It's dark at 6am.  The heat is on.  We've had a fire in the fireplace and pulled out the comforter and fleece jackets.  The wood stack is getting higher.  It all points to one thing.  The end of summer, just around the corner; the beginning of fall and then …….  SNOW!! Yikes!

But, it sure is beautiful out.  Sunny, crisp days, colors on the trees.  We're getting lulled into the inevitable arrival of SNOW!!

Oh well.  Can't push it back.  The garden produce has slowed to a trickle and with the possibility of a frost tonight, I'll run out and get the ripest tomatoes and place them on the windowsill for some sun ripening inside.  We've had a lot of tomatoes, and we've canned both chili sauce and whole tomatoes.

Last week, we headed back to DC to check in on folks one more time before our fall trip to Portugal and Spain.  Joe and Leonor are getting ready for their move to Brazil; Thomas got a haircut and new sneakers and he's going to a new school.  Same daycare, but in a new location.  We had the thrill of being woken up each morning with Thomas climbing in our bed and telling us stories.

Margaret and Andrew had a funny thing happen.  Actually, funny in the strange sense of the word.  A huge limb fell on their parked car outside their house.  No storm, no winds, just too old and too heavy.  Totaled the car, and fortunately no one was in the car at the time.  So they now own a new flashy red Subaru, thanks to insurance (only partially though.)

We had dinner with everyone a couple of times and checked in on friends and former work colleagues, per our usual Washington trip.

Annie let us know her plans for her east coast trip with Sankar.  They are heading to Boston, Maine, New York, Pittsfield, Rhode Island and Washington.  Don't ask how long they will be on the road, because you'll get tired.  Here's a hint: it will be less than a month.

We checked in with David who told us Paula was recovering from pneumonia and bronchitis.  He said he had worked a booth at the New York State fair making oval boxes for a few days.  I caught him reading on his newly re-painted porch with re-covered furniture.  The good life.

The end of summer meant our plans for camping and going to the beach were unfulfilled.  So we hurriedly and at the last minute reserved two nights at a campground four miles away.  Mary says it's the best kind of camping where you can come back home in the morning for a warm shower.  Then off to Rhode Island for a couple of nights with Marj and Lew, where we took in Charlestown Beach, followed by a longer stay at East Matunuck Beach.  Much still looks the same from when we frequented those spots in the summers twenty plus years ago.  We even passed the same ice cream stand.  Closed for the summer, sigh.

Out in Dundee, Andrew and Lur have been busy gardening and attending a few concerts.  Claire is back at school and has an Amazon wishlist for music materials that you should check out and help out!  Sad that teachers have to provide their own materials, but that's the world we live in.  (Just type in her name and the wish list appears.)

The new job front.  Both Billy and Johanna have new jobs; Johanna with a publishing company  and Billy with a cloud computing company.  Congratulations and wish you well. 

Finally, here's my latest discovery from Ancestry.com.  Pop's grandfather was named Hjalmer Holm, born in Norway in 1857.  By 1889, he's living in Brooklyn, married to a woman named Pauline Anderson and has a one-year old daughter named Florence: Pop's mother.  I'll have to do some more digging.  Stay tuned.

Photos below are unrelated, but I'm sure Thomas "reading" the Sunday paper will bring back memories in each household.

That's all from up here, love.