A summary of summer, part 1

I know our blog posts have been a bit sporadic recently, but we’ve been up to all sorts of mischief. It’s summer after all! We’ve had playdates, we’ve played in the sprinklers, we’ve done lots of swimming, we’ve had sleep-overs, we’ve had visits to the library, we’ve had a couple of road trips, we’ve had homemade lemonade, iced tea and popsicles, eaten tonnes of watermelon and peaches and corn… you know… summer stuff.

But this summer we have also hosted quite a number of some really cool people. It has made for a busy time, but so worthwhile.

Let me backtrack to June, when we hosted Phillipa and Steve who were in New York to attend conference and who were also visiting Phillipa’s son, James, who has featured on our blog before. We’ve known Phillipa and her family for a long time (in fact, Ben was boarding with them when we were dating!), so it was really wonderful to see her again and to meet Steve. He passed the test: we like him. :-)

We enjoyed some sight-seeing in Central Park and elsewhere, some lovely cafe lunches and morning teas with them as well as some great conversations, which were a highlight for me.

June also saw the girls’ end of year piano recital (still getting used to the academic year finishing in the middle of the calendar year here in the States!). They both did really well. Marica even played a piece she wrote herself. I was a proud Mamma.

Then we had Ben’s cousin Derek stay with us for just over a week, joined about half way through by another uncle and aunt and three cousins: Uncle Stan, Aunt Nora and Lindsey, Alice and Evan. It was like a mini Hoyt reunion! More sight-seeing ensued, as well as some more good conversations and lots of other good fun.

(Photo credits go to Uncle Stan and his stunning camera for most of this lot.)

We then traveled to Grove City, PA, for Ben’s cousin Esther’s wedding, where I got a surprising number of really terrible photos! So I only have a few to share.

The very next day we drove to my friend Anna’s wedding in the Delaware Water Gap where I was a bridesmaid. (Got a real pathetic number of good photos there too.) Needless to say that was a big weekend with two weddings in two different locations and lots of driving!

The summary of summer, to be continued…