Tyringham weekend

Amy organized a weekend at my dad's place with a bunch of my friends from Brown over the fourth of July holiday to celebrate my 50th birthday; it was fun to get-together. Especially nice to see all of the kids, many of whom I have not seen since they were tiny (or never seen at all). We were able to entice Cheryl to come up from New York (not an easy thing to do!); Dave & Kirsten + offspring drove up from CT and John came over from Colgate (a long haul) with his two kids. Amy Ethan Lydia & I drove up early Friday morning; Rustin also came for the weekend. The Brown grads:

The weather Friday was essentially hurricane "leftovers" -- very heavy rain, lots of wind. We didn't spend a lot of time outside, but there were plenty of indoor entertainments. Amy and Dave in the kitchen:

John:

Cheryl and Dave:

Here are the kids playing "Telestrations":

Before dinner:

We also piled into the bedroom upstairs and watched the world cup soccer semifinals; nail-biting stuff.

We had some wonderful meals; Amy had organized the food down to the last detail, with some things brought from Lexington, some things cooked on the spot, and a few things ordered ahead from Guido's. Thebirthday cake she made was fantastic (very complicated and tricky to prepare; not sure I would have attempted it) -- Swiss Broyage layers, pastry cream filling, ganache topping, with a dusting of nuts on the sides. Yum.

Lasers and sparklers after dinner:

Saturday we strapped the canoe to the top of my dad's car and headed up to the pond for a canoeing/swimming expedition-- weather was really nice (clear and sunny, not too hot). When we arrived at the pond there was a garter snake who had taken up residence on the top of the raft, and didn't seem to want to be disturbed. The kids waved their arms and made threatening motions, but it didn't budge. We eventually convinced it to vacate by spraying it with water.

Hey-- toss me that canoe paddle!

Fooling around on the raft:

Canoeing:

More canoeing:

More birthday nonsense-- Ethan and Lydia created a music video: a take-off of a Katy Perry song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHPGDEMEoNA

Hope the link works (if not let me know). Dave/John/Cheryl put together a slide show of ancient photos from Brown (most of which I am not posting to the blog-- maybe some other time :-). Here is one of my doing my best Patrick Swayze impression:

Heh. Other assorted members of the gang (taken in Cheryl's apartment):

It was a nice weekend... I think everyone had a good time.