Lots of Fruit and Friends

One thing I love about Rochester are the local farms.  We went multiple time to pick fresh fruit with friends. 

Blueberries

Peaches (white and yellow)

Plums

Apples

The tricky thing about the peaches is, they go bad fast.  I peeled and pitted a bunch to make freezer jam and unfortunately I used a pack of sugar free pectin so it didn't turn out the way I hoped.  Apples are easy.  They stay fresh longer and keep in the refrigerator forever.  We did make apple crisp a few times.  Blueberries were never a problem.  The kids gobbled those up in just a few days. 

Sy the neighbor kid

The Byland girls



Haircuts

I have not one but two girls who dislike having their hair done.  Kassie's is obviously curly and has to be brushed constantly or it turns into a tangled mess.  Let's just say, she doesn't want to brush it....ever! Samantha's hair is the opposite.  Her hair is very straight but the kicker with her is, she won't let me do anything to it.  She'd rather have it in her face and look at a ragamuffin.  The best solution to the problem would be to get a hair cut right?  Well, that's what we did and I should have forked over the dough and went someplace nice because the two ladies that did the haircuts were awful.  I am so thankful that the girls still looked cute and if you didn't look closely the cuts were ok. 

You can see how the sides don't look even.  And no I wasn't going to have them fix it.  I wanted my girls to still have some hair left.  Also Samantha's face cracks me up in the picture.  I know exactly what she's thinking.  " Get these bobby pins out of my hair.  They're too tight!" Or, "Seriously mom, like I'm actually going to keep these bobby pins in!"

Summer Days in Rochester

Can you say snake wrangler?!  Catching snakes was a summer highlight for the kids.  The neighbor kids would join in on the fun too.  I think they caught a total of 7 snakes.

This is Fang.  I think he's the one who said hello to me the first day we moved in.

We saw Turbo at the dollar theater and the kids came home and raced snails.  You can't see, but they wrote numbers on the shells.

I do need to add that Samantha loved to catch slimy nasty slugs and play with them.  gross!

We made s'mores on the grill on night.  You can see the tarp in the background and that was for the tent that Lee had to set up.  Kass and Tom were thinking they wanted to have a campout in the back.  It turns out they came in because they heard strange noises after about 10 min in the tent.

Downtown Rochester after eating at Dinosaur BBQ. 

 Celebrating Lee finishing the Boards at Wings Over Rochester. 



New York City Trip

 We had so much fun in New York City!  It was worth the drive and I'm glad we can say we've been there.

Figuring out the subway and metro cards was a little bit of a challenge. 

 The subway.  The kids thought the subway was way cool.  We got a lot of weird looks because we had four kids.

 Times Square

 Dinner at Guy Fieri's Resaurant

We took the Staten Island Ferry because it was free and to see the Statue of Liberty

 Here is Central Park.  This was as close as we got.  The museum wore us out.

 The National Museum of History.



Indy Visitors and Palmyra

 Every summer Palmyra, New York puts on an amazing performance called the Hill Cumorah Pageant.  The production is about the Book of Mormon and it's HUGE.  People from all over come to the pageant.  Becky and her girls came from Indy because Becky's aunt was in the performance.  It was awesome because we were able to meet up with them and spend the day touring the church history sites.  It rained for part of the time but luckily the sun finally came out.

 Cousin It

By the end of the day, Samantha was a mess!

Sacred Grove  

Afterwards we were all hungry and thirsty so we stopped at a local restaurant.  The kids had their dreams come true.  They had the most sugar filled dinner they've ever had!

Letchworth Park





Letchworth park is known as the "mini Niagara".  On the way, we drove past the college both my parents attended, Geneseo State.

 We saw a snake and a hawk.  Kassie almost had a spaz attack because she thought the snake might be poisonous.

 

 



Watkins Glen State Park

Lee had some time off before he started his new job, so we tried to fit in as much sight seeing as would.  Watkins Glen was on the top of our list.  The park was so gorgeous. The kids loved it.