The Fourth of July Party - 29 Years

We had a fantastic Fourth of July party this year, our 29th. This tradition started at the first holiday after we bought Tall Timbers in Ludlow, Vermont and has continued at our present home, The Wood (as in the Hundred Acre Wood) in Shrewsbury. We had most of the older generation with us; Russ and Marty Wolf, David and Leslie Silverstein, Dick Bond and Debra D'Arpa, Larry Barns, David Wood, and Susan and Doug Youmans. The next generation was well represented as well; all three Wolf girls, Jenny, Julie and Molly, Scott Silverstein, Teal and Luke Barns and on the Fourth itself, Leslie Smith and her husband Rob. A new and delightful participant was Jeff, Julie's new boyfriend. Suzanne Barns didn't come for the Fourth but had a visit with us the day before. Missing and very much missed were our children, Josh, Zoe, James and Sean, as well as Andrew and Jessie Bond, Brent Silverstein and Tom Youmans.

Our Fourth of July weekend is centered on friendship,
and of course, food. Larry and Dick made buckwheat
blueberry pancakes one morning.

We poured over old photo albums of much earlier Fourths,
before Molly here was even born

Jenny (left) was a baby at our first Fourth of July
 weekend, then came Julie (right). This is Jeff's first.

Molly, Scott and Luke (our youngest second generation)

Teal sang for us on two evenings - lucky us

Here she is with Jenny and Luke laughing at baby photos

Lingering over dinner - Dick, Debby, Larry, Jenny, David S.
and Leslie

Julie and Luke making coffee

Leslie cooking up a lot of chicken

Larry and Dick at the barbeque

Debbie and Jenny get the vegetables ready to grill

We didn't eat the whole time. There was some serious
hula hooping going on.

And we hiked on the AT/LT as well as back country roads.
Despite the fact we were at Spring Lake swimming every
day (sometimes more than once) and zooming around on
several lakes in Russ's boat, I don't have one picture of
either.

But it's true that a lot of these pictures are of us cooking
or eating. And for dessert (among other fabulous ones)
Teal's Decadent Chocolate Cake with Salty Toffee was a
stand out.

This was taken on Friday before some of our group had arrived. Here is David W., Dick, Scott S., Debbie, Leslie, David S.
Teal, Heather, Doug, Larry, Russ and Susan