all the fishes love me, they all wanna jump on the end of my line, i love all the fishes but i cant get you off of my mind

this memorial day weekend was the first real weekend that billy and i were near the river. for four whole days we stayed at the cottage, just going with the flow. of course we frequented a few local establishments but for the most part could be found taking it easy near the shore of the st lawrence.
most of the weekend was dark and dreary. some of my pictures look like they are in black and white! behind the kayakers is the wolfe island wind farm. even though i had on my big lens, you can still see these with the naked eye from the dock. they are awful! don't get me wrong, i am all for green energy, but i have issues with these monster windmills being in the thousand islands. sit down and have a conversation with my parents about it and you will see why!!!
my one and only blue heron sighting. if we get more windmills, we probably will not see these awesome birds at all!

one of the things billy enjoys while we are here is simply dropping a line in the water from the dock. this is probably the biggest bass he has ever caught. although, we knew it is spawning season and this momma fish is most likely full of eggs, which helped with her enormous size, but billy gets a lot of flack from the neighbors as to how many fish he really catches on that dock, since no one else ever has any luck. keep in mind the dock is three flights of very steep old wooden stairs. billy was down there all by himself fighting with this bass for a better of 30 minutes, apparently screaming "net!! get me a net!!" as if he was right out of "the old man and the sea"!!! meanwhile, i was at the cottage lazily flipping the pages of a people magazine, hearing none of that. then all of a sudden he came barrelling up the hill, running like a 10 year old kid, carrying his cooler. we all thought he was going to have the big one right then and there. all of this just to prove that he really does catch fish on that dock! and of course he put that momma bass right back in the river where she can lay her eggs. we know how to respect the river!

tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today

this week, on the 6th of may, miss hannah keesler will turn 11! it is hard to believe. today we celebrated at britt and glen's with chicken riggies and birthday cake. hannah here with her surprise beach towel from mom. she had it unwrapped with a bow tied around it. mom said it was to save the planet. she is such a green grandma.

here is pop almost drooling to cut into the cake. hannah better not look away for too much longer

i think milly wanted cake too. if you look closely you can see the drool from her underbite.

jordan with miss milly. she was sticking her tongue out at me.

looking towards the future, we were begging for the past, well we knew we had the good things but they never seemed to last, oh please just last

this past friday trisha picked me up with dane and morgan and we headed to oneonta to visit carey, kristen and owen. we used our magellen gps to lead us there easily. i have nicknamed the woman's voice on the gps "madge", short for magellen. at some point in the trip madge was talking to us quite a bit, telling us to prepare for a left turn, blah blah blah. morgan was talking to trisha at the same time. so trisha replied - "morgan, honey, i am trying to listen to madge" morgan replied with "who the hell is madge???"

dane and owen showed us their dance moves to michael jackson's "thriller"













saturday we all packed in the family truckster and headed to cooperstown. we did the baseball hall of fame. half way through we wanted to go to the third floor but there was a huge line of people waiting to go there too. we knew we just wanted to walk around up there and did not want to wait to see whatever they were. but we were afraid to venture up there past everyone and make people mad. it turns out hank aaron was there and they were all waiting to see him.

later that day we went downtown oneonta for their annual OH fest. it is a festival on main street put on by the colleges. they closed down the road and had face painting, vendors, games and music.

into saturday evening we had some adult time. carey made my favorite drink that kristen's parent's introduced me to at his college grad party several years ago. they are called pain killers - rum, orange and pineapple juice and cream of coconut. they pick you up from wherever you are and place you on a sandy warm beach. these are going to be the drink of the summer!
sunday we headed to the park for a bit before we drove home. the kids had some run around time before we got in the car. cousins young and old........

update from a cold april day

it's a snowy day in april. yes, i said that correctly. life has been pretty normal here at the bristol household. we are just gearing up for summer to be here, and soon.



this past week i emailed some of my photos and poems of the river to a website called thousandislandslife.com. if you have never been there you should check it out. it is a website "magazine" of many different publications from many different river people. i am keeping my fingers crossed that some of my stuff shows up there someday. i also cannot wait to continue with my photography this summer. hopefully i can work on improving it.



and for those of you who get the thousand islands sun, look for a tribute to grandpa in the easter week edition. it will be a year on april 12th, which is hard to believe.

and my love goes out to aunt carolyn and family....

i will be joining mom for easter sunday, hopefully i will see some of you soon.