South Lake with the Baileys

We're back in Niskayuna after three full days and four nights in our happy place. The weather was ideal and the rhythms of each day will be familiar to anyone who's read this blog over the years -- morning coffee, reading (for me this year, Bill McKibben's "Falter" and Malcom Gladwell's "Talking to Strangers," for Carey, finally, the last page of Michelle Obama's "Becoming", for Anneli a Swedish thriller titled "Blå," and for Damond, though I never actually saw him with his nose in it, John Grisham's "The Rooster Bar"), family games, swimming, boating, lunch, beers or mixed drinks, Corn Hole, Spike Ball, catch, darts,  'smores. A new wrinkle this year inspired by our friends from the land where the sun doesn't set in the summer -- eye masks! I slept sooooo well. Made it 9 hours one night without even waking up to pee! Anyway, it's a story best told in pictures, because it's hard to put into words what these friends mean to us -- we have literally raised our kids together and any parent knows the commitment and trust and closeness that requires.