Five Finger Fourth Fun

What a fabulous, wonderful, sunny, awesome weekend spent first with my sis and her hubby on Seneca Lake (thank you!) and next at my girlfriend Mary's house on Keuka Lake. So. Much. Stinkin. Fun.

Tubing. Swimming. Hot tub-ing. Laughing. Over $3K worth of fireworks!

Dinner at the Switz. Clam bake and pig roast the next day. (Did you know that pigs come with their eyes still in their sockets? Did you also know that the eyes don't pop right out -- they require serious hacking, cutting, sawing, pulling? Did you know that my girlfriends puke easily? And they don't like eyeballs thrown at them? I learned a lot this weekend.)

I love, love, love my friends. They're hilarious, wild, smart, crazy, beautiful, genuine and kind. And so are their kids.

Rumor has it that I missed even more fun on the last night as my kids joined us earlier that day and I was worried (rightly so) that it would get out of control so we left at nightfall. Dodged a bullet. Good for them. Sad for me! I began to see it coming when Son #1 saw my girlfriend Anne’s cigarettes and asked her (in a sincerely shocked voice), “You SMOKE?” and she responded, “No! They’re your mom’s.” Thankfully he's quick enough to know when someone is messing with him.

Instead, we celebrated the Fourth with a neighborhood firepit and rum cocktails that I made and the neighbors dubbed the Five Finger Death Punch. We walked over to the soccer field to watch the fireworks from all the surrounding towns and country clubs. The kids then roughed it in a tent in our yard with their iPods.

I want this summer to last forever.

Hey baby, it's the fourth of July

Er, well it was the fourth last weekend when the kids and I trekked to:

• The woods of South Sutton NH to visit my gorgeous girlfriend Anne and her picture perfect family
• Sweet little Lake Wicwas in Meredith NH to spend the day swimming with my fabulous brother and sister-in-law, cool niece and one of their favorite family friends
• The trails of Woodstock VT to go camping with AWESOME college friends including my beautiful dancer girlfriend Melissa from Brooklyn

After reassuring Son #2 that the bears in these parts were vegetarian, we all kicked back and relaxed.

Among the many festivities, we enjoyed (?) a pancake breakfast at the American Legion in Warren NH, went nuts with boxes and boxes of sparklers from the in-laws, relaxed by the bonfires, watched movies outside on a giant screen tacked to Bill’s barn, dined alfresco surrounded by tiki torches, enjoyed fresh mojitos and champagne, played croquet, hiked, swam in Silver Lake VT, shopped in Woodstock, and – best of all – just hung out with friends.

My friend Bill and his wife Elizabeth would make Martha Stewart proud. Their farmhouse is beautifully decorated, their meals (spicy shrimp, smoked ribs, fresh berries, oatmeal cookies) were better than the food served in the best restaurants (hence the boys’ moniker “delish kabobs”), their baby boy (Alistair) was just gorgeous, and – even though they have entertaining down to a science – there was no pressure whatsoever. The entire weekend was unbelievably low key. And Bill took the kids under his wing to play wiffle ball and later encouraged Son #1 to be his sous chef which made him beam (and buy a VT cookbook for himself the next day).

The two comments that sealed the weekend for me were:

Son #1: “I want to come back next weekend”

Son #2: “I don’t ever want to leave”

If only the drive wasn’t so painfully long!