A christening...and kayaks!

Our next stop on the Tour de Familia was a cristening.
Above is (L-R) Cousin Kim, Priest, Jacob, Dad James, Mom Kelly, and Godfather.
My cousin Kelly had a baby while I was in SF. I had yet to meet him.
Jacob (the baby) is quite a cutie.

Four generations.
Grandma Gryken, Aunti Bev, Cousin Kelly, and baby Jacob
Well, The hello's and goodbye's have been said so it's back on the road.

We came across this friendly fellow on the NY thruway. Tim liked the sign.
I guess someone finally took him because we have yet to see him again in our
MANY trips through NY.
After a long drive back Tim and I took a break from the hustle and bustle
to enjoy the lake.

AAAAHHHHHH....

And Poof it's July 30th!
Happy 3 year anniversary to us!

We had a great day.
Thank you mom and dad for the flowers.

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Now, if you live in Canada you love Hockey. But what about in the summer? Yes, there is summer up here. In the summer Canadians turn to the water and cheer for their awesome Canoe and Kayak teams.
Especially for those teams originating from the Burloak Canoe and Kayak Club which so happens to be located in Oakville! This club also happens to be the place where Tim and his brothers spent a good deal of their early adolecence.
I had to check this out!
We had great timing and were able to attend the send off party for the 2008 summer olympic team. The man on the Left is the Mayor of Oakville. The "cool" guy on the right is
Adam VanKooverdan: He won gold in the last summer olympics.
They named a road after him! This club is located on 16 mile creek and has produced many Gold medal athletes. Including This guy.

I think he won gold in the 80's sometime. But look at those arms!

Nice boats! Tim was thrilled to be at the club again and reunite with a few old friends.
We both had high hopes for him being able to join up for the summer but it was a bit too late in the season. Maybe this coming summer!

Welcome to Martha's Vineyard!

The next phase of our transition to Canada was a family vacation to Martha's Vineyard.
A truly beautiful place to spend some quality time with the fam.

We checked out a lot of beaches.

Celebrated a couple birthdays with cake, candles, and...
FIREWORKS!!!

And then there were more beaches!

Puzzles...Puzzles...Puzzles...and more puzzles!
We actually did, I believe, FIVE different puzzles.

This one was fun but tougher. It was 1000 pieces. Mom and Erica worked very hard on it.
So after the puzzle there was...
More BEACHES!!!
And after the beach we went out for a special dinner at The Black Dog Tavern, an Original M.V. pub that has become an EMPIRE!


They not only have food but a bakery, and two stores that sell
basically everything with the black dog logo on it. The food was amazing and Tim loves the double layer heavy-weight hoodie that we got him. It's great for working out in the garage in the cold Canadian winter.
But here on the island it is still summer. So, we're off to the Field Gallery,
an outdoor sculpture and painting gallery that is another essential MV moment.
Oh YEAH! What a stud!
And a sister picture of course.
And then it's back to the beach. Aaawwww.
I love you too Tim!
And with all that beach hopping we even went actually swimming in the ocean.
One funny story at the beach was that Emilie and I were paddling together on the boogie board
and chatting. We kept paddling and chatting and looking out at the ocean.
Then all of the sudden my Dad called us from the shore, we turned around and realized we were WAY FAR OUT! Yikes! We quickly paddled back towards the shore and took a nice safe break on the sand.
A bit more about the beauty of MV: Hydrangeas, WoW they are everywhere and gorgeous!
A few scenes from our walks and bike rides around the island.
More beauty :-)
And Mr. Tim the photographer.

Big beautiful boats everywhere!
And cute little cottages everywhere too!

And Mr. Tim the photographer on our long bike trip.
I'm not much of a rider so the 7 mile bike trip we took around the island was a
BIG accomplishment for me. I really enjoyed it too.
With scenery like this how can you go wrong.

We went out to the island on the island Chappaquitic. This area of MV used to be connected to the main island but after storms and erosion it became disconnected. It now can only be accessed via a shuttle boat that runs back and forth across the 300 yd. distance.
I believe this is a sandpiper.
At the end of a long day in the sun we went to watch the sunset over the boats.
If you look carefully at my leg you can see it's quite pink. That was the beginning of
a journey back to Canada with a BAD sunburn. Both Tim and I got very burned that day.
It was a great day at the beach though and an
Awesome time on the island and with family.

Thank you Mom and Dad for a great vacation.

Visiting with family and friends

After the wedding Tim and I decided to accompany
Tim's parents to the place where we had been married

Mount Pollux conservation area. It was truly a beautiful day.
I think it's always beautiful there.

