Travel

Travels and Returns

We got home a few days ago from a lovely trip to visit my sister’s family in western New York and then into Ontario for camping. It was wonderful to see them! My niece and nephew are 8 and 4 and they are both delightful, inquisitive, and of course, adorable.

My sister Leslie and brother-in-law live in Phoenix during the year, but spend their summers in Chautauqua, NY working at the Institution there. They have a house in nearby Sherman, NY, and we enjoy visiting them and experiencing small town life as well as enjoying the events at the Institution.

The house
We are shared this cinnamon roll at Bemus Point Inn and Restaurant
We attended the Sherman Bicentennial Parade. There is a large population of Amish people there and a family was across the street from us, collecting candy from the floats.
The shriners had a float. Nearly everybody threw candy at the kids and it was a blast watching them pick it up.
Luca and Louie enjoyed working together to have ChatGPT make up stories
We saw the Orchestra play Peter and the Wolf one afternoon
We were very excited about it.
Luca really liked this fan.
He also enjoyed using my phone to take pictures and selfies.
We went to see one lecture by two men who had hiked the Grand Canyon, not from rim to rim, but through it, by the river. Peter McBride and Kevin Fedarko, and they both have written books. It was terrific!
Louie takes terrific pictures!
Pretending to be a pirate who has lost BOTH eyes.
We got to see Augustin Hadelich perform the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Festival Orchestra. He played Por una Cabeza as an encore.
And we got to meet him (again) after the concert at a private reception.
I participated in an impromptu Suzuki play-in and busking experience with my sister and niece, and other people from the orchestra and their kids.

We had a great time: food, concerts, family time, walks, hot tub time, lectures, parades, and more! It rained more than we might have liked, but that just meant more time playing games and making Chat GPT make up stories and AI make up pictures and lots of cuddle time. With the kids, that is. After that we drove up to Canada (just Louie and I) but I’ll save that for another post, so that I can get some other things done now.

I don’t start teaching until Monday so I’ve been taking care of things around the house and learning some new music I’ll be performing at the end of the month and in September (and October, never hurts to get ahead on learning music when you have the time!). I’ve also been getting everything ready for the fall semester and trying to get my fall schedule at Wash U organized. It’s always a pain getting started but it’s also fun and you never know what each semester will look like, which keeps life interesting.