It's Day 5 of our 6 day end of summer vacation.  I've kind of lost track of the days and have to keep reminding myself that it's Labor Day.  Most people are going back to work tomorrow but we took the extra day off and so have two more lazy days.

What have we been doing?  Well, Thursday we ran some errands in the morning and then Kate and I took our wheels to the park and entertained various people including one 80-something year old woman who thinks she might like to learn to spin.  She was fascinated by the whole thing.  The weather was perfect and it was a great way to unwind and to begin our vacation. 

This little guy was in the tree next to us, pecking away.  He scampered all over the branches and was hard to catch a clear shot of.

Then he just sat there watching me taking photos.  We have a few woodpeckers in our neighborhood but you only hear them in the early morning when it's still quiet.  They are funny little birds.  We got Kate home in time for work and we got home and had some spaghetti and meatballs.

Friday, Pk and I got up and moved lazily through our morning and got to the lake about 11.  It wasn't crowded since it was a weekday and the weather was gorgeous.  We put up our umbrellas and sat ourselves in the sand and watched children make sandcastles and run in and out of the water.  The lake looks blue because the sky was cloudless and endlessly blue.  The reflection was complete.  It's a "cedar" lake although the brown color is caused by iron and not cedars.  This area of NJ was once known for it's iron ore and the rivers and streams and lakes are all root beer colored.

You can see that it's not crowded.  It was great.So great in fact, that we decided to come back on Saturday since the weather was supposed to start turning ugly and it would be the last nice day.  And the last weekend the park would be open.  It's only open from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

Our morning moved a bit more quickly.  This lake is a very popular spot for families during summer holidays.  We have never been able to get in on a holiday.  We were there 6 minutes before the park opened and there was a line already.  We were probably the 20th car in line.  We got in and spent the day much as we had the day before.  I pulled out some bubbles I had in the bag and ended up giving them to a brother and sister who were sitting next to us.  It was a win win situation.  They got to blow bubbles and I got to see the bubbles without all the bubble mess.

It was clouding up as we packed up to go home.  You could see the edge of the storm system moving in. The remnants of Issac which are still hanging around (and will be until Wednesday) coming to visit.We picked up some chinese food on the way home and watched The Fellowship of the Ring.  Perfect day. 
 
Our second half of the vacation is being spent closer to home.  I'm spinning some lovely fiber and Pk has made repairs to his computer monitor.  It had a flicker and would take some time to settle down when you turned on the computer.  He found out on line he could repair this with some replacement capacitors.  We ordered them and he took the monitor apart and replaced them.  He is very handy to have around since a new monitor would have meant spending much more than buying a few capacitors (the postage cost more than the electronic parts).

We put in a small vegetable garden in the back this year, just before the near drought conditions set in.  None of our tomatoes produced.  Or so we thought.  Pk found this on the plant yesterday when he went out to pick some basil to make me an omelette for breakfast.  It's a Barble sized tomato!  It's so cute but rather sad and pathetic.  The gardening was not a successful venture this year but there's always next year. 

Pk is writing some programs and I am getting ready to head into the spare room to commune with the fiber.  I want to see about mixing some sparkly bits into this yarn.  I have some angelina that Em gave me for Christmas that will match/contrast really well with the roving I'm using.  This is the merino/cashmere/silk I won in the TdF contest.  The color is called Water and Sky and there are bits of blue and purple and some light teal in there.  It's really pretty and so hard to capture the color.  Especially with no sun.

So, a few quiet days for us to continue to unwind.  We're going to be quite unwound by the time we go back to work.  And next weekend is the NJ Sheep Show!  Kate and I are going on Sunday.  Lots of local vendors which is nice since we like supporting our local folks. And of course there will be sheep to pet and Pk is hoping for a nice lamb sandwich.  I don't think he gets the spirit of the show......