While many people are grudgingly being pulled into fall (probably due to the lack of more than two days over 90 all summer), I'm happy to run-full-speed-with-my-arms-wide-open into it. It's my hands-down, absolute favorite season of the year.
Olivia thoroughly enjoying her Elmo cupcake. 
Cassie throwing back shots of milk to wash down the Elmo cupcake. Please note that poor Elmo's eye lies precariously alone on the table. Who knows what fate awaits the abandoned marshmallow eyeball. 
As a well-stocked bar is always a staple of any party at the Bomba household, Livie took it on herself to begin playing bartender. Or at least she decided the quality of the ice would be vastly improved if she handled every piece of it. 
Livie awaiting her next victim - I mean customer - to which to serve ice. Note the supporting cast of Uncle Mike. 
Unlike a number of my friends and colleagues, I've been thoroughly enjoying the cooler summer we've been enjoying here in Northeast Ohio. I'm not a huge fan of anything above 82 F. But my best summer ever was spent in the Southwest...in breathtakingly beautiful northern New Mexico. I try to justify the heat difference by saying at least it was a dry heat :)
the Rocky Mountains), where I spent the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. My parents were trusting enough (or maybe they just wanted to get rid of me for the summer) to put me on a train in Youngstown bound for New Mexico to serve on the kitchen staff at Philmont for three whole months.
My days off were incredibly precious to me though. We spent time in Taos gallery hopping and haning out at the hot springs. But most enjoyable were the days we spent in the backcountry. Many a nights were spent on the front porch of the staff cabin on Urraca Mesa...others spent sleeping out under the stars in an unnamed mountain meadow under the very clear and vast New Mexico sky which seemed to reach for miles and miles. It wasn't hard to imagine all of the Indian lore and legends to be true.
The view from the staff tent - which I shared with Karen - was this - the Tooth of Time. Who wouldn't love waking up this every morning...ok except maybe for the mornings I was on breakfast duty and had to be at the Dining Hall by 5 or some other ridiculous time. Well, I guess we did have to get all of the hikers in and fed and ready to head out on the trail.
Here's Cassandra Elizabeth - most often called "Cass" - wandering around in my Crop flip flops.
And posing and smiling perfectly for the camera is Olivia Josephine - better known as "Livie."
And I couldn't resist including this photo of "Diva Cassie." She's working on her runway look.
So since 10 or 20 songs didn’t seem like enough to shine the light on my inner music aficionado, I thought I’d try 30.
I don’t have enough brain power available to me at the end of this taxing day to even begin to psychoanalyze, investigate or scrutinize what this random sampling from my iPod means. Maybe it’s just a small snapshot of my schizophrenic music tastes…or maybe a more politically correct term is “eclectic.”
