Family: First Weekend of Summer

Okay, so it's not officially summer, but we over here at Gesh's Globe could be fooled into thinking otherwise. We're frolicking in the water, we're trying to catch fish, we're sweltering, buying fans, letting our babies let it all hang out, and having our morning coffee out on the deck.

This weekend, at long last, Stillman got to meet his Auntie Marcel (Honorary).  It was a meeting nine years in the making, and neither was disappointed. Marcel and her cousin Selena were here for less than 24 hours, but as always happens when Marcel visits, she not only brightened the place up with her company but cleaned up our kitchen, restocked our fridge and helped TLS with some other tasks that have been languishing. Thanks, A.M. (Hon.)! 

Vanal and I continue to have adventures in the great outdoors. We tramped up to the top of the Glen Onoko hike on Saturday, in the sweltering heat. He scrambled like a little mountain goat, and is a great companion on such excursions. There's not much I won't let him do (unless it's extremely likely that he'll do himself in), and it was kind of funny to see passersby giving him warnings: "Careful, honey, those rocks are sharp"; "That's pretty steep for you, little guy. Why don't you come this way?"  I'm a firm believer in letting kids sort these things out for themselves. If rocks are sharp on the bare feet, they'll feel that, right? And then next time make a decision about whether or not to tread upon such rocks?

There's a series of waterfalls along the hike, and we stopped for a snack and some cool refreshment beneath one of them.

There were other people at our lunch spot, and they warned Vanal against climbing underneath the falls because the rocks are slippery. So as you can see, I made him stay on dry land:

Yesterday, we went down to the Lehigh River to take a dip. There are two or three whitewater-rafting concessions in town, and we picked a spot along the river where the rafters come down through. We waded out into the current and Vanal had fun jumping off the rocks, trying to swim upstream, and just generally splashing around. The raftloads of paying customers were pretty surprised to see us out there in what seemed to them to be the middle of a wilderness splashing around in a fast river. One guy floating past asked us if we needed rescue -- he seemed bent on rescuing someone and was a bit disappointed when we told him we were just having a swim. We also threw a line in the water, but returned home fishless for the third time.

The place was a hit with Vanal, so we'll probably be returning to escape this afternoon's heat.