Vacation Ramblings and Treasures

We have Newton's laws of motion to explain gravity. So why hasn't anyone named the very real law that if you take a week's vacation, you know you're going to have a week of extra work to get ready for that holiday... and two weeks of catch up when you return!

Do you know what I'm talking about?

I have finally unburied from the mountain of laundry, remove the science projects left growing in the fridge, scrubbed the puppy presents left in the dining room (and hallway...) and recycled all of the junk mail that accumulated in our absence.

It took two solid weeks of weeding to get the yard looking less junglish and more yard like. The deer did a GREAT job of keeping the garden clear of any ripe fruit, but the weeds were starting to look like small trees. On top of this my husband returned to school to start a master's program and three kids all needed to finalize their school's registrations. (Since when did public school start costing $500 to attend?)

I'm really not complaining. Honest, I'm not. Gratefully, I have fond memories of our blissful holiday (although it now seems a distant memory). We put together a book of our favorite activities and I'll be sharing the pages in a few days. Today, I was clearing up some files on my computer and I came across some pictures that I snapped on our vacation. The photos prove what great sports my family is towards my obsession with history. As we drove through the small towns of upstate New York, I had a fleeting glimpse of a historic looking brick wall. We were already headed towards another site, but my hubby faithfully promised to return to the spot...if we could find it later. It took a bit of searching, but check out what we discovered:

There was a historic sign at the site. It said that this wall advertisement dated back to around 1896 and is one of the few treasures still standing. It had been hidden for nearly 100 years and discovered in 2007 when an overhanging add-on was demolished.

It was about 95 degrees outside with a heat humidity index that felt around 120 degrees. My poor desert rats were drowning in their sweat, but dutifully each family member posed in front of the wall so I could snap a few hundred shots.