Few minutes of quiet

...before the wild rumpus begins.  Heather has taken the two boys to the train station to get Dad and Valerie.  It has been a wild and woolly morning with the sharing (or not) of toys.  My child has not been modeling the best behavior, I'm afraid.

Anyway, Selim and I had a non-eventful drive down to NY yesterday.  I was grateful that the forecast for showers never materialized.  I hate driving in the rain.  We made good time and got here in time for lunch.  And then, we were off to the playground/mini-golf/nature trail -- park.

Once Selim saw the mini-golf area, he lost attention on the play equipment.  Heather, Selim and Joshua decided to play, while I opted to document the event.  After the second hole, Joshua lost focus. 

He found his joy in playing on the course, picking up the golf balls, and trying out the obstacles.

Selim took the whole thing a bit more seriously.  He wanted to get the right line on his shots.

In the end, Selim won -- but not by much.

Then it was back to the playground for more fun. 

Selim asked Joshua not to step on him.

I kept asking Selim to smile.

The grown ups wanted to check out the nature trail before we left, so into the woods we went.  The trail will be more fun after the first frost when the mosquitoes are no longer biting. 

The bugs did not prevent Selim from straying from the trail to discover moss and quartz

and interesting rock formations.  "Mom, stop taking pictures of me!...Did you get the rock?  I mean did you get a close up of the rock and see how wavy it is?...Isn't this moss interesting!  Did you get the moss?  Did you get that tree?  Mo-om, look at this!  I said, banabak!"  I guess rock admiring is a family trait.

After dinner, we bundled up and drove to West Harrison for the fireworks.  Heather had seen a posting where it suggested that the fireworks would begin at 7:00.  We arrived a little past the hour.  After getting the requisite glow in the dark Harrison Husky necklace, we hung out, listening to the live music from behind the stage because the volume was too loud for the younger set.  About 7:30 when the show hadn't started yet, Heather asked someone when we could expect the event to begin and learned that it would be "sometime after 8:30".  Hmmm.  The kids were patient for the next twenty minutes or so and then not so much.  We left at 8:00.

Selim and I were in bed when I heard the faint boom of fireworks.  I looked at my watch -- 8:49.  Good thing we didn't stick around.