I Took a Vacation

I've been on vacation, my peeps. As you may have surmised, I went AWOL on the blog, but I also took a couple of trips, including one with family and a group of good friends on Lake Michigan:


The blue house is where we stayed.


V-meister on the beach where we played.


J-dog reveling in the feeling of wet sand between his toes.


Rima and P-Dawg Jolie-Pitt-Rama


Rima "Baywatch" Rama.



My friend Vida at the dinner table, eagerly anticipating the evening's repas of wagyu steaks, lemon chive smashed potatoes and fresh greens. Her husband, Chef V, cooked our fabulous dinners. While the men gathered 'round the kitchen island to keep him company, we ladies sipped adult beverages out on the deck:


"We don't cook, but we do chill."

One day we went cherry picking, and V baked this pie:

It was the best pie I ever put in my pie hole.

Evenings, we'd sing by the fire pit while Derek played guitar:





We made wreaths out of wildflowers.


And danced ancient Lithuanian folk dances by twilight.

It was the kind of vacation I've wanted to take ever since V-meister and J-dog were born: a large house, a beach, good friends, good food, good drink, and sunkissed children scampering about. Bliss!

In short, I've simply been enjoying myself and seeing to it that my kids have the lazy, unregimented kind of summer I remember from my own childhood - full of slow as molasses mornings, picnics, sprinklers, sandboxes, sidewalk chalk, afternoons at the pool, ice cream, and morning cartoons.

It's been good. But I've been thinking . . .

"Perhaps I should dust off the old blog."

Some photos in this post were unabashedly pilfered from the Facebook pages of my friends.