Vacation Day Memories

Story of the Day
We went over to Matt, Emily, and Eli's house for a wonderful dinner of baked ziti, salad, garlic bread, and cupcakes.  After Eli had his "tubby" he was crawling around on the living room floor in his birthday suit -- a calculated parental risk.  Emily was in the kitchen, Matt and Lew were chatting, and I was watching Eli play with some toys.  He was on one end of the living room, I on the other.  When I began to act frantically, Lew expected to see me running to grab Eli out of harm's way.  Instead I went in the opposite direction!  As I said, letting a baby crawl around naked is a calculated risk... one that did not pay off in this instance.  (I watched him do "number two," by the way.)

Photo of the Day
Me, Lew, and the Atlantic Ocean.  :)

More of the Vacation Song

We're on vacation!
We're on vacation!....

Slept in a bit this morning.
Ate breakfast.
Took a walk.
Read a bit.
Watched some of the Olympics.
Ate a little.
Slept a little.
Took another walk.
Watched some more of the Olympics.
Ate dinner.

Expectation for the remainder of the evening:
Read a little, watch a little, read a little, watch a little,
Read, read, read,
Read alot,
Watch a little more!
(With my apologies to The Music Man.)

We're on vacation!
We're on vacation!

The Eagle Has Landed

I went to a Court of Honor ceremony after church. Fellow-Batgirl Krista's younger son achieved the Boy Scouts of America level of Eagle Scout earlier this year. Today's ceremony was in recognition of his achievement.

Congratulations to Matthew, a deserving Eagle Scout!

The Vacation Song, Verse 2

Second verse; same as the first:

We're on vacation!
We're on vacation!
We're on vacation!
Everybody sing The Vacation Song!

We are now in the second of Lew's three vacation weeks.  (The third will be the last week of August.)

Breakfast out this morning, a little bit of shopping, a lovely walk on the beach, a yummy steak dinner, and a birthday party for a new little friend.... It was a great way to start vacation!

My Take on the Bat Incident

I needed Lew to write yesterday's post because I did not witness most of the excitement surrounding the presence of the bat.

Although I was the first to see the bat flying around and around our bedroom, I pretty much "hid" the rest of the time.  I was either under the covers or squealing on the floor with my eyes shut.  (For some reason, I felt the bat would not attack me if I wasn't able to see it.)

I did not see Lew swinging his pillow or the tennis racket.

I did not see Jerry pounce on the bat.

I DID hear lots of screaming... which was coming from me.

If Jerry is "Superkitty", then I am "Scaredy-cat!"

(Postscript:  We still have no idea how the bat entered the house.  My mother is blaming it on my sister Kim, who is now home in Illinois.  Why didn't she take the bat with her?)

Superkitty

I had what I hope is a "once in a lifetime" experience last night.  I asked Lew to write an account of it.  So here's Lew, in his own words:

The lights are out except for Tracy’s Kindle lamp, I am drifting off to snoozeville, and then suddenly a bat starts flying around in our bedroom.

 

Our brave kitty is not in the room.  Tracy pulls the covers over her head, I close the door (so the bat doesn’t get out of our room) and start trying to knock the bat out of the air with my pillow.  Miss, miss, miss.  Open the window so it will fly out.  It stops flying around the room but I think it went into our closet area.  We look high and low.  Not there.  Maybe it flew out the window?

 

Calm down.

 

Lights out, but Jerry the kitty is on the bed with us.  Back to Kindle-ing and snoozeville.

 

Jerry starts going nuts.....the bat is back.  More pillow swinging, door closing and window opening.  Bat goes back in the closet.  I go to get a tennis racket to get a better swing.  Tracy crawls into the closet to see if she can find the enemy, but this time she has Superkitty by her side.

 

Tracy quickly crawls back out of the closet squealing that it’s in there.  Superkitty then flushes the bat out of the closet, knocks it to the rug and pounces.  He has the bat pinned to the floor at which point I use the racket to take over the pin duty as Tracy puts Jerry in the bathroom.

 

We use the racket and a clipboard to scoop the bat up and toss out the window.  It is 12:30 and now I can go to sleep.

 

I have said for a while that Jerry is the best kitty ever.  Now I have proof.

Thank you, Lew and Jerry!  You were both so brave!

Dad 107: Baseball, of course!

(Dad wrote this several hours ago, so Kim should be winging her way home as I post this.  Safe travels, Kim!  Enjoy Dad's post.  --  Tracy)

Derf Here! The day is a "10" in the great Northeast. The air is dry. The temp is favorable. This is just what we ordered. Thanks!

Well, I've been busy since my last blog post. I'm a year older. Friday I celebrated my birthday by freeing up my weather vane once again. It was stuck in a SSE direction. As I look at it now, it faces the W. It is good to see it working once again. I hope I don't have to free this thing up every year. I will, if I have to! Must know the wind direction. Now to more interesting conversation....

Josh's baseball team (Juniors 13-14 years old) won our district and played for the state championship. Of course it was in Bangor, about 150 miles away. Three trips later, they were eliminated but we all enjoyed watching Josh and his friends play for a state championship. Josh had an on-base-percentage (OBP) of .400 and had a blistering single in his last at-bat. Lost to the eventual champions in their second game. Were down 3-1 until the last inning. The wheels came off and lost 9-1. The champions beat the other team in the tournament (Scarborough split with this team) 11-0 after five innings yesterday for the championship. A 10-run "mercy rule" was used to end the game after five innings. I wish Bangor "Good Luck" in New Jersey in next week's event.

As Deb (Josh's mom), Auntie Kim, Josh, and Jackson (Josh's friend and teammate) were on the way home, a text was received by Deb with some fantastic news. Josh, along with teammate Nick Lorello, were nominated for the Phil Martin baseball award. His eighth-grade coach nominated them and they will receive the award Monday night. Phil Martin coached at Scarborough High School for 30+ years. Congratulations to Josh and Nick for receiving this prestigious award. We are proud of you. Nice guys sometimes do finish first! Josh will be at baseball camp this week so he will be brought home from Orono for the awards ceremony. Then back to Orono for remainder of camp (with friend Kyle Russo). To Josh and Kyle: Enjoy the camp.

Today, in just a few hours, I'll take a trip to Manchester, NH with Kim as her "Maine" summer is over. She will return to Illinois via Atlanta. It has been a good and fun summer. Three weeks from yesterday, Kaelen will be taken back to her Illinois home by automobile. Summer, as we know it, will be officially over.

Not only will we travel to Illinois with Kaelen, but we plan on a trip to Indy to visit with sister Jean. Be aware Jean, we're planning a visit; August 16th or 21st will be visiting day. More to come later.

Until next time!

Toodle Pip!

Derf!