Here are some pictures from the party, along with some commentary...
Here's the view from the hot tub end of the pool - yes, that's their shed.
This is the hot tub end of the pool. Apparently cousin R and his son R built the deck and the pergola.
Dinner is served! And it was delicious! We had baked ziti (with vodka sauce, my favorite!), fried chicken, pierogi with fried onions and butter, caprese salad, meatballs, cole slaw, and that's all I took. There was more, but my plate was full!
This is the view from the waterfall side of the pool, looking toward their house. That low addition on the right is their new great room/family room. When they remodeled their kitchen, they blew out the wall between the kitchen and the dining room, made that one giant space, and added this room onto the house.
Hi there, it's a self portrait! Not too smart to try to take it with the sun behind me, but it did give me some nifty lighting effects...
Here's hubby, post dinner, pre dessert. Yes, he always looks stressed when he's relaxing!
Cousin R and his beautiful dog, Kallie. Kallie is a Tibetan Terrier - not a terrier at all, and normally her hair is much longer, but they shaved her for the summer. She's so well-behaved. Apparently she won't go in the pool. She's four years old. The day after they brought Kallie home, R's wife was walking her around the pool on a leash, talking on her cell phone, telling everyone about their new puppy. R almost choked laughing as he told me she walked the poor puppy right off the edge into the water, and Kallie's been scared of the pool ever since! And before anyone gets all up in my face, he wasn't laughing at the poor pup, but he WAS laughing at his wife!
This photo was taken across the pool, toward the waterfall which you can just barely see on the right side of the picture.
Here's N and R, cousin R's two children (he's the soon-to-be-Blue-Hen; she's a UConn Husky), standing with my mom, their grandmother by proxy. Their real grandmother on our side died before my cousin married his wife, so they asked my mom if the kids could call her Babci (grandmother).
And here's the family photo... Cousin R, his wife M, daughter N, my mom, their son R, me, and J.
And just 'cause I can't end it there, here's another story... I volunteer as a reader at my husband's school. I've been doing it for eight years. It's a program sponsored by my company. Yesterday was my last day reading for this school year. I brought them Munchkins and they made me some beautiful thank you cards (you can see them in the second photo below). Miss G, the teacher, put a thank you sign up on her white board. I got lots of hugs, and they told me I "was the best reader they ever had!" (I was about to let that go to my head until I remembered they're second grade so they've only had two readers before me... although there are two per class and we alternate weeks, so I guess I'm the best of six...) I get so much from reading to them; I can only hope they get as much from me. I try to share my love of reading, how much I get out of it, how easy it is, that you have only to practice to get better at it... A couple of the students were eager to tell me that they'd been reading books since they last saw me, "books that aren't for school!" That last photo is the group when they came to visit at our office last month. Once a year, in May, they come to us and we read to them in their class groups in our cafeteria. We give them apples and cookies, milk and juice and water. They're always impressed and it's a mini field trip for them.
This is the class at my office building - that's my reading partner; we alternate weeks. When she remembers to go... Sorry, couldn't resist...
