This is what I look like when surround by cousins, cousins' children and cousins' grandchildren.  "Whaaaa?"  We had our family meeting and it all went well.  Very harmonius, no discord, some actual decisions made.  15 minutes of business and 45 minutes of conversation, not bad, not bad at all.  I had some nice visits with people, I was the only rep. from my family there but that turned out not to matter much as no major issues were brought up.  Whew.

That was last weekend.  The week before was full of social things, lots of dinner, coffee in the mornings with friends, dinners with friends, a doctor's appointment thrown in, helping a friend with a broken-down car, just "stuff" going on.  A busy time.

Just a view of the mountain on a day with nice clouds.  I've had some very nice dock time, just me and my dogs, and several nights of having camp to myself.  I sleep well in the boat house, especially when it's as hot as it's been.  Always cooler at the lake.  Tonight I'm home, once again camp is full of other people and a) I don't want to intrude, and b) I like to be alone in camp.  It's been very busy.

The dogs are just fine.  Right now they're outside breathing cooler air.  I was at Linda's tonight for Moroccan dinner, delicious, celebrating Joe's birthday.  For his REAL birthday we went on a cruise out of Burlington on Lake Champlain, which was way cool.  That was a lot of fun.  It was a hot day but we sat in the bow where there was a grand breeze.  I really enjoyed the day.  Since then it's been too hot to enjoy much.  Yesterday I spent the entire day at camp (I promised the dogs I'd spend the day with them), sitting on the dock for a while until the biting flies just were too much to bear, then I sat on the boat house porch and swam once in a while to cool off.  It was 96 in Plattsburgh, probably merely 90 here in Hawkeye.  Today felt worse, it was more humid.  I just felt that, if I did go swimming I would never be dry because of the humidity.  Anyway I got the boat house in pretty good shape, and emptied the camp fridge as I promised I would.  Tomorrow I go to the dump with at least 20 1-gallon water jugs from camp and a friend's recyclables, camp garbage, boat house garbage, my garbage.  Yikes.  First is coffee with friends and a field trip to a marvelous bakery in Keeseville.

Monday I'm going to RI for the week.  Mark is on vacation so we'll either paint his apartment or just go to the beach.  Anyway I'll see my mother and we'll enjoy being together.