July began with a visit to my hometown of Erie, PA, to attend the burial of my Aunt Ellie Hutt. Paolo worked hard throughout the month until the very end when we flew back up to Portland to begin the camp pick up drive. We ended the month flying to Italy, being one of too many families dealing with the chaos of airline travel these days.
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| First night in Erie catching up with old friends from my hometown. |
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| I attended 5 (!) schools in Erie but only get pictures in front of two of them. Harding was one of my favorites which I attended 2nd-4th grades. |
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I did half of 7th and all of 8th here
before heading off to boarding school. |
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| After my cousins and I visited the former home of our Zurn grandparents we skipped rocks along Lake Erie. |
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| When in Erie....a favorite candy store from my childhood. |
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| My childhood home (yes, 5 schools but we never moved houses!). |
Below are photos from Maria's 3.5 weeks at camp...
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| Team Orange on 4th of July! |
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| Maria was thrilled that riding returned to camp this year (there was no riding last summer). |
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| Slip & Slide fun |
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| Back at the barn for some horse grooming. |
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| Beach day! |
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| Her cast was removed two weeks into camp and she spent the rest of camp in a brace. |
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A letter about sailing (gib = jib, capsis = capsized, quest = gust)
Meanwhile photos of our animals at their "camps"! |
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| Ragu got a lot of love at "home-camp"! |
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So did Salty!
And now photos from Gio's 4 weeks at Scatico.... |
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| He played a lot of sports. |
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| A LOT!! |
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His age group (rising 8th graders) did a poetry reading.
Shocked by that! |
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| The camp divides up into college teams for sports competitions. |
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| More sports. He also spent a lot of time swimming and fishing but I have no photos of those... |
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| Woodshop |
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| Cheering on the girls side teams in a basketball tournament. |
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| Cooking (he loved this activity!). |
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| A classic Gio letter. We were thrilled we actually got one! |
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| Just before Paolo and I flew up to Maine we drove to a rural part of Maryland to meet Gioia's sister Tosha. She was adopted by another World Bank family when they were living in Uganda. They brought her back to the USA last year. |
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We picked up Maria and there were a lot of tears.
She had another great summer! |
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| Three days later and we got Gio! |
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24 hour delay on our flight to Europe thanks to a Lufthansa strike. We finally made it to Italy 36 hours late.
Tune in next month for photos of our time in Italy, our return to Nairobi and the start of 4th and 8th grades!
xoxo. Clara |
