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Showing posts with the label lake house

Ink and Watercolor Pencils

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I was sitting on the couch in the living room yesterday evening before starting on cooking dinner and picked up my notebook.  I write thoughts and ideas in this notebook everyday (I now have a whole library of notebooks tucked in all sorts of places around the house) and, quite often, add some sketches of some of my ideas or thoughts.  Yesterday, I was thinking about Christmas and the lake house. Every year of my life, in the few months preceding Christmas, my mind always drifts to spending Christmas in an Adirondack lodge-type of home or lake house setting.  I have not had the opportunity to do this just yet but I do plan to do this at least once before I have no Christmases left.   The closest I have come to living this annual dream of spending Christmas in an Adirondack-type lodge or lake house has been a few Christmases spent on various air bases.  Back in my earlier years of my Air Force career, the Airman's Club was typically the hub of social life on every base.  For variou

Lake House Rules

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I was relocating some stuff that was behind a door in the train room so I can build and install some shelves on that wall.  One of these items was a panoramic photo print of Lake Champlain looking toward the Adirondack Mountains so I hung that on the wall next to the desk.  There was a Christmas sign that we put outside in winter that I moved to our storage closet (even though it will need to go outside soon).  And, there was a chalkboard that I had written our rules for the lake house.  I'm the one who wrote these rules on the chalkboard and I drew an image of the lake house on it too.  It came out fairly well although I wish the lettering was a bit more legible.  I actually like this idea and I even still think the rules are quite appropriate so I don't want to lose this chalkboard.  Actually, I should make another board with more permanent lettering for our backyard too!   Hmmm...  maybe even a smaller one for inside our home too. We haven't used this chalkboard with th

Old Photo

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The other night, I went looking through old hard drives where I store old photos to look for something.  Instead, I was distracted as I came across a different photo that I found interesting.   I usually try to capture at least part of the eyes in my people photos because that is where emotion and the soul is typically found.  On rare occasions, however, a different approach may work.   In this particular photo, Lukey and Kenzie are turned away from me with their backs to me...  no faces, no eyes.  The photo still manages to tell a story and capture some feeling...  a feeling that they were cold...  huddled up close to the wood stove trying to get warm...  dressed in a way you typically only see kids under five years old...  in their underwear and shirts after a day in the water and on the beach...  the fire was just starting so there still were no open flames... their hands out in front of them feeling the little bit of warmth...   I can't believe it but I actually vividly r

Lake Groton to Woodsville

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Although the lake house is fairly close to our home (only an hour away), it is still a bit isolated. Being isolated means that we must travel over to New Hampshire to do our food shopping. This is only a half hour away but it is still quite different than our usual five minutes to the market from our home in Waterbury so , whenever we are at the lake house, we plan a trip to Woodsville, NH before and after every weekend so we can refill our pantry and refrigerator.  Woodsville is a nice little town so we actually enjoy making this food run twice a week. Plus, the prices in Woodsville are only 50-60% of the prices in Waterbury where we usually shop and the quality of the produce is far better in Woodsville! So we actually enjoy this little excursion from the lake house. Here is a short two minute video of the kids in the back seat of the car on the way to Woodsville... it is abundantly clear that they really do enjoy this trip to Woodsville... no fighting (okay... there is a little

Sailing With Papa

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Lukey really seems to enjoy sailing and I definitely enjoy our time out on the boat together. We went sailing a few times this summer, as always, but this summer I managed to capture some video of one of our outings with the intention of sharing it here. Well... okay... the real intention was to add this video to my large collection of videos of the grandkids. I did, however, want to also share it here. I shot about 30 minutes of video on this particular outing but I miraculously edited the video down to about 12 minutes so it is a bit more bearable to watch... especially for those of you who aren't Lukey or me! It is still a bit long but I wanted to keep all the minutes of footage that showed some interaction between the two of us. There was plenty of time when we just enjoyed the sailing in silence but, as Lukey gets older, there is more and more talk between the two of us when we are on any of the boats. We both had a great time... Lukey was a pleasure on the boat and it

Another... and Perhaps Final... Farewell

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Although we have not made a 100% final decision just yet, we did say farewell to the lake house again yesterday and, perhaps, this was also our final farewell.  Upon arriving back home, last night we sat down and compiled a list of pro's and con's related to heading to the lake house every summer. There are very many pro's on this list but the con's are quite compelling and pretty damning.  I spent much of the past week sleeping through our time at the lake house. I was exhausted but I didn't want to sleep because there were so many fun things to do that I still had not crossed off my own 'to-do' list. Instead, I slept... then we packed up over the course of three days... and we headed back home.  I'll be sharing more photos and videos of our time at the lake over the course of the foreseeable future so this does not mean an end to that! Right now I need to rest up a bit so we can try to do a few more things this summer...  I'd especi

A Day of Sleep and Rest

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As I mentioned in my previous blog entry, today was a day of sleep and rest.  My health hit a wall last night and then worsened as the night wore on... the fatigue was brutal! Much of the day today was spent sleeping. I still have some lingering effects of last night's health problems but I'm feeling much more stable this evening than last evening. During the few hours I was awake today, the wildlife around the lake house was minimal, at best. I didn't really see anything worth photographing. Early this morning, however, I did see some interesting, dramatic light hit the shore on the opposite side of the lake... I really like this one... the sun was peaking through some clouds and early morning fog... the light was like a spotlight on this cabin across the lake... I really like the reflection on the smooth morning water... I like the depth of the photo... and, I like the color... this is a really nice photo!

