Celebrating a big birthday Montauk-style

Andy celebrated his 21st birthday Aug. 23 while on vacation on Long Island with his parents, his sister and his girlfriend, Shannon.

The group drove out to Montauk to visit the lighthouse, then went to the restaurant at Gosman's Dock and enjoyed dinner on the waterside deck in absolutely gorgeous late-summer weather.

A birthday toast with adult beverages

As the sun set, a small boat just offshore positioned itself perfectly for photos, with the sliver of the new moon in the sky above.

Moon catches sun, we catch glimpses

While the Northeastern U.S. was outside the path of the total eclipse of the sun that crossed America on Aug. 21, a partial eclipse was visible, and some of us were able to get a view.

Julie had obtained a pair of special viewing glasses from an astronomy-minded friend. So as she and Dan, Christine, Andy and Shannon visited Jamie and his mom and stepdad on Cape Cod, they were able to take turns viewing the celestial event.

The orange-tinted photos at the top of this post were taken by Dan by simply holding the glasses over the lens of his camera.

Meanwhile, down in Yonkers, a thin layer of clouds provided just enough filter for Brien to get these shots with his phone camera.

Did anyone else get eclipse photos? Please share them!

Courtney & Chad are engaged

We're catching up with news that broke a couple of weeks ago in Florida: Courtney and her long-time boyfriend Chad are now engaged to be married!

Chad proposed while the couple was on a boat heading to a restaurant to celebrate Chad's birthday. Chad had secretly arranged to turn the birthday party into an engagement party. Courtney's mother, Nanette, had flown down from New York to join the celebration along with Chad's family and Courtney's close friends.

We hear the plan is for the wedding to take place next year, in the fall. Congratulations, Chad and Courtney!

Stephanie selected to All-State Band (Updated with band camp photos & videos)

Stephanie just had an exciting week:

She began her senior year at Hilliard-Darby High School... played in the school marching band's first football-game performance of the season...

And was notified that she'd been selected to participate in the 2018 Ohio Music Education Association All State Band. This ensemble of student musicians from around the state will get together to rehearse and perform in February.

Congratulations to our favorite clarinetist!

Earlier in August, Steph and her bandmates spent several days at band camp learning this season's show.

Band mom Cathy reports: "The students spent a week away at a conference center learning the first half of their competition show. This year's show is called "The Bridge." They also practiced the stand tunes that they play during football games."

"We had great weather all week which helped tremendously. I went along as a chaperone which allowed me to take a few (1500 or so!) photos of the students throughout the week.

I've shared some photos of Stephanie as well as a couple of videos from one of the first times they ran through their show. They learned sections 1 & 2 at camp. Now they are working on section 3 (which includes a woodwind ensemble & a clarinet solo by someone we know!).

• Click here to see the photo album.
• Watch the videos: Part 1 (about 1 min) - Part 2 (2 1/2 min)

Visiting cousins & new friends on Cape, LI

Dan, Julie, Christine, Andy and Shannon took a vacation trip this month to Cape Cod, where Christine introduced her family to James' mother, Bonnie, and her husband, Jay, who recently moved full-time to what was their summer home, in Harwich Port. In the photo above, the group (L to R Jay, Bonnie, Andy, Shannon, Jamie, Christine, Dan, Julie) dine al fresco at Mistralino Ristorante during a day trip to Provincetown.

While on the Cape, Dan and Julie met Dