The Quest for Water

The past week has given us the weather that the Middlebrook clan loves--hot and sunny. With the hot summer weather came our repeated quest and discovery of water.

On Wednesday, I met Sherry and the girls at Harris Hill park. While I had been here for annual ISC picnics, I had never been there to swim. We spent several hours at the nice pool, that was surprisingly not very crowded. Sherry and I played Scrabble, which has become our latest competitive addiction while Megan made friends and repeatedly went off the diving board, perfecting her back flip. Harris Hill is one of the few area pools that has a high dive and low dive, a huge plus for the girls. There were some rather large and pesky flies and a thunderstorm cut our swim short, but a pleasant midweek splash.

We've been watching our neighbors' house and watering for them. They happen to have a pool and a hot tub, which they said we could use while they were gone. It's been nice to jump in the pool for a cooloff and to finish our evenings soaking in the spa.

Yesterday, we took an adventure to Ithaca, to Treman State Park, a gem of a place we discovered last summer. It is a beautiful park, highlighted by a waterfall/swimming area, with a diving board right next to the enormous and breathtaking falls. The water was quite refreshing at 65 degrees and quite welcome in the 90+ degree heat. Each of the girls had a friend along, so 6 of us piled into the van for the day. I took the girls for a hike towards the upper falls while Sherry stayed back to keep an eye on our stuff (or so she said :)). The hike goes behind the swimming area and straight up--talk about serious altitude change in a very short time. After hiking for 1/2 hour or so, we came across a smaller set of falls that we had completely to ourselves. The girls plunged right in and splashed around in the falls and surrounding pools for a bit before we hiked back and then jumped right off the board into the cool water.

A daytrip wouldn't be complete without some ice cream, so we stopped at a new place south of Ithaca called Shelly's Barn for some tasty ice cream sundaes. Of course we capped off the day with one final soak in the neighbor's spa.

Today has been spent finishing up some school work and lazing around the house, although we're all starting to look forward to our next aqua adventure, which will be a 2 1/2 day getaway leaving next Sunday to Dewey Beach. While we normally do a week at the beach, my internship ate up most of my vacation, but we're still beyond excited to hit the surf!