Summer 2021…second summer of the pandemic.
We left our home in Sarasota on May 15…returning to Long Island, just in time to catch our lovebug Charlotte’s Lacrosse team make a run for the County Championship. What an absolute joy to watch these young athletes compete at such a high level.
Here’s Charlotte after a game in which she scored four (count ‘em, four) goals.
The county championship game was beyond exciting. The game was scheduled for a Friday evening and it seemed as if the entire town were present to cheer the team on. The game was an absolute nail biter with both teams exchanging goals. Very physical and super, super competitive.Time expired with the score tied at 7. About 2 minutes into overtime Megan Magill scored and all heck broke loose. We were so happy to be able to share in such joy. Charlotte has been competing with a core group of girls since she was seven years old. So very proud of them all. We look forward to two more years of varsity (yes, she’s just a rising junior).
So much happiness on such a beautiful night. We milled around for quite some time congratulating everyone and taking 726 photos.
One week later…the Junior Prom.
The first few weeks back were a blur. Giddy that New York’s Covid numbers were so low, we took the youngest lovebugs on a shopping spree to Barnes and Noble. Indoors! For hours!
We also visited the Long Island Aquarium…indoors!
Outdoor activities included visits to the Ecology park, arboretum and strawberry, apple and peach picking
Some memorable lunch dates with the bugs.
The highlight of any return to New York has to be sleepovers with Claire and Isabel. We managed to squeeze in a few before and after our trip to Iceland.
Sharing recipes and watching these two evolve in the kitchen = grandma heaven.
And the highlight of any sleepover are the fashion shows. Although playing “Diner” and the stroller races are tons of fun too.
These two have been staging Stroller Races since they could walk the strollers up the hill.
How does one play Diner? Well Grandma is always the customer and the girls exchange roles between server and cook.
They take my order in a small notebook…it’s hysterical to see the prices they attach to the meal. Ten cents for coffee, $12.00 for ice cream.
We enjoyed several wonderful meals at some lovely restaurants.
It wasn’t all eating and sleepovers…we ordered new window treatments (to replace the existing new window treatments-see the Pandemic Project post) on June 3…just received word that they are finally in and will be installed on October 4…yay! We also discovered a wasps nest when our guy came to power wash the house. Evidently there are lots of wasp nests on Long Island. And not many folks inclined to remove them. We bought a new truck and sold Timmy’s old truck to Carvanna for a ridiculously high price, given that the old truck was 9 years old. Highly recommend Carvanna: go to website, upload photos and car registration and within 12 minutes receive an offer and a date for pickup. I could not believe how easy it was. And I absolutely could not believe that Carvanna was going to pay us $2000.00 more than the local folks. I kept saying to Timmy “can this be true? Are they really going to come here, take away this truck and give me a ridiculous check?” I was skeptical right up until the check cleared. Freaking amazing.
We are beyond fortunate to live in the Pine Barrens, surrounded by beauty everywhere we look- summers here are heaven on earth…here are some photos that I took in our community.
Just as we do in Sarasota, we like to head to the beach for sunset… here are a few pics.
Notice Timmy’s pandemic ponytail? He cut it off before our Icelandic adventure.
Considering that we are still smack in the middle of a worldwide pandemic (with all the necessary constraints that entails) we had a good summer. We didn’t do any land based travel because we just didn’t feel safe. We are heading off for a quick seven day vacation to Bermuda via Crystal Symphony. Round trip from New York City. I probably wouldn’t have booked this trip if it had involved air travel, however, we feel safe going on another Crystal ship because of all their Covid protocols. All passengers and crew must be vaccinated. In addition… We took a COVID PCR test this morning, we’ll be required to take another rapid Covid test before embarking on Friday, and yet another test on board the ship on Sunday…before we can go ashore. So all passengers and crew = vaxed…and 3 COVID tests in 6 days…we’ll be safer on the ship than my Sarasota neighbors in our local Publix. As I noted before our Icelandic adventure: nothing in life is certain, we are not getting any younger and I really love traveling with Timmy.
