Summer Weekend in Ithaca
Another wedding, another excuse to load up on
family and friends.
Thursday evening, after minor airline debacles
(we've come to expect nothing less), we made the familiar drive from Syracuse up
to Gramma & Grampa's house in Ithaca. What made it even more fun this time
is that we managed to rent the cheapest, tiniest, smurfiest car. A better photo
would've shown our relative size to the Chevy Aveo -- I'm pretty sure it came up
to Marc's thigh:
Gramma and Grampa waited for us to eat dinner. While Gramma got the food out, Grampa showed us his latest breathing contraption (a.k.a. the emphysema bong):
We called it a night pretty soon after dinner, so we could get an early start Friday morning (Marc succeeded at this better than I did). By around noon, Laurie came by so we could all meet up for lunch:
It wasn't too hard to convince anyone that authentic New York Pizza was in order, so Gramma, Grampa, Laurie, and us met up with Charlie at Roma. Here Grampa shows Marc his gratitude for the pie, of which we made very quick work.
After spending more time with the family throughout the afternoon, we headed to Dryden to spend time with friends Odin and Charly. We hung out in their beautiful house, which they have been renovating on their own for the past year. This is not Marc-and-Lauren renovating -- we're talking hard core stuff like moving walls, redoing bathrooms, etc. Here we are in their backyard and living room, accompanied by Jake the beagle.
We hung out the whole evening with Odin and Charly -- from drinks and snacks at their house to the best meal we've ever had in Ithaca (at Renee's), to a final stop at the Boatyard before we called it a night.
Saturday morning started with a trip to the Ithaca Farmer's Market, where we noshed on macrobiotic organic berry crisp and sipped local coffee while looking at works by regional artists, taking breaks to sign liberal petitions and fill out surveys by Cornell PhD students. It was quintessential Ithaca if there ever was such a thing:
As we finished up at the Farmer's market, we got a call that Mom and Dad had made it to town! We didn't have much time (less than 3 hours before the wedding, plus Dad forgot his dress shoes so we needed to take him shopping), but we managed to fit in a quick lunch by the Ithaca Commons. Gramma and Grampa raced over to join us, and we enjoyed three generations of conversation:
The rest of Saturday was taken up by Dougie and Treva's wedding (see the previous blog entry), but Sunday we managed to squeeze in more family time. We arrived in Trumansburg to find Skip surveying some serious storm damage to "the beach" behind his building. Thankfully the tree broke in half when it fell the night before, so the creek should be able to wash it away in time.
Jean and David joined us outside, but soon, given the highly musical crowd, we were brought inside to demo Marc's music software (Jean and I hung back, a little less enthused about the software but happy for the additional catching-up time).
Soon the stomach grumbling out-roared the music software, and we headed up the street for none other than more New York pizza. Finally, after a quick visit to "Potato Row," it was time to say goodbye.
We were a little tight on time heading back to the airport, but we risked being late and stopped by Mom & Charlie's place to say a final goodbye.
We made it to the Syracuse airport with no time to spare, once again reminding us that our family visits never quite seem long enough. Hopefully we'll get to spend more time with everyone around Christmas.
One final note -- as much as I make fun of Trumansburg, still baffled by the fact that Marc grew up in a town so small that it didn't have any stop lights... how many people can claim a view like this from their home town? We couldn't resist a quick stop at Taughannock Park to visit Marc's old neighbor, the waterfall:
Gramma and Grampa waited for us to eat dinner. While Gramma got the food out, Grampa showed us his latest breathing contraption (a.k.a. the emphysema bong):
We called it a night pretty soon after dinner, so we could get an early start Friday morning (Marc succeeded at this better than I did). By around noon, Laurie came by so we could all meet up for lunch:
It wasn't too hard to convince anyone that authentic New York Pizza was in order, so Gramma, Grampa, Laurie, and us met up with Charlie at Roma. Here Grampa shows Marc his gratitude for the pie, of which we made very quick work.
After spending more time with the family throughout the afternoon, we headed to Dryden to spend time with friends Odin and Charly. We hung out in their beautiful house, which they have been renovating on their own for the past year. This is not Marc-and-Lauren renovating -- we're talking hard core stuff like moving walls, redoing bathrooms, etc. Here we are in their backyard and living room, accompanied by Jake the beagle.
We hung out the whole evening with Odin and Charly -- from drinks and snacks at their house to the best meal we've ever had in Ithaca (at Renee's), to a final stop at the Boatyard before we called it a night.
Saturday morning started with a trip to the Ithaca Farmer's Market, where we noshed on macrobiotic organic berry crisp and sipped local coffee while looking at works by regional artists, taking breaks to sign liberal petitions and fill out surveys by Cornell PhD students. It was quintessential Ithaca if there ever was such a thing:
As we finished up at the Farmer's market, we got a call that Mom and Dad had made it to town! We didn't have much time (less than 3 hours before the wedding, plus Dad forgot his dress shoes so we needed to take him shopping), but we managed to fit in a quick lunch by the Ithaca Commons. Gramma and Grampa raced over to join us, and we enjoyed three generations of conversation:
The rest of Saturday was taken up by Dougie and Treva's wedding (see the previous blog entry), but Sunday we managed to squeeze in more family time. We arrived in Trumansburg to find Skip surveying some serious storm damage to "the beach" behind his building. Thankfully the tree broke in half when it fell the night before, so the creek should be able to wash it away in time.
Jean and David joined us outside, but soon, given the highly musical crowd, we were brought inside to demo Marc's music software (Jean and I hung back, a little less enthused about the software but happy for the additional catching-up time).
Soon the stomach grumbling out-roared the music software, and we headed up the street for none other than more New York pizza. Finally, after a quick visit to "Potato Row," it was time to say goodbye.
We were a little tight on time heading back to the airport, but we risked being late and stopped by Mom & Charlie's place to say a final goodbye.
We made it to the Syracuse airport with no time to spare, once again reminding us that our family visits never quite seem long enough. Hopefully we'll get to spend more time with everyone around Christmas.
One final note -- as much as I make fun of Trumansburg, still baffled by the fact that Marc grew up in a town so small that it didn't have any stop lights... how many people can claim a view like this from their home town? We couldn't resist a quick stop at Taughannock Park to visit Marc's old neighbor, the waterfall:
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Published On: Aug 21, 2004 11:58 AM
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Published On: Aug 21, 2004 11:58 AM