We had a very nice picnic and enjoyed the view, the quiet, and the fresh air for a bit.
That evening we prepared for a trip to see Lindsay and Casey and meet their new baby Orin.
That meant finishing the blanket I had been knitting as a gift...

As you can see I had apparently miscalculated a bit. Oops!
However, after revision it was well recieved. Yay!
Not only was it great to finally present the gift I had been working on for months,
It was also wonderful to meet the beautiful baby that was the reason behind the gift.

He was sooooooooo cute.

Tim was a real natural with him too. Hmm.

The happy Zawicki family! Orin, Casey, and Lindsay.

And then it was back to CT to do some work.
Tim and I (mostly Tim) worked on refinishing my parents Kitchen floor.
This is the before picture. You'll have to stop by to see the after.
We forgot to take a picture of it.
We were so busy visiting more friends.

This is Mason, my friend Shelly's baby. He was born while we were in SF.
Another cutie pie. (sorry it's sideways)

And Emaline, Mason's big sister, has grown soooo much since I saw her last.
I was the first to teach her how to use crayons.
And now look, she's moved onto mixed media artwork. I'm so proud!

Next up is Martha's Vineyard, a boatload of beaches and a wicked sunburn.

Richard and Virginia's Wedding

After crossing the border in Michigan we stayed one night in what would now be our home. Unpacked the car and headed out back onto the road. We were scheduled to be at a wedding in CT on July 5th and it was presently the Fourth of July! So we crossed the border again...
All went smoothly and we were on our way. As it got dark we were able to see several sets of fireworks. No pics though because well...it was too dark.

DONG! DONG! DONG!
Are those wedding bells I hear?

Congratulations Rich and Ginny. It was a beautiful wedding!

For those of you who don't know, Ginny is my mother's best friend's daughter. Essentially she's like a cousin. I'm pretty close with most of my cousins and it was wonderful to watch her get married.

Tim and I also had the pleasure of meeting Krishna, my sister Emilie's boyfriend. They just recently celebrated 1 year together! Yay Emilie and Krishna!
So...we made it to our destination, saw family, had a great time, ate some fantastic food, and overall enjoyed the evening.

But our journey in the states has just begun. We can still look forward to a week on Martha's Vinyard, a cristening, and more visiting with family before heading back to Canada to settle in some more.

Cross Country Part 3

Evidence that I DID drive part of the way and that we had a fantastic time!
I would do it all again in a heartbeat.
Still in Yellowstone more errie evidence showing the past fires.
As we left Yellowstone we drove through this gorgeous, well...gorge.

I was under the impression that other than Yellowstone there was nothing really worthwhile in Wyoming. Boy was I wrong. Granted there isn't much in the way of civilization but who needs that when you can have unhindered views like this!

I wish I knew the name of this fantastic and welcoming town that we happened upon but I cannot remember. All I know is that a fantastic lunch in she shade after driving in the hot hot hot sun was really really great. We stopped to buy ice for our cooler at a convinience store on the main street. Assuming there wasn't much else to the town we, we were making sandwiches on the hood of the car. We were kindly informed of a picnic area nearby which also had a public POOL!
What a pool! We didn't have the energy or time to dig out our suits from in the perfectly packed car. So we sat on the edge and dipped our feet, hands, arms, whatever we could and then went back out onto the road.

To discover large green fields and empty roads. We were now in South Dakota.

But wait...there's more to South Dakota than fields and old barns.

There are presidents!

Huge Presidents! I found Mount Rushmore to be very impressive. All that rock and work carved into a mountain. Pretty cool.

What's also cool is helping ourselves to an East Coast favorite we had been deprived of for quite some time. Thick crust Pizza Hut pizza! YUMMMMMMM! Besides fields, barns, and pizza hut there are also hundreds of signs for the Wall Drug Store! We had to go and see what it was all about.
Our night time general store stop included a 5cent coffee for Tim and a pair of VERY attractive clip on sunglasses for me. Sorry South Dakota but I wasn't impressed. However, we could drive quite a bit faster there than we could once we hit Minnesota, Wisconsin or Illinois.
As we entered Illinois we were planning on finding a campsite since it wasn't too late at night. So much for that. We hit a mosterous thunder storm and had to stay at another hotel. It was our first REAL thunder storm since we left the East Coast. They don't have thunder storms in CA. The next day we set off for the last stretch of our trek to the border. Around Lake Michigan, through Indiana, through Michigan and into CANADA!!!!

OH CANADA!!!

Stay tuned for more about our summer.