Happy fathers day friends.. It’s a been a pretty good day.. bittersweet as you mightt expect.. but my family is around and that feels good. We’ve layed pretty low today.. I am really, really  missing Sam..

 I did my posting early yesterday so let me pick up with what happened after Diane picked me up at the plane.   No wait.. I still have a few pictures form my trip for some reason.. I had a very short layover in London yesterday. I used my time to drop a SmStone in a very nice looking vending machine.

The flight back was uneventful.. I worked the whole way.. I watched Casablanca as I worked.. Ahh.. now there’s a movie.. “Play As Time Goes By for me Sam”… that line has new meaning to me now.

The flight to JFK went by quickly as did the flight back to BTV. Diane picked me up at the airport.. and I was feeling pretty good.. We decided to do a little Graduation party hopping on the way home. First stop was Tim R. .. It was great seeing Ron, Paula and family.. Tom and Beth were there as well.. nice bonus.

We then headed back to Richmond to see Aaron L. On the way back we passed this little guy in the middle of the road on 117. Diane circled back just  in time. I jumped out of the car and redirected him/her into the weeds again.

It was great seeing Aaron and family..at his graduation party.  Aaron’s dad Jake showed me a great picture he’d taken last week  of a bear he’d found sitting on his porch and drinking his humming bird feeder .. It looked like a tiny cub.. until I saw that the feeder was about 5 feet high.. Yikes !  I’ll try to get a copy of that picture

One more stop before home.. We went up to Tim and Jen’s to congratulate Marie.. I can’t believe that all of these kids are graduating !

It was after 6 by the time we got home.. First thing I notices was Satori’s new haircut.. Diane had gotten her trimmed because of the heat.. and they’d given her a Mohawk !  They;re goign to trim it off this week.. but she looks so cute.. She’s a completely different animal without her long coat !.

I was still feeling pretty awake and un-jet lagged so we decided to go crash our friend Deb’s wedding . She married ran who’s such a nice guy.. The wedding was in the afternoon before I got in.. but 6 hours later there was still a party going on over there..   Bed and Fran looked so happy together !

It was a great time.. we had some great talks with Deb’s son Nick and his cool girlfriend .. They are both such great kids. Nick and I had the best talk about Sam.. he really misses Sam..   I cant believe I didn’t get a picture of those two..

I did get a picture of Jeremy and his girlfriend.. they were the bartenders. Jeremy told us a great SamStone story about a Samssone he left near Panama city.. I’ll get a picure and post it..

We got home around 10.. Wow.. 3 graduations and a wedding .. and a 25 hour plane ride.. I was beat..   One last thing for the day.. Max opened a gift we’d received from Emma.. it was this awesome flower arrangement made out of fruit !..  She’s such a sweetie..

That was it for me yesterday.. I was asleep by 10:30 and slept all the way until 6AM this morning..  I woke up feeling great..   I took a quick run then got ready to  go with Gabe to his early Lacrosse game in Middlebury.. an hour away.   It was the second day of a tournament.. and the last game of the regular season..
The fields were SOAKED form last night’s rain.  Here’s beautiful ‘Lake Lacrosse’.

the water on the field came up over my ankles  in places..

.. and Otter Creek behind the field was out of its banks and running muddy brown.

The kids had a great time collecting earthworms that were driven up by the water.. but they let them go.. this was strictly ‘catch and release’

Gabe had another good day playing.. he cored  bunch of times.. It was brutally hot (in the high 80’s)..

We got the team together for a team photo during one of the breaks.. Gabe’s the tallest on the team.. And.. Diane reminds him that she was the tallest kid in her 6th grade.. so who knows…

We sat under the shade for the first game.. then spread out with Tim and Wendy and family on the hill for the second.

Gabe was so hot after the game, his face looked like a beet. .. This was the last game of the regular season.. Just the allstar game next week and the season is finshed. it’s been a good year for Gabe.. I love this game.

We got home from Gabe’s game about 3:30.. and we spent the rest of the afternoon puttering around the house. I was trying to figure out something to make, but my creative juices just weren’t flowing, so I did some odd fixit jobs around the house..

Lots of friends stopped by today during the late afternoon which was nice…  Andrew and Elsa  and Elsa’s boyfriend Paul came by to borrow the inner tubes to raft the Huntington.

Tyler, Tom, RJ, Julia and Liz came by with Selene and Carolyn.  Carolyn was back from college and Selene has been oversees for most of the last year.. she’s been in Thailand and Cambodia mostly.. She loved Cambodia.. 

Liz and RJ were here.. RJ’s gaged his ears up to an inch .. we’re going to put SamStones in them !

We had a nice family dinner around 7 …  Diane put 5 plates out without thinking.. We lit our Sam candle and sat down to eat. It was so nice having all of us around the table.

After Dinner, Max, Diane and I watched a movie in the barn after Gabe went to bed.. (The Dewey Cox Story.. good and strange)… It was only after the movie.. when everyone else was in bed that I walked outside and talked to Sam.. I cried for about 10 minutes..   and realized that was what I needed to do to make this fathers day complete..

It was a good day..   Happy fathers day to all you dad’s out there.. Happy fathers day Dad.. and Big Gabe.. We love you both.. Happy Fathers day Sam.. I’ll always be your dad…
-me