A Few Photos from Yesterday

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Yesterday was perhaps one of the most beautiful days we've had at the lake. The visibility was noticeably crystal clear... the sun was bright... it was warm... the water was warm... it was quiet... and I was in very nice company! Today, weather-wise, was fair but both Sheila and I were exhausted. We ended up sleeping away most of the day. I had some health issues last night too and that always has a tremendous bearing on the days afterward. Today was no exception. We pretty much just slept and rested all day.  This evening, however, I had some time to sort through some of yesterday's photos... At this point in sharing these photos here I must ask, "Have I mentioned lately how much I love my Sony cameras, microphones, stereos, mp3 players, and televisions?" These photos here remind of just how much I love Sony electronics. It is a joy using cameras which produce such beautiful tonality and color while also providing the fastest and most accurate au

Bald Eagle Hunting for Lunch

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Today was a rather lousy day for shooting photos of wildlife. We sometimes go through spurts of seeing absolutely no wildlife. One year, we didn't see any wildlife for almost two weeks! Today was just one of those days... quiet. Instead of shooting photos today (although, I kept my eyes open in case something appeared outside our lake house windows), I sifted through some of the photos I've shot thus far and I found another Bald Eagle shot worth sharing here...

The Big Summer Move

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All packed up and ready to go... We made the big summer move to the lake house yesterday. We managed to tie five kayaks on the roof of Sheila's car and the sailboat on the top of my car.  Both cars were loaded to capacity inside. Actually, Sheila's car bottomed out on the private road to the lake house.   Wow...  I was not ready for this move and it took a lot out of me! My spine is screaming, my feet are unhappy and my legs are uncooperative. I'm bent over like I'm 90 years old and I'm moving very slowly. The house, however, is now ready for guests and some fun times! Oh...  we planned to be out of the house and on the road to the lake house earlier than usual... one last visit to the bathroom... then dumped some Rid-X into the toilet to let some bacteria do its thing to the septic tank...  flush our new toilet... the Rid-X clumped up into a solid clump and clogged the toilet.   Ugggg....   On the road to the lake house... That's what I get

Grandkids' First Day at the Lake House

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While I'm on a roll in sharing some photos of our times at the lake house, I went back two years to the first time the grandkids spent some time with us at the lake house.  While sorting through some of these older hard drives from that timeframe, I realized that I had some video showing the moment when they arrived at the house for the first time.  So...  I went digging for those video clips. Will and Sue (Sheila's parents) were kind enough to deliver Lukey and Kenzie to us. I expected the kids to be excited bundles of energy but, it is funny... I should have known better.  In situations like this they have shown us that they are more cautious, observant and deliberate than the type of person who throws caution to the wind with boundless excitement.  And, truth be told, I'm happy to see that they tend to be cautious, observant and deliberate when thrown into new experiences.   As we walked down the hill from the car to the house, they were wide-eyed and quietly looki

Beginning A New Day

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The sun rises behind the lake house... behind the mountains... behind the tall trees... toward the southern sky so to the left behind the house. Although the sun instantly burns off the fog and illuminates the opposite shore of the lake the moment it rises above the mountains, we are left in the shadows of the mountains and trees for another hour or so. By the time the sun gets up high enough to burn off the morning fog and begin to warm up our side of the lake, it is sometime between 8:00 and 9:00 am.  Here is this first light beginning to light up all the shadows on our side of the lake... In my previous blog entry, I shared a photo of Kenzie sitting in a chaise lounge with her baby doll... she was sitting in one of these chairs (below), watching me on the dock as I was shooting photos of loons. She was patiently waiting for me to begin making breakfast. I suspect Lukey was still sleeping away in bed since Kenzie usually gets up when I get up and Lukey is typically the last on

Almost Lost Our Summer

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A couple of weeks before Christmas, Sheila was offered a new job which also provided her with a nice promotion. She excitedly started this new job right after Christmas. Actually, we were both very excited about this opportunity for upward mobility as well as for personal and professional growth. Then, sometime either later that first week or in the following week, Sheila learned that there would be no time in this new position for annual leave during our time at the lake house! We had been waiting almost two weeks for an official determination on whether or not Sheila would be allowed take annual leave so we can head to the lake house. This decision sort of got waylaid by new training requirements and then a virus going around the office landing some of the decision-makers home on sick leave. Unfortunately, on our end, this wait was delaying our planning schedule, causing missed deadlines and, generally speaking, putting quite a damper on the new year thus far.  While we waited