Enjoying the evening with friends, family & a few drinks.

I twisted open that Mike's Hard Cranberry Lemonade and took a swizzle. Mm-mm. Alec and Brookie were already having fun riding their bicycles around the road. The road was only traveled on by guests and it basically consisted of a huge square. Within that "square" is a playground, baseball field, and volleyball net. Plenty to keep the kids busy. Evan joined in a baseball game -- right up his alley! But they mostly loved riding their bikes. Of course, with helmets.

Time to rant. I noticed throughout our stay that almost all the other kids riding their bikes did NOT have helmets on. Did their parents think because they were in the Adirondacks on vacation that they were magically safe? I actually think it was even more dangerous as these kids were riding all over the place and I saw quite a few near misses ... or should I say near hits? Whatever. Their kids, not mine.

I took a quick stroll down to the beach area onto the dock and looked around. It was quite peaceful by this time down there.

Looking towards the east:


Rob and I met up with other "somewhat young crowd". Gosh, do I still call myself the young crowd? I have to admit, I should call ourselves the middle age crowd, but I feel young. We were across the way from our rental home at the home of Rob's aunt and uncle. There was an nice fire underway. We were talking and drinking while the kids were biking. One friend of ours, Bill, brought sparklers for the kids, and they had a lot of fun with them until they were gone and back on the bikes they went. It was so dark out but the fire lit things up nice. I ran back to our home and got the appletini shooters and brought them back. I passed them around and we all toasted to a new year in the Adirondacks.

All of a sudden, we felt the rain start, so everyone said goodbye quickly, and Rob and I headed back across the way back home. I told Rob that we should walk on the road -- not the open field -- so we could make sure to stop the kids from bike riding. We got back to the house and saw Brookie's bike parked there already. But she was not in the house!! I turned to Evan and Alec, who were just pulling up, where Brookie was. Evan took off immediately around the road to look for her. My heart was starting to flip out. Evan shouted across the way, I found her. Poor baby got off her bike when it started to rain and walked by herself on the field to where were had been. We didn't see each other probably passing in the dark. She was obviously upset, and I took her into my arms and told her it was okay. I told her that we would NEVER leave her. I waited until tomorrow to give her the "run down" on where we would be and swore we would NOT leave a particular spot without letting the kids know. Lesson learned fast! I still shudder thinking about this incident.

It was past 10:30 p.m. already so we all headed upstairs, got ready for bed, and laid down. We had a TV in our room -- lucky for me. Finally drifiting off to sleep after a short while ...