18. car chalk. baby boys.

No more babies in our house. Mason turned 18 years old on August 8. While raising our children we sometimes think it will be easier if only.... 

 ....they could walk so we don't have to carry them, talk so they can express their needs, be potty trained, make their own snack, do homework without prompting, make decisions, make good choices, drive safely, get good grades, find the right college and graduate high school.... 

...and (deep breath) one day they are adults and we want simply for them to find their passion and be happy. Where did those years go? 

Oh yes, many of you know, I am the Mom that made scrapbooks (and these kids are current through 2012) capturing the big moments and the everyday and journaled in their books.You blink and two grown young men are your sons: Adam, 21 and Mason, 18. For parents with little ones, do not wish them older, bigger or to that next phase. It happens and happens a bit too fast. 

Now for a bit of humor. Walking through the mall parking garage with Vicki we saw a car painted up for a birthday. I mentioned I would think it a funny surprise to do to Mason. What parents would embarrass their kids that way?! Umm, us. A little creative help from google to get ideas, buy "car chalk" and we were ready.  Joe and I got up at 6am and instantly my work risk mitigation skill kicked in when I saw the looming rain clouds. We pulled the car into the garage since rain threatened and the parents "vandalized" the car with messages.  It poured rain like crazy all day. With the car safely tucked in the garage, the rains stopped just as he left for his party. His first statement was "how embarrassing" while wearing a beaming smile and the captains hat from his high school friend. He drove the car to his birthday dinner receiving many honking horns on the way. The baby, May May, towers over me now.  

Planning. Photography. Photoshop.

For over a year I have been planning to get what is called an "exec photo" taken for work. I delayed...always thinking I would lose weight, my hair style isn't exactly as it should be (or is it color? chocolate brown, red, blonde and back again), then it was my eyeglasses I pondered. What do women wear for these photos requiring a quick survey of other female executive photos. Seemingly they all wore dark suit jackets.  Some jewelry, some not.

I have been told by friends and mentors alike I think too much. I prefer to say I am a great planner. Yes, Lolli Logic at its best.

So a year passes and I have lost weight (a LOT of pounds but that story in a later blog--if you need a memory jogger of my pre-weight loss look, simply go back to old blog posts "Rain. Tamarack" or "Wine. Friends." where posts of me a year or so ago exist), new trendy glasses or contact lenses, great navy jacket, jewelry or no jewelry and decisions on lip gloss or lipstick?!..it was time. After painstakingly planning my haircut to occur the evening before, I made the photo appointment on a day of vacation and went for it. A couple quick photographer adjustments: camera, tilt of head, lower chin, lean forward, shoulders back and of course the hair. Done.

A year of planning and in less than five minutes it was over. Happy with the results and more than certain there were photoshop was adjustments by the photographer to create this final photo. I expect more places between work and home will find a use for this photo.  All the planning and I won't apologize for "over thinking" the photo process.  I am happy with the result.

Geranium. Butterfly bush. Roses.

For three years I have not blogged. Inspired by a coworker's new blog, I hope to post new thoughts to my blog Lolli Logic and share a tiny selection of the photos I routinely take. 

Geraniums

Each year we fill the two flower pots with geraniums. Geraniums are the only flowers that thrive in the heat, humidity and sometimes a little less watering than needed. I gave up the decision on colors and selection and Joe picked out these gorgeous red geraniums. Typically, I would get pink. Never again. The red color really pops on our steps.

Butterfly Bush

We bought this wonderful purple butterfly bush last year and it has grown into a huge, beautiful bush. I haven't seen a single butterfly yet but am continuing to look since it would provide limitless photo opportunities. Small problem that I did not estimate how large it would become. Currently threatens to take over our entrance gate to the back yard. Pomdering. New home for this beauty in the Fall near the front of the house. 

Root canal. Zumba. Ditch the workout. Sunshine

Some of you have asked why the blog which suddenly mysteriously ended mid-week.  On Thursday I woke up with severe tooth pain and after a quick call to the dentist, a look at the long weekend ahead, made the decision to travel back all day Thursday (10 hours) so I could get emergency work done the following day. Turns out I needed a root canal.   I snapped the following picture of the Endless Mountains in Pennsylvania on my way through (which seem more endless when you are driving 10 hours, in tooth pain and sad you've just left your vacation).  It's really a beautiful drive this time of year and in the Fall, even more so. I spent the weekend recovering (not so smoothly) from the procedure.  My dentist is gracious and did everything he could to help me out of pain.  Thank goodness.  

Zumba - Ditch the workout. Join the party.

I have been checking out various exercise classes and trying to find something I enjoy and am motivated to go back to. I've tried out spinning class (where you just about die on the bicycle the first time and your legs become rubber and you swear the ground is moving when you step off that bike) and a zumba class (where you're lucky to shuffle out the door).  I arrived home from the office at 7:20 p.m.  Ate a light dinner and 20 minutes later had kept thinking about that zumba class from last week and decided I needed to get there. A good sign I liked the first class since I'm rarely motivated at anywhere near 8 o'clock other than watch my soap opera and get ready for bed. Zumba is a fast-paced class set to latin music and any class with the theme "Ditch the workout. Join the party" sounds like I need to try it. The moves are fast, lots of arms, hip and leg movements and works the abs like I hadn't considered. Tonight's class included salsa, cha-cha-cha, and calypso moves in addition!  I could barely keep up but everyone in the class is laughing, having a good time and getting a workout!  Sort of like a party as the motto says.  So, here's the funny part.  Near the end of the class after you are worked out realy well, you do some moves and touch the floor (a real feat for someone like myself who is not at all physically fit).  The part that was even sadder is what I saw when I looked down at my feet during this move.  I took a picture below.  What's wrong with this picture?  The good news is at least I got a right and  left foot onto my feet and thank goodness I'm an Asics fan so all my sneakers are the same brand.

A few final snapshots from the Adirondacks as the sunshine came out in its glory on Friday. Another mountain peak was found by the guys except this time they took the McCauley ski lift to the top!  Helen had a relaxing time hanging out on the boat reading a book.

Sparkling Lake. Maple Syrup. Pancakes. Blue Mountain.

The lake in the morning looked like it was glittering today with the morning sun sparkling off the water.  Today was "real New York maple syrup" day.  Prepared homemade blueberry and chocolate chunk pancakes for everyone. Yumm.  The weather was rather cool today waking up to 40 degree weather and a high of around 67 degrees. Tomorrow promises to be a hot streak...we may get to 68 degrees.  At least the local newspaper, which predicts snowfall as part of their report even in June, has zero for the next 7 days.

The hearty breakfast prepared the boys for their mountain hike today up Blue Mountain. While thieir hike was underway, Helen and I spent a day just relaxing...reading books, digital scrapbooking, looking at the lake and chilling out. 

Blue Mountain peak is at 3,769 elevation and rises 1,559 feet from the parking lot to the top.  They made it up in 1 hour and 20 minutes.  The trail begins with a normal looking trail with some pretty rocks and there are little streams of water. 

Mason and Eduardo sitting on a giant slab of granite.  This is actually the trail to the peak at Blue Mountain.  It is definitely not a trail you would want to hike on a day with rain.  It is a difficult hike and the view is worth the effort.  At the top, again cell phone service aplenty and Mason called his Grammy and Eduardo called Mom.

The view from the top

Bald Mountain. Lasagna. Blue Skies. Blackberry.

Today we woke thinking it might rain through the day given the weather forecast.  Slowly as everyone woke up, we had scrambled egg breakfasts with the last of our bunch eating at 11:30 a.m. (nearly lunchtime!).  The weather began to clear, while remaining windy and crisp, it became a beautiful day.  Joe led a hike up Bald Mountain and photos are shown down further.  The photo on the left below is of  sunset on Fourth Lake.  It is at the tippy end of this dock that cell phone service can be found.  A zany blackberry mishap occurred with Joe's phone on Saturday.  Somehow the blackberry ended up submerged in the lake.  He promptly went in near the shore, searched around the bottom and pulled it out of the water.  Any BB user knows how much a person can "miss" their phone if they have become accustomed to this extra appendage at all times.  So, after 3 days of mourning thinking it was gone, he put it back together today carefully placing the battery in BB.  I've never seen such a happy face as this morning when the blackberry came back to life without harm and intact.  How weird. For those wondering for this BB addict, I only had a chance to look at mine yesterday while at Old Forge (10 miles away) as that's really the only place with AT&T service.  My internet access remains from the cabin and I remain nearly secluded from work emails. The usual trek for ice cream and a bit of service continues with the great excuse to also see the beautiful sunset.  

Fourth Lake on left with waves at sunset
Seventh lake on right in mid-afternoon with beautiful blue skies.

The other place for cellphone service is the top of a mountain. Today, several of our bunch hiked to the top of Bald Mountain. There's an old fire tower there and a great view of one of the 3,000 lakes found in the Adirondacks. Joe's sister and I stayed behind to do laundry, prepare a late lunch and just hand loose for a while. Helen makes the absolute best lasagna on the East Coast and brought it with her.  We had this ready with salad and bread for the hikers as they returned and it was really enjoyed.  As an interesting note, there's a seaplane service on seventh lake where we are staying. It's entertaining to watch them get ready, hear the engines, see them come into view in front of our cabin and take off from the water. Today with the wind less than 5 rides went up compared to at least a dozen earlier.  

Rain. Tamarack. Old Forge. Daikers.

It rained, downpoured throughout the entire night!  It seemed to never end and it was nearly 9 a.m. before it stopped. Seventh lake even with the rain and a little wind is smooth looking.  We decided today would be a great day to head out and eat breakfast at the Tamarack Cafe.  A combination of Lumber jack breakfasts, Junior Jack breakfasts and western omlets certainly started the day right. 

After breakfast, we did a little shopping in the town of Inlet checking out old favorites like "The Adirondack Reader" which has the best selection of regional books. The Verizon wireless army must be in the lake because we find that if you walk to the very, very end of the dock at fourth, you can cell phone connection.  This is where we have Eduardo go to make his calls to his family.  Today, Fourth lake looked more like the ocean with small waves crashing on shore. The wind was driving the water into small waves onto the beach.  Unlike seventh lake, which is a little more protected, where the wind had little effect.  So, we went out on the boat and this time Eduardo got to try out his skills at being the captain of the ship.  He did a great job!

A view from the water of the cabin we are in and surrounding buildings.  We are in the cabin on the left.   

Kayaking and canoeing by all!  After a busy day of swimming and boating on Sunday, we decided to checkout the other activities.  Yes, even though there's no picture of me, even I was in a kayak and went out with my niece Karen for a while.

During the late afternoon we drove to Old Forge about 10 miles. There we visited the famous Old Forge Hardware Store which is huge and carries every possible gadget, mechanism, souvenier known to man. They have it all. We also get "cell phone" connectivity at Old Forge. Next we headed to Daikers for dinner on the deck overlooking fourth lake. A gorgeous dinner.

The late evening is a beautiful time and the view from our cabin is gorgeous. Sunday evening was filled with blue colors as you can see with the two pine tress. A couple pictures of our campfire last evening where we bought some type of "mystical fire" chemicals to put in the fire and make it eerie colors of blue and turquoise. A few s'mores and we called it a night (and we're on our way to do that tonight too!).

ADK. Mountains. Seventh Lake. Donuts.

We arrived in the Adirondacks yesterday. It rained most of the time in NY driving. We brought our great niece, Lynsey, Joe's sister, Helen, Mason and his friend, Eduardo. The boys watched the US defeat in FIFA world cup soccer Luckily, they recovered in time to get soft ice cream at Northern Lights in Inlet, NY. Adirondacks (most known as ADK up here) is a six-million acre, three thousand lake area of great beauty. The custom computer graphic above was made by Jacob depicting our summer vacation.

Eduardo and Jacob in disbelief at World Cup outcome

On Sunday, the fun begins with breakfast tradition. Favorites maple glazed and chocolate with sprinkles. Mary's Bake Shop donuts!

Our niece, Karen, and great nephew, Jake, arrived today bringing our total to 8 people! We immediate set out on the pontoon boat to boat around Seventh Lake and for some swimming and frog hunting.

Jacob, Mason, Eduardo Great Niece, Lynsey

Joe, Great Nephew Jacob, Lolli

Jacob shows his froglet he found


Mason and Eduardo

Jackson

Karen, Lolli, Helen

Rain. Confirmation. Graduation. Book Bonfire.

Lots going on this month for the Buran household! Here are a few pictures to catch everyone up with what's been happening. It's been raining for nearly 40 days (or so it seems). Enjoy!

School Bonfire. An end of year school tradition that was started during a power outage last year, the boys were bored. We decided to start a fire in our fireplace and burn all remaining school paperwork, workbooks and clear out the backpacks. So, here we are in 2009 and now we've moved outside to a firepit and once again, the papers and books are cleared out and the school year celebrated as final. Mason's Confirmation and Graduation It's been a busy Spring with Mason's graduation and confirmation. Mason has certainly grown into an outgoing, popular young man and we bid goodbye to St. Martin's School where we have spent 12 years. High school, here we come! Adam Adam played Rugby on the Good Counsel team and this was the first year for the rugby club. We added a third car to the family and mostly Adam gets to drive the new Hyundai Elantra.

Wine. Dinner. Friends. Priceless.

We went out on the town this past weekend with our friends, Debbie and Andy. We wined (red and white), dined and had dessert at the beautiful South Mountain Inn. It was a celebration of friendship. When Joe was looking for work last year, Andy helped by taking his resume to management and Joe made it through the interview process and now works WITH Andy. We are so grateful for their support and friendship and glad we could finally take them out to show their appreciation.

Rugby and Basketball

Mason and Adam are very active in sports this winter season. Mason had a great basketball season with the St. Martin's Catholic Youth Crusaders. The games every weekend were nailbiters and the parents and other students from the school attended and cheered on the team regularly. Mason and his Coach

Adam started a new sport that is still a mystery to me...rugby. It is bitter cold (35 degrees today) and they are out there with their shorts for 1 1/2 hours in essentially football without gear.