We woke up the next morning and went downtown for a big old family breakfast, again at McKinney and Doyle. Since two outta three kids have actually decided to eat pancakes, going out for breakfast is almost enjoyable.
My hometown. Isn't it sweet? How I despised it.
My parents made sure that I will always be attached to this podunk place. Or at least "AMIEEVAN" will be.
The grandchildrens' brick is further down the path.
Yes, there still is a feed store in the middle of town.
Keeping with that theme, we went back to Mom and Dad's place. Tractor rides!
The next day, Oscar and I drove up to Ridgefield CT to visit some SOMA friends.
Kian was in kindergarten and first grade with Oscar. His dad works in Stamford, CT, and finally the family just up and moved to CT in order to see their dad during weekdays. Their mom, Colleen, was a smartass, super involved mom who had strong, informed opinions about her kids' schooling. Needless to say, I loved her.
She started the charity Jerseys from Jersey, which collects team-fulls of previous years' soccer jerseys and equipment and sends them to needy, soccer-loving countries. If that wasn't cool enough, she brought her kids to their own teacher-parent conferences and very bluntly explained that there was nothing being discussed that they shouldn't be there for. Colleen decided to move the year before we did, and was a great resource of advice for all of us.
Badass mom, right? I love her.
Oscar, Conor and Kian had lots of fun hanging out and avoiding my attempts to get a picture of all three of them. I loved hearing about their summer plans -- a month in Peru where the kids attend Spanish school and they live with a local family. What an adventure!
We bid farewell to Colleen's family and met Mom, Dad, Arlo and The Goose at the Red Rooster.
Ice cream, clam rolls, hamburgers, mini golf. You should have heard the "awwwws" on Facebook from all those misplaced Pawling folks when I said we were at the Red Rooster.
Evan loves the Red Rooster something awful. We stopped there on our way from our wedding to our reception for milkshakes. My folks brought us milkshakes a couple years later to Danbury Hospital when our first son was born.
We went to the lake and Mom took the little guys out for a boat ride. I stayed on the beach with Oscar and we practiced our stone skipping. It was successful -- Oscar skipped his first stone that day, four skips. All this hanging out in the sticks might have been worthwhile just for those four skips.
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