Farewell to Summer Cookout

We had more than 100 people at the house yesterday on a PERFECT August day for our annual Farewell to Summer cookout!

I got lazy this year and stepped away from the grill. The choice proved popular...

The last holdouts sat around the fire until well past 11 pm. Great time!

Tons more pics in the August 2015 gallery.

My lunch date

Sylvie's current favorite restaurant is Mandarin, so of course that's where we ended up today on our day off together. Sylvie had all of her favorites: avocado sushi roll, miso soup, edamame, and roe (fish eggs)--which even came in carved cucumber cups!  Then we headed over to a frozen yogurt place for dessert. Yum!

Six Flags

The Liggetts joined us for what is becoming an annual tradition: a late-summer visit to Six Flags.

Non-race photos

A year ago I told Melissa that I'd signed up for an Ironman, and that I had chosen a GREAT place for a family vacation, despite that choice meaning we were doing one of the more challenging courses on the Ironman circuit. At the time she thought I was full of it with respect to the family vacation part. But as we pulled into our garage Tuesday night after the 7 hour drive home, she said, "that was an AMAZING trip!"

Here are some non-race photos to illustrate the point!

The coolest day of the trip, by far, was the first day. Cool as in temperature... The low seventies was about seasonal, and was what we'd been hoping for on race day.

Ropes courses defined the trip for the little ones. Syl is addicted.

When the rain got to be too much, the indoor pool was just the ticket.

The next day the temperature spiked and stayed up - just like Syl on the bungee jump!

She also tackled the climbing wall.

Having Grammy and Grampy there was extra-special. They are quite the lugers!!

They were pretty "impressed" by some of the bikes on sale.

The day after the race we broke up the trip home with a stop in Montreal.

All the trip photos are at this link.