Thursday morning we left on our last jaunt before the un-official end of summer. 9am, we were on our way to the wonderful state of New Jersey for Jennie's great-uncle Arthur's 90th birthday party. He's a dear friend of the family and we were all very excited for the trip. Arthur has recently moved into an assisted living home that has been a little hard on him (he refers to it as "his incarceration", to himself as "one of the inmates"). His mind is very sharp but he can't see, hear or walk very well and his family thought it would be best to have more supervision.
About 30 minutes prior to our 1st stop of the day, the kids decided they couldn't wait another second for some lunch, so Jennie maneuvered her very pregnant self through the van to get to our cooler for sandwich fixings. About the only item from our house that we forgot to pack was a knife, so she was forced to improvise with the handle of a plastic fork. The kids have gotten accustomed to having the crust off their sandwiches, even though I swore I would never do this, so it seemed fitting that I had to eat the crust off of 3 sandwiches (remember, no knife in the van). The positive side is that I wasn't hungry after my crust lunch.
We made one pit stop in Schuylerville, NY to drop off Cocoa and Ella at Jeremy, Stephanie and Emma's house, as they were dog sitting for the night. The kids were disappointed to not see Emma, but took it in stride as they played with her toys for 10 minutes before we hit the road again.
Back in the van, an few hours later, Baxter announced that he had to "pee badly". At this point in his potty training days, we don't really want to test his resiliency and thus, hopped off the thruway at the 1st chance. It wasn't a great spot and we needed to pay our toll ticket before finding a gas station. I hurried him, locked the door and sat him on the toilet. After 5 seconds, he said, "Hmmm, I guess I was just kidding." I went myself to make it worth the while.
Dinner was nice, saw most of the Neuhauser clan, including the Kentucky Neuhausers (I just love that name, it sounds like a country band from the 70's. And now, please join me in welcoming to the Grand Ol Opry Stage......the Kentucky Neuhausers!!!!!")

Arthur was not entirely surprised, although I'm sure he was pleased. His daughter broke the news of the gathering to him about a week prior to make sure it would be OK. As he told me later that night, "You surprise a 90 year old man with something like this, it might his last!"
Breakfast the next morning at a Perkins with a smaller gathering and then off to one of the highlights of the trip. A few days before the trip, I was thinking of ways to add value to a 800 mile journey to NJ and came up with a cupcake pit stop in NYC. There's a special place near the village called Magnolia's where they make delectable treats, and famously, cupcakes. These cupcakes, freshly made each day are topped with about 2 pounds of the richest frosting and should probably be considered a WMD with the artery busting butter and shortening that must be in each one. For those who don't know me that well, I'm practical and don't have much of a sweet tooth, so to trek into NYC on a Friday morning for cupcakes was a significant event. That and the fact that we had my parent's GPS unit and I wanted to test how easy it could make navigating the city on a weekday morning. Plus, it was an educational trip for the kids (look to the right, that's the statue of liberty. No time to stop, we've got cupcakes to buy!)
Drove into the Hudson Tunnel, double parked on Bleeker street so Jennie and Baxter could run in for the booty. Magnolia's limits each customer to 1 dozen( the absurdity, only a dozen?!), but Bax rightfully counted as 1 person and got his own dozen.

I ran in for my dozen after they came back, and then back out through the Lincoln Tunnel. Using a towel to keep the sugar sweats from interfering with my driving, we continued on to Star Lake!!

(Baxter waiting patiently for his frosting to be removed so he could eat the cake 'cause it's too sweet. Just like his dad!)
Actually, one more little interesting stop to pick up the dogs. We let them into the backyard to use the dog restroom one last time after arriving at my brother's house and loaded up their stuff. Only Cocoa came in from the backyard however and a search up and down the street commenced for Ella, who is.....shall we say challenged. She gets nervous, vomits almost daily and runs away from all males. After a few minutes, we located her down the street. I tried to get to her, but again, the maleaphobia kicked in and she took off like a 3-legged bat outta hell. Jennie, moving faster than recommended in her condition ran her down and grabbed her, only to recoil in horror. It seems that in the 2 minutes it took us to load the car, Ella vomited, took a rollin it and then embarrassed by her behavior, decided to follow the advice of the littlest hobo and run away. We hosed her down in the side yard after finding some dog shampoo in my my brother and sister-in-law's house. We couldn't find where they keep the dog towel stash though and not wanting to chance their good natured generosity by using good towels, toweled her off with 19 paper towels. Again, keep in mind that she is a special creature. Our next mission was driving as fast as possible so we could deliver her permanently to her mother who was in front of us about 20 miles.
Star Lake was as usual, awesome. Boating, swimming, hiking, camp fires with a neighbor musician providing free music at nights, etc. It was sad to leave knowing that our lake visits were finished for the year. Till next year, when we'll be a family of five and stretching the space limitations of the little cabin even more, bye beautiful little lake!