CRASH IS A MANIAC WITH THE SPRINKLER!!

Kids and Crash had time in the sprinkler. Guess who got more photo-op shots???

BLUEBERRIES!!!

All 5 of us went blueberry picking this morning (the raspberries are resting and ripening until Monday) and had a blast!!! Caleb, as usual, ate more than he put in the bucket. Was warm but breezy. I now have enough frozen blueberries for 6 pies, not counting the pie I am making tomorrow. I LOVE SUMMER!!!!!!!

Dave with the evidence in his gobhole!!!

My faithful pickers
Just a sampling
My family. I do love them so!!!
Me with the kids. Love all my time with them!!!!

Monkey room (and Mama) reunion!!!

Thanks to our wonderful friends, the Egglestons, the Monkey Mamas had a reunion of all the children at their house, complete with a potluck lunch. This was such a fabulous time, both for catching up (really, it has only been three weeks since school was out, but I miss these women and their kids like crazy!!) and for swimming. We had pizza (thanks to Putrino's Pizza), fruit, chips, drinks, cookies (thanks to me) and tons and tons of swimming fun!!! We decided that we need to get together at least once a month. If we keep the kids together this way, they'll all be together at middle and high school. Oooohhhhhhhh, how wonderful would THAT be??????

Elizabeth (goggles), Joseph (noodle), Dante (swim vest), and Molly

Officer Eggleston performs one of his fancy moves
Molly is fearless jumping into 8 feet of water with the swim vest on

Potter does a cannonball

Lunch!!!
Potter, Caleb, Mrs. DelSanto (Vicki) and baby Michael
Mrs. Janik (Michelle) and her son Joseph with Elizabeth (Eggleston)
Caleb, Shawn (Stephen's brother), Molly and Elizabeth

Mollyariotti is back in the U.S.!!!!!

Mollyariotti arrived at our house last night at 10:45, after 2 days of airports and flying!!! We had a very French dinner (ie, we ate late, even for the Clark house, around 11:30 pm), some catching up time, and blueberry pie with cheddar cheese!! After a decent sleep, the kids woke Molly up (they had not seen her the night before) and the bedlam began! Sadly, Molly had to be back in Syracuse by noon, so we hung out for a couple hours in the morning then packed everyone in the van and headed north, where we delivered her to her Mommy (as she calls her still, so cute). We'll spend more time with her in August and September before she heads back to Paris (I know, the nerve of her leaving us AGAIN!!) and potentially Switzerland. I think I might have to save my $$ to visit her there!!!

Mollyariotti, Crash, Potter, and Mollygage all in a joyous reunion!!!!

Crash off the bed, more hugs for kids (Caleb decided to hide in his bedroom for Mollyariotti to find him)

Mollyariotti makes good on her promise of the last 10 months; she got right into Caleb's bed and snuggled in!!
Mollyariotti hands out presents to the kids. Nutella was a common theme. And yes, the Nutella that comes from France is WAY BETTER TASTING than the Nutella in the U.S. Just sayin'.
Group shot in Mollyariotti's room in Syracuse
Molly and me (we aren't a lot taller, Potter took the picture from below us)

Pickin' blueberries and raspberries

It was such a beautiful day on Monday that I decided to take the kids to Apple Hills to pick blueberries and raspberries. We were not disappointed!! The kids had a great time and it turned out to be a good decision; they are closed today to let the berries ripen!!

Molly caught in the act, more berries in her belly than the bucket!

Caleb, maybe had 3 berries in his bucket at any time.
RASPBERRIES!!!
The bushes were just loaded and loaded with berries!!!
The view from the raspberry field!

Around the grounds of Monticello

Here are some shots of interesting and/or scenic spots around Monticello.

TJ had a very cool clock in his home that showed both on the inside and outside. On the ceiling is his wind vane so that he didn't have to look on the top of the house, especially if it were raining and stormy. He designed both of these items.

One of the cisterns used for collecting rainwater, in the event the wells ran dry, which they often did. He had four of these, each holding over 3000 gallons.
The inside toilet. Pretty nice for 1790!
There was a dumbwaiter system set up on the main floor, attached to the fireplace sides. The slave in the basement could load up a bottle and send it upstairs without having to walk up and down, which given where the stairs were located, would have been inconvenient.
The kitchen where most of the meals were prepared by slaves.

