A Perfect Saturday

Yesterday we made a trip to the Finger Lakes. It was clear and quite chilly when we left the house around 7:00. Our first stop was at the Mennonite market in Seneca Falls where we picked up our favorite brand of bacon, some pork chops, green beans, two blocks of cheese, and a 50# bag of bird seed. We had packed a cooler for the meats and cheese and headed to Ithaca to the Farmer’s Market.

On our way we stopped at Taughannock Falls to take a few photos. I have a new phone and wanted to try the camera. Most of these photos have had no editing other than being cropped to an appropriate size to print if I ever want to do that. It’s quite a bit better than my previous one which was three generations old.

It was our first trip to the Ithaca market since the pandemic began, and like many things, was a bit diminished. My biggest disappointment was the disappearance of my favorite bakery. Nonetheless, there were still gorgeous vegetables and flowers, and I did find a delicious cranberry orange scone for a mid-morning snack.

The market sits right at the end of Cayuga Lake, and the rowers were out in force on this beautiful morning. Both Cornell and Ithaca College have rowing teams as does the high school so I’m not sure who was out practicing.

In addition to the sunflowers at the market, we found these on one of the rural roads we travel on the Finger Lakes.

The primary reason for the trip was to pick up our fall allotment of wine at Boundary Breaks where we are members of the wine club. Not only do they make wonderful wine, the views are among the best on Seneca Lake.

Although some of the grapes have been picked, there are still many left on the vines waiting for just the right time to harvest.

We arrived right at lunch time and enjoyed a wine tasting while we sat overlooking the lake.

But that was not the end of the day! After arriving home around 2:00, we had just enough time to rest up before heading off to our granddaughter, Skylar’s, 10th birthday dinner. Skylar asked for a pajama party, but we were all assured it was an optional requirement. Even Ella, the seven year old, decided against it.

As always there was a piñata to break open.

Then there were gifts to open and a delicious dinner ordered from Skylar’s favorite Korean restaurant. (The dumplings are amazing!) And finally cake.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for hanging in there. I thought I’d share her birthday card as well. One night in August the girls arrived for dinner and needed to head home earlier than usual since they had been allowed to stay up late the night before to catch fireflies in a jar. I had recently purchased a couple of fun stamps and dies from The Greetery so knew exactly what I wanted to create.

Shaker cards are usually a hit and this one was so much fun to make.

I originally had three fireflies inside the jar, but the sequins kept getting stuck on their vellum wings, so I took the card apart and redid the stamping inside, moving all but one firefly to the outside of the jar.

The sentiment is just perfect for a new fifth grader. Skylar had expressed an interest in Copic markers from watching some You Tube videos. I was pretty sure she didn’t want Copics, so I did some research while we were in Wisconsin. But instead of guessing what might work, I gave her another card last night with a promise of art supplies.

Today Skylar came over to play with my art supplies for a couple of hours. She tried out the Copics, the Tomboys, some watercolor markers, and some pan watercolors. In the end we ordered a set of alcohol markers that are less fussy than Copics and less expensive so she was able to get a good selection of colors. I gave her a few stamp sets, an ink pad, and a sketch book from my stash so she’ll have some things to play with when the markers arrive later this week.

It’s been quite the lovely weekend! Hope yours was good as well.