recapitulation

life has a way of getting really busy all of the sudden. these are the dog days of summer, those hot sweaty days that just can't seem to pass quickly enough. i'll be glad when september arrives because cooler weather will be just around the corner ... and my birthday ... and my thesis committee meeting. but i don't really want to think about that just yet! we've been doing lots of fun things in the past several weeks. a few weeks ago on friday night, we met my mom and her neighbor mrs. rau for first friday at the frick and had a nice picnic dinner and listened to the great reggae band wailing souls. my mom had told us about the concert she'd gone to in july and i thought it sounded like fun so we decided to go, and i think we all had the best time. the weather was perfect, the music was good, and it was so enjoyable. we were set up right next to some trees with mulch around them which made erik very happy. he spent most of the evening driving his cars around in the mulch, playing with a ball we'd brought, and dancing his cute little butt off:









i had never been to the frick mansion and it was a beautiful place. they had a carriage museum that my mom and mrs. rau took erik to and he loved it. they also had lovely grounds and a small conservatory.





later that weekend, we got together with some friends to celebrate my friend kellie's birthday. we met on saturday night to have dinner at the cheesecake factory, but the wait for a table was 2 hours because we had a large party, so we ended up going to the olive garden and were seated pretty much right away. we had a nice dinner there and then my friend jamie invited us over to her house to swim in her pool and hot tub. we had a GREAT time that night! erik LOVED the pool, and even though it was late and he hadn't napped, he was just so happy. he really loved swimming and especially jumping in the pool. peter was also loving jumping into the pool and especially loving the hot tub. we ended up staying until almost 11!

also that weekend we took erik to the library and to schenley plaza to ride the carousel.





i love this one:



they had an arts festival going on in the plaza, but it was so hot and the sun so intense that we didn't stay to check it out. erik requested panera for lunch, and we decided that was a good idea because it was just too hot to be anywhere without air conditioning (like our house).

i forgot to mention that when i went down to the basement to do my laundry on saturday morning, it was wet and stinky. yes, when peter flushed the toilet, the sewage ended up all over the basement floor. GROSS! major major bummer. major stinky disgusting expensive bummer. oh well. turns out the waste pipe was broken under the floor. the plumbers came back to fix it on tuesday with a jack hammer to break up the concrete floor. i'm just glad it's repaired. peter hauled all the stuff that got ruined to the curb (most of which we would have eventually gotten rid of anyway), but the mess down there remains to be cleaned up. lately doing laundry has been nasty business.

on to happier things ... my cousin robin and her family came to visit on their way home to kentucky from new jersey last weekend. her husband justin was born in hackettstown (where i used to live and work), and grew up very close to where peter's dad lives. they stayed at my brother adam's house for the weekend and we went to kennywood on saturday and to the museum and the hofbrauhaus on sunday. i have tons of photos to share, but it's getting a bit late so i will save them for another day. we had a great time with them ... they're so much fun and their kids anja, jack, and will (11, 6, and 5) are really great. anja made a big impression on erik, who hasn't stopped talking about her since the weekend. i'll try to post again soon!