More Pictures from the Wiley Week!

Well, I finally had the patience and time to upload Mom's memory card, and so I have suddenly been burdened with quite a few more pictures of our fantastic week in New Yorkus.

Week at Grandma's

As the tradition goes, it is customary for as much as the Wiley family to stay at Mom's/Grandma's/Great Grandma's house for a week after Pat's reunion party. This year's week was full of... beading. And occasional swimming. All right, so we did some other things, but the beading definitely took up a large portion of the ladies' time. (Pete and Dan didn't participate much). We found a new bead store in Rochester that everyone enjoyed, and also a lovely pastry shop nearby. We swam at Tootie's pool twice, involving in permanent goggle marks, chronic itchy chlorinated eyes, and lovely Speedo tans. This year's attendee list: Amy, Jan, (we're hoping for some more Californians next year, hint, hint), the female Landrys (no John), the Youngs minus Andrew, the Manning/Wiley family, and Katie. Mary Lynn, Grandma and Dan also happened to be there... they really had no choice, though... neither did Deb, Bob and Chris (Tim was doing something exciting but I forget what. It involved a farmer's tan). Several people had not finished Harry Potter, which resulted in much stress among the already-finished, along with a few very relieving conversations about the plot and characters and ending and such. The woman took their annual shopping trip to The Eleventh Hour and Craft Company no. 6. (I have a picture of it for the men this time, applause please). Also in Rochester we saw a McDonalds BUS... and we thought L.A. was strange...
The picture of the back of Pete and Linda's van indicates the white paint stuff they wrote on it with. Lots of fun messages, all over the windows. I can't remember all of them but I remember a few: "Cayuga fun in the sun", "Go Pat and Joe", something about "we love you grandma", and a couple others...
I know this last picture was taken at the Smith residence, but I decided that a majority of the Wiley family is related to the Smiths (everyone under Barb and Richard). So... this is their doormat. Thanks to Richard's thoughtfullness. (Gee Grandpa, I'm kind of in need of a doormat...)

Journey: Falcon Ridge to Wiley Reunion

Several of you have already heard this story... in fact, I think most of you. Anyhow, the dads at Falcon Ridge (John and Andrew) stayed for a last day of music and then went home to work, so Kerry and Ben took the Honda and Jen, Olivia, Sage, Georgia and I piled into our Nissan Pathfinder. It was mostly a peaceful ride until Mom picked up her cell phone. Or, rather, she used her new Bluetooth headset because it is illegal to use cell phones in New York while driving, you know. The person on the other line was Kerry, who not only was talking illegaly (she does not have a bluetooth headset), but whose car was smoking because she turned the AC on. The Honda is, I believe, either a year younger or a year older than me, but either way it is quite an old car. As it turns out, the car pretty much completely died and... that meant that we all got to ride in the Nissan. Ben's carseat in the middle of the backseat, Georgia's carseat on one side, Sage and Olivia sharing a seatbelt on the other. I squashed in with Kerry in the front. Not only did we have to (uncomfortably) fit all the people, but we had to fit a guitar and a few duffel bags into the backseat with the girls, as the back of the car was already packed to the top. It was quite the interesting ride.

Falcon Ridge!

This July, the Youngs celebrated their 9th annual Falcon Ridge Folk Festival attendance, the Landrys their 4th. While some familes from previous years did not join us, we had 3 more lovely friends. Betsy, Jenny's work friend, came and had tons of fun. Julia and Ken, the infamous couple from Jen's baby group (mother of Eli and Dana), also came to hear music and hang out with us. The music was great this year. A sampling of the artists: The Strangelings (possibly Jen's new favorite band), The Nields, Eddie From Ohio, Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams, The Glengarry Bhoys, Eilen Jewell, The Lovell Sisters, Red Molly, The Dust Poets, Tracy Grammer & Jim Henry, and Stephen Kellog and the Sixers. Also occuring during our 3-day stay (it would have been 4, but we left early for the Wiley Reunion, and that's another story altogether) was a MASSIVE ongoing thunderstorm with torrential rain and, as heard from onlookers, several things were struck by lightning (although no one knows exactly what). The picture below with Sage on top of her father's shoulders underneath the carport was when it really began pouring and we realized that we had not put the sides of the carport up. So, in the dark, thundering night, we hoisted Sage up to attach the sides, because the rest of us could not reach. We tried putting me on Andrew's shoulders but I couldn't stabilize myself because there was nothing to grab on to. After all, everyone who tried to support me was too short. During the day, we went on shopping excursions in the many vendors down the hill. The girls and Jenny all got henna (including me, see picture below) and several people made use of the abundance of fun, summery clothes and bought bags, bandanas, and wraparound skirts. I must say that I spent the majority of my money on CDs, although I did buy a t-shirt that I got signed by several bands.
Overall, this year's falcon ridge was a giant success. Anybody who wants to join us next year is more than welcome!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Chamber of Secrets

Andrew felt that food wasn't enough to make a Harry Potter party realistic... He recreated one of the greatest scenes in the history of Harry Potter using only tarps, a hill, water, and a lot of dish soap: The Chamber of Secrets. While nobody died, there was quite a lot of running and sliding in magical, colorful suits.

Food, Glorious Food

Jess and I put our heads together during Harry Potter weekend to further extend Jess's idea of hosting a Harry Potter feast. We came up with quite a few ideas (although we couldn't think of any use for marshmallows). Although I must say that the food looked pretty realistic, we couldn't afford real dragon snot and had to substitute with Grandma Wiley's punch. The spider was cheese, black olive slices, and peppers. The dragon teeth were triangular Triscut crackers. The basilisk eyes were deviled eggs with black olive pupils. The Aragog web was maple cotton candy (thanks to the Youngs). The herbology trays were plain old fruits and vegetables, and Grawp droppings was chocolate fruit dip. Mandrake Pus was ranch veggie dip, and the violet ink was sour cream. Pumpkin Paties were actually miniature pumpkin pies, and the stink sap was applesauce. Flesh-eating slug repellent was multi olored Gobstoppers, and Bertie Bott's every flavor beans were what their name indicates. Edible golden snitches were none other than yellow gobstoppers, and the wands were twisted cheese sticks from trader joe's. The Fortress du Fromage was a lot of cubed cheese and some toothpicks. And that was just the food...