Maya and Rachel are reclining comfortably while enjoying lunch. It seems to me that expressions of such contentment should be reserved for tired parents.

It was fun to watch the cousins at play. They did not miss an opportunity to share in the fun.

Not to be outdone, the adults took to the tree as well. My dad still can’t keep his hands off my mom. Photo by Nico.

Nicolai required no assistance going up but did accept help coming down. Not shown was the part in which he used the head of his older brother as a convenient height step.

Mario was the first to scamper up the tree and required the most coaxing to come down. The genetic monkey traits of his father at work no doubt.

It didn’t take long to find the perfect setting for a portrait of all the cousins.

Today, our family drove to the Mount Tom State Reservation to meet with Frank and Angela, the Quinn family, and Rory and Mario. Within 2 minutes of arriving, Nicolai spotted a large black bear. This was as close as I dared approach. In retrospect, it was probably too close.

Kyle assists Maya on the new “zip” line I installed today.

Maya was in charge of pancakes this morning.

Another great skyscape this morning looking out across our field.

When I returned from work this evening, Nicolai was also back from his week long summer camp. When I asked how he enjoyed it, he went on for ten minutes about all the cleaning that campers were expected to do. Eventually, he did acknowledge that he enjoyed himself immensely. He traversed a river, blindfolded, on a 2-wire bridge (one to stand on, one overhead), was hoisted 40ft into the air on a spider line (harness on rope through tree mounted pulley), danced with girls, and ate a lot of food. Despite his claims of food consumption at camp, you would have thought he hadn’t eaten in a week when we went out to a Chinese restaurant to celebrate Kyle’s birthday. He ate everything in sight including several new foods. While at the restaurant, Maya stops to visit with friends who were also dining there. Maya had her last day of farm camp today and rode a “big” horse named Teddy and helped to shear a sheep.

Kyle became a teenager today (13 years old). Jeanine prepared breakfast in bed for him. Although I took several photos of him enjoying his breakfast treat, none included eyes which were open as he was still half asleep. Kyle has been at tennis camp all week and they run him pretty hard. Yesterday they used a radar gun and clocked his serve at 94 mph.

Sleepy Maya gets ready to go to Farm Camp today. Yesterday she made a special pizza to feed the horses. I take great pleasure in asking her when she will be milking the chickens.