Dave would have had this job at Monticello. Honestly, you can still smell the smokiness!

A gorgeous view of Monticello
A huge tree on the side of the house used to be here. I had the kids stand so that you could gauge the size of the tree.
The Levy family bought Monticello after TJ died in order to preserve the estate. As a result, about 80% of the items in the house are original as well as most of the house being original. No one is quite sure why the Levy's felt like they ought to do this, nor did I think to ask if the Levy's lived there. They owned it until 1923 when the TJ Foundation had enough funds to purchase the estate back and keep it open for visitors. One of the granddaughters of Mr. Levy, who purchased Monticello, is buried there. Quite interesting.

TJ's grave. This is not the original stone, but these are his own words.

Monticello

After we left Atlanta, we drove a leisurely day up to Charolottesville, VA, where we drove around the UVA campus a little bit (it was raining, so we couldn't walk around) and then had dinner at a really cool wings restaurant. The plan in staying in Charlottesville was twofold: make the trip back to NY in 3 days instead of 2 insane days and visit Thomas Jefferson's estate, Monticell0 (pronounced Monti-chello). This visit to Monticello was amazing and I would totally recommend this to anyone!!!! We arrived right at 9 am when they opened which turned out to be a huge blessing; we got tour tickets for 9:20 and I know from when we left that the tours were already into the afternoon!! The grounds of Monticello include 2600 of the original 5000 acres, and the TJ Foundation is always trying to buy back additional parcels. The home, the gardens, the fields, the trees, all of it was beautiful!! The tour is only about 25 minutes long of the inside of the house, but so informative!! There is no video or photography allowed inside the home, but all other areas you can record as much as you want. I now am putting a Thomas Jefferson biography on my reading list; he was a truly incredible man, aside from being president, which actually pales in comparison to all of the other things that he accomplished!!!!

The children pose for a shot in the courtyard (which includes a gift shop, restaurant, art gallery, etc..)

Looking from the top of Monticello off into the distance
Potter in front of 1/100th of the gardens that they plant. All the food is given to the employees of Monticell0, and there is a LOT.
Mulberry Lane, the road that originally had many slave quarters and also outbuildings, such as the blacksmith
Gasp, I went to Monticello too!!!!

Clark-Sparks children group photo

Friday morning before we left Holly's house, we got all 5 kids together for a group shot. These were the best 2 I took out of about 10.

Caleb, Molly, Potter, Christopher, Anderson

Caleb, Molly, Potter, Anderson, Christopher

Our night in Hot-lanta

We left Clearwater, sadly, but with a lot of fun memories and headed up to Atlanta where we were going to spend the afternoon and night with Dave's cousin Holly and her family. When we arrived at their house (beautiful by the way) we almost immediately left and went to a place called Leapin' Lizards, which for you locals here in NY is a bigger and better version of Jumping Jungle. The kids had tons of time to get all their energy out from being in the car and Dave, Holly and I were able to chat for a bit and catch up. Perfect!! We went back to their house and had quesadillas for dinner, then got the gang into bed. Then the adults got to stay up for a bit longer and have a real, uninterrupted conversation!!!

Dave watches Molly climb a HUGE inflatable

Caleb and Potter come down a most enormous slide
Anderson. Enough said.
The long climb up.....
Holly reads some of a Magic Tree House book to the older kids right before bedtime. Perfect!!

Final beach day

Another gorgeous day. We took the kids to Honeymoon Island, which is a state park, so well maintained, again, less crowded. Dave and I had not been there for several years and we got a pleasant surprise at how absolutely gorgeous the water and beaches were! In the 2 1/2 hours we were there, I think we might have all been out of the water for about 5 minutes, it was sheer heaven!! The kids finally had some color on their faces and shoulders and we ended our Florida trip on an extremely high note!!!

The view from Honeymoon Island to Clearwater Beach.

Always my shell finder!!
Saying goodbye to the Gulf of Mexico!!

***For those of you wondering, no there were no tar balls on the beaches here, not even an inkling of anything from the BP spill. The panhandle of Florida does have some damage from tar balls and that area is losing a lot of business. I am sure that Tampa Bay will get some of it eventually, we are just thankful that it didn't interfere with this trip for us.