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| Luke, Anna & Andrew |
After a busy few weeks, vacation time finally arrived! This year's trip was to the beach in Rhode Island. The added adventure this year was vacationing up there at the same time as Aunt Lucy and Terri along with Luke and Andrew. Aunt Loren arrived for a few days at the end of the week, making it a Fagella (or 50% of the Fagellas) family vacation.
The run-up getting to the beach definitely warranted a vacation. Anna completed two weeks of music and arts camp at Harmonia. This year, Anna had a part in
The Sound of Music (she was the 2nd half Marta). For those of you familiar with the musical, you may recall that it is rather long, which leads one to wonder how you could master it in a two week camp. The teachers addressed this problem by cutting out most of the dialogue and limiting it to the music. In addition to the musical, Anna enjoyed lots of different art projects as well as learning to play African drums. There was a new music teacher this year who specializes in African drumming and dance. He had the kids do a great show with the drums and dance. Of course they had their costumes on for the musical, so picture nuns and children dressed in traditional Austrian clothing playing African drums and dancing. It was quite entertaining!
Joe spent the week prior to vacation in Chicago for work. Theresa spent the week juggling work to pick up Anna from camp. In the end, everyone was ready for a much needed vacation.
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| Anna kayaking |
The family loaded up the car for a 6:30 AM departure on Saturday morning to head for Rhode Island. It ended up being a 7 AM departure after adding the bikes. After adding all of the beach gear, there was still a little bit of space for Anna to ride in the backseat. The car was loaded down and beach bound. After a couple of stops, some major traffic delays, and the requisite grocery store stop to stock up, we arrived at 5 PM to our 1970s beach house, complete with orange shag carpet in the bedroom (Anna thought this was pretty cool). There was also some interesting paintings that were not going to appear in a gallery anytime soon (most subjects were overweight women in bikinis). Anna described some of the paintings as "inappropriate." The house definitely had character!
Aunt Lucy and Terri were staying about 2 miles away and rode their bikes over to greet us. They were ready for the ultimate adventure vacation packing kayaks and boogie boards in addition to bikes. They were kind enough to let us use the kayaks and gave Anna some lessons after determining Anna was big enough to kayak by herself. This determination was made after Aunt Lucy offered to tow Anna around on her boogie board while she kayaked (great workout for Aunt Lucy).
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| Joe, Lucy, & Joe's big catch |
They started off their days with either 20 mile bike rides or hours of kayaking. The Virginia Fagellas opted for maybe a 2 mile bike ride followed by some casual fishing and an afternoon at the beach. One morning was spent at one of the many wildlife refuges, where we enjoyed looking for frogs and beautiful views of the ocean. We met up with Aunt Lucy and Terri after their adventures throughout the week for either afternoons on the beach or some family dinners. Theresa joined Terri for a kayaking adventure one morning to go crabbing. There was a clear vision for the trip; however it was hampered a bit by 15 mph winds. which made it challenging to stay in one place for crabbing. Let's just say it was a better workout rather than a fruitful fishing trip. Joe also got some fishing in throughout the week - complete with a large family audience to watch him at work. For reasons that remain a mystery, the fish do not seem to be on his schedule for fishing. Apparently September is the big fishing month in Rhode Island.
Anna had a great week with family - especially with the arrival of Luke and Andrew on Wednesday. She had fun boogie boarding with them, building sand castles, crabbing, and going clamming for the first time. Luke and Andrew got some fishing lessons from Uncle Joe. Aunt Loren arrived on Thursday and was able to join in the fun for a couple of nights. There was lots of interesting dinner conversations. We learned quite a bit about Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and the need for animals to eat their natural food. Joe suggested that perhaps Italian-Americans should only eat pasta and beans since that was their natural food keeping with the theory. While Aunt Lucy patronized the local markets, we shopped at Wal-Mart (we are certain that we got a better deal- probably because our food contained GMOs). Luke sported a Bernie Sanders bumper sticker on his car, while Theresa was promoting John Kasich. The family did agree on one thing: Donald Trump is crazy.
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| Joe, Terri, & Anna sculpting a sand lobster |
There was lots of discussion about which family member was responsible for securing a beach house for the family to use and it was decided that the eldest sister (aka Aunt Loren) had this responsibility. Aunt Loren was not as excited about this prospect and suggested perhaps a rental was the way to go. This discussion is to be continued.
The big winner during the week was Anna who loved spending time with the family. Aunt Lucy and Terri were kind enough to watch her one night so Joe and Theresa could go out on the town for a seafood dinner. The weather was beautiful. The area was lovely. We even got to stop for a quick visit with Uncle John, Aunt Yvonne, and Deborah on the way home. It was a great vacation! We look forward to returning to the area again one day.
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| Theresa & Anna at Truston Pond |
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