What We Did on Our Summer Vacation!

We are at Tom and Kelly's lake house in Eldred, New York, and here you see us hard at work. Here I am in my painting outfit, brush in hand, and a can of wood stain. I am staining the deck and stairs which go across two sides of the house including the front which faces the lake. Yesterday and today I worked on the surface of the deck and stairs. Luckily I came prepared with old clothes ready for this task because my shirt and pants quickly became covered with stains. I like working on the deck and stairs because the wood stain just has to be slapped on. Not shown in the picture is the greater challenge, applying the wood stain to the trims of four windows on the lower level. Windows are a little frustrating because the stain wants to drip and run on the window glass and everywhere! Then I need to stop and scrub it off. It takes a lot more time to do the windows than the deck and the stairs.

Tony has been working on several tasks as well. Here you can see him, shovel in hand, in the driveway. The lake house has a steep downhill driveway, pretty rough, and a little tricky to drive down. After every winter and spring season, it needs a lot of attention because it loses its gravely surface. This spring there were floods here on the East Coast; the nearby Delaware River was flooded as well as many houses. A lot of the driveway gravel has been washed out and Tony was replacing it and making it more level.

Tomorrow we're going to have a fun day before returning to Michigan. We 're going to an interesting place for hiking and we'll have a seafood dinner in a restaurant recommended by Tom and Kelly. The weather this week has been so beautiful and we're enjoying ourselves very much. It is good to change your routine and get away to a new spot.