entire extended family was there - all 27 of my Ambrose grandparents' descendants and spouses/fiancees/boyfriends.  It was the first time we'd all been together since 1995, and now there are quite a few more of us. Van Buren is where many of our best family memories have happened, and it was great to all be together there again.

 

The Nasca contingent:

 

My cousins and me: 

 

The old folks, my mom and her sister and brother.

 

There was also tennis, a trip to a small amusement park Midway, plenty of meals together, and time with cousins. It was a good time.

Van Buren and the return home

When our time was up in Washington DC, we spent a lovely day with some friends in Wilmington, Delaware whom we had not seen in a long time. We really appreciated their hospitality and wish we had more opportunities to spend time with them.

Then we were off to western New York, place of so many of my wonderful childhood summer memories, my parents' roots, and old friends and family. As we arrived after a day of winding across Pennsylvania, I put on Dar William's ode to the region that always hits me just right and captures the essence of the place. It definitely got me in the mood.

We spent a really nice nine days there. Some mornings we played tennis with the kids before heading down to the beach for the afternoon.

 

The fourth of July was a whopper of a day. After church in the morning, the boys got ready for the neighborhood bicycle parade followed by a pancake breakfast.

 

Then we headed to the annual Zaccari reunion for all the descendants of my great great grandparents. A hundred or two people still come every year, and there is a nice familiarity in it. There is a jump house for the kids, and they alternated between jumping and eating desserts for a few hours until they were completely worn out.

 

We headed home where, against all odds, I actually got all kids to take a nap before heading to our third party of the day at the home of an old family friend. They served us some delicious dinner, we got to catch up with old friends, and it concluded with an absolutely extraordinary fireworks show over the lake followed by a bonfire, s'mores and hot dogs. Whew.

My Mom and her sister Lynn together own my grandparents' old cottage on Lake Erie. For a few days both of their families were all at the lake, and it was great to catch up with my cousins. We especially appreciated how generous Lynn was with her motorboat; Joseph and Caleb got to take lots of rides in it and go tubing, and Nephi got to water ski.

 

The lake has some of the loveliest sunsets you could imagine, and this year each night seemed to be amazing. One calm evening we had a stone skipping contest between Joseph, my sister Laura, and my parents. After an impressive showing by my Mom, my Dad managed to edge her out for the win.

 

 

It was especially lovely to have a few days to spend with my amazing and beautiful sister. I loved catching up with her on where she is in her life right now, and where she's going. This summer she's spending a few weeks in Tibet as part of her study of Tibetan medicine.

 

We also got to spend time with my Grandma. I really can't overstate how much we all love her. And she loves us all, and especially the boys, so much.

 

Her Alzheimer's is slowly progressing, although she is still able to function quite well on her own in most respects. But many associations she makes are automatic, and every time we came over she would see the boys and immediately want to make cut out sugar cookies. Once we tried to just bake the break-apart premade cookie dough cookies, and she said we were ruining everything. "I want to see little boys covered in flour!!" she insisted. So we made cookies pretty much every day, and really, what is there to complain about?

We also spent a terrific day with my parents at Midway park, had a nice reunion with my Mom's cousins, and hosted our traditional kids' tea party on the beach. Overall it was one of the nicest years we've spent at Van Buren, and really appreciate all the work my Mom and Lynn put in to make it such a special place.

On our way back to Colorado, we spent a really wonderful two days in Dayton. We got to see a few friends there, had a barbecue with our old neighborhood, enjoyed the amazing playgrounds and parks that are everywhere in that city, and also hit up some of the city's thrift stores in between. I have no idea what magical mix of thrift and wealth cosmically combine in Dayton to make it the thrift store capitol of the universe, but those stores are incredible. I miss our friends in Dayton, but those stores are a close second.

And then it was drive, drive, drive until we arrived back home to discover everything well. And the trip was over. Lots of amazing memories, 4700 miles, no real catastrophes. Success.

Western New York. Happily, same as it ever was.

