NY Part 3; New York State of Mind

I know you have all been waiting with bated breath for the third and final installment of the trip of the summer! I'm sure you are thinking to yourself "what more could they find to do in a tiny village in upstate NY?" Here is your answer...

Sunday morning we bid farewell to the Buxenbaums of the southern region. Harris woke up on the wrong side of the bed and did NOT want to be in the picture, boy we showed him!

After another of our wonderful smorgasbord lunches put on my Miss Adrianne herself, we took her to visit her dad (my cousin) Thierry. I haven't seen him in years and it was great to catch up a little :)

Then we headed back to Aurora to grab an Italian soda at Dorie's. Adrianne began her summer job there during our visit so we just had to check out the patio and enjoy some bevies. It is an adorable cafe and we were lucky enough to be treated to lunch there (thanks Sally) later on that week.

I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed being outside and under the shade trees. I would have slept outside barring the dorm tradition and the fact that we were able to sleep with the windows open.

Cousin Julie and Jim invited us down to their lake house (which could be easily confused for Mackenzie Child's second showroom) where we relaxed on the dock, waded in a bit and took the boat out on a Cayuga Lake tour extraordinaire.

We made a pit stop at Shell Drake winery, where you can dock your boat and visit the tasting room.

Then we picked out our 2 million dollar lake houses and took a quick dip before a sunset dinner back at the house.

Can you believe we accomplished this all on Sunday? It is possible that Adrianne and I had a date with a certain 17 year old and a certain general store and ice cream hot spot owner later that night. Just sayin' :)

Monday morning we went through the family tree at the breakfast table and I wish I had recorded everything. This side of the family has a lot of history in the area as well as political ties and life in the big city (Manhattan) believe it or not! It is a lot to keep straight, but interesting to listen to. It was very hot and muggy so we took advantage of Aunt Trudy's basement that afternoon then headed back to Amy's to cook Mexican food for dinner. Adrianne and Amy read about the mango salsa disaster and wanted to make some (sans disaster). We decided to seize the opportunity and do things right!

I hope we can all learn something from this...

While dinner was in the oven, Amy gave me a tutorial on roman shades (yet another goal in my quest to be a domestic goddess). Hopefully I can get around to these soon, I plan to "pilot" the first shade in the master bath.

After dinner some of us drove into Auburn to watch Adrianne play her summer league basketball game. She is an all star! She is just starting 9th grade and being groomed for the varsity team, canyoubelieveit?

Tuesday was as relaxing as Monday, we slept in and went for a walk down the lane.

Mom, Sally, Adrianne, Trudy and dog Akiak walked, talked and might have hidden in the oats.

After our walk, we had déjeuner de Adrianne and had so much fun swimming in the pond that we forgot to take pictures. I will not mention the two 4 foot pond carp they keep to eat the seaweed scare the pants off of me. We napped/read/chatted by the pond until dinner time at Ron and Trudy's.

Again, I cannot get enough of the outdoors, greenery, beautiful weather, great company. We had salmon for dinner but the best part was grilled FRESH veggies. Fresh as in CAME FROM THE GARDEN 100 FEET AWAY. It doesn't get any better than that. It was the perfect end to a perfect trip. Mom and I had a 4am show time the next am and experienced some minor hiccups in our travels home.

Plans are already underway for next summer, coordinating Aurorafest (I will run faster next year!), Mac Childs barn sale, Buxenbaums south, Chicago cousins, brother and husband...Dan has already volunteered to sleep in a tent on the runway. Watch out farm family...July 2012 here we come!

NY Part 2; Aurora Adventures

Who is excited? As promised, the NY vacation series continues.
Our first official night there we went out to eat at a restaurant called Pumpkin Hill. It is a great bistro in a rustic farmhouse with amazing food and an even more amazing cook; cousin Alex. He hooked us up with some awesome appetizers and all of the food was delicious.

Friday we headed to Grisamore Farms to pick raspberries and cherries. I think I ate more than I picked!

Before

After

It was really hot and humid but we had to get cherries so we headed over to the cherry orchard.

And I might have had to climb the tree to get the best cherries...

We picked $50 worth of cherries, this translates directly into stomach aches and cherries for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the remainer of the trip. Later that afternoon we shopped at my all time favorite; Mackenzie Childs where I spent my summer school paycheck on these beauties...Thanks Julie!

The grounds at Mackenzie Childs are gorgeous, we enjoyed the flowers and baby gosling who followed the gardener around :)

That night we grilled out and ate at the picnic table. Here is my cousin (and fellow teacher!) Peter and his son/Andrew Rios' doppleganger; Harris.

We all rested up that night because Saturday was Aurorafest and most of us planned to run in either the 1 mile or 2.5 mile run. Guess which one I picked?

Photo finish for my mom and I completing the 1 mile run in 12 minutes! I am NOT a runner, you know this if you read about Pat's Run. There I finished about 17,000th. In the Aurora Run, I finished 6th...not too shabby (hey, I finished without stopping!) The rest of the running family placed 1st, 2nd and 3rd in their respective age groups...here we are with our ribbons/trophy. There is no ribbon for 6th place...19-29 was a popular age group ;)

After the run we had a nice picnic at Aunt Trudy and Uncle Ron's.

Harris read a magazine in the hammock and Platt and I played with play-doh. Plenty of fresh fruit, veggies and lemonade made the afternoon perfect.

We went back down to the village for the parade and I picked out my future home...

The parade was brief but there was plenty of candy for Harris to catch as well as local celebrities to see :)

After the parade we watched a jousting match and Harris and I sorted his candy (the teacher in me couldn't resist!).

We had Chinese takeout for dinner and went for dessert at the quintessential ice cream stand; Cream at the Top. Platt and I took equal amounts of time finishing our ice cream :)

Aurorafest 2011 was a success! Stay tuned for the afternoon at the lake, Dorie's, mango salsa take 2 and other exciting events.

NY Part 1; Traveling in Style

Sooooo...I promised my family a series on the NY vacay so here goes!

Part 1 of the NY adventures featuring the Sarti that brings the party and her trusty sidekick Bette (aka mom).

Bright and early Wednesday morning we headed to the airport to attempt to catch a flight to Philly.

We flew standby using our flight benefits thanks to Dan Dan the Pilot Man. The Phl flight was a bust.

So we found a flight to Boston with plenty of open seats and began the journey. We even had our own row! A problem with the hydraulics caused us to go back to the gate but after an hour they got things under control and we were back to it.

Thanks to books, iPod episodes of The Office and a couple of "snack boxes" the flight "flew" by. (Get it?)

Once we arrived in "Bahston" we thought a cancelled flight to Rochester would foil our plans to be one of the 34 passengers headed to Syracuse but we persevered.

Unfortunately, the pilots were not expecting these extra stowaways...so we had to sit on the tarmac and burn off some extra fuel (common side effect when flying on a regional jet). But we made it! Just had to pull a switcharoo with the rental car compnay (original destination having been Ithaca) and we were on our way to the farm!

We were welcomed to Aurora by cousin Amy and children Alex and Adrianne. The next morning we went back to the airport to pick up Aunt Sally and began our adventures with Aunt Trudy, Uncle Ron, Cousin Peter, wife Laura and children Harris and Platt. Also in attendance, cousin Julie and bf Jim; hosts of our lake house adventure circa day 4.

Stay tuned for more upstate adventures where we pick fresh fruit, eat at Pumpkin Hill, visit Mackenzie Childs, attend the Aurorafest and I may or may not have drank my weight in lemonade.