Well, our trip to New York was a great success. Here are a few highlights:

• The boys' amazingly good moods and behavior while traveling, for about 13 hours each way. Joseph loved, loved, loved watching all the airplanes taxiing around during our layovers in Atlanta and the animal cracker airplane snacks.
• Seeing my cousin Jessica during our 3 1/2 hour layover in Atlanta.
• Seeing my Uncle Ron's awesome new pottery shop, workroom, and teaching areas.
• Joseph playing for hours on end on the beach at Lake Erie - filling buckets and dump trucks with sand and water with cousin Maya, splashing in the lake, and rolling around in the scummy creek water.
• Nephi's daily futile attempts to see something interesting while snorkeling in Lake Erie, with visibility to about his wrist.
• Trying to light sparklers we found in the basement that were made in the GDR (Yes, that is East Germany, which means they were at least about 15 years old, and no, aging sparklers isn't a good idea)
• My Grandma's delight at spending time with her two Great-grandsons.
• My Grandma's insistence that Caleb puts everything in his mouth because he is hungry. Also, her trying to feed him some cereal and bananas while I was out, only to finally admit defeat as he politely but firmly refused to swallow any.
• My Grandma amazingly having a stash of toy tractors, one of Joseph's current Favorite Things, which he spent a good deal of each day driving around her living room.
• Nephi's AWESOME 50 point Scrabble play that ultimately led to his victory over the Greenhalgh family. Yes, this was one to remember - "pixie," with the "x" on a double letter square, and used in two words - "pixie" and "axe," with the "p" also part of "pa" (and also on a double letter square).
• A family memorial for my Grandpa Ambrose and Cousin Billy, who both passed away this year.
• The annual illegal but terrific fireworks display at the Fenton's 4th of July party. (Joseph was completely terrified by the fireworks at the time. However, he still talks about them a lot, and in quite a positive way, and he does a very endearing reenactment of the noises they make.)
• Joseph jumping into Nephi's arms in Uncle Pete and Aunt Pauline's pool like 100 times. He would back up all the way to the fence and get a good running start so it would be a really big jump. And he talked me and Laura into joining him for the last bunch. It was fun.
• The really great Fast and Testimony meeting we attended at the Fredonia branch of the church, full of new, sincere, and inspiring converts.
• Looking through old pictures with my Grandma.
• Getting hooked on Sudoku puzzles, courtesy of Uncle Ron.
• The hundreds of small, annual traditions that are part of 4th of July festivities - the flying (and controversial) frog that hangs from the A-frame chandelier, the honey glazed ham for the Smith reunion, Aunt Ceta's stromboli, Uncle Ron's pottery raffle at the Zaccari reunion, the fishy lakey algae smell of the Lake, the annual check-ins with cousins and family at the many reunions, rinsing feet off with the freezing water from the hose in the grass after being on the beach... It all combines to become a reassuring ritual that echoes through so many years of my life.

It is true that sometimes, Southern California Wants to be Western New York.

A quick update

Well, we're off today for another trip - this one to western New York to see my Grandma and family. We're all really excited, and just crossing our fingers about the airplane rides.

Since Joseph has started assembling appliances with sharp blades, like our blender, while I'm not looking, I've found a new motivation to be a more attentive parent and have really cut back on my time-wasting on the computer. Although, alas, I fear my blogging frequency has suffered, I must say that it has really helped make our home a little happier. The boys don't feel as neglected, and are less demanding and whiney, making me a lot more happier and less inclined to escape to my room for a few minutes, and it is a nice little feedback loop we've got going.

In other news, I have suddenly and inexplicably become interested in scrapbooking, a hobby that a mere week ago I looked upon with disdain. How did this happen? I'm not quite sure. I just suddenly felt this overwhelming need to do things to create a family identity. So I dragged the boys to the library to check out some books. I must say that many of the "idea pages," particularly the more "creative" ones they show still gross me out, but the whole idea of documenting our family life and stories in a meaningful way is really growing on me.

Anyway, we're off to Van Buren Bay, and the beckoning sandy shores of Lake Erie. Just for kicks Nephi is bringing his snorkeling gear. Do you think it will compare favorably with La Jolla Cove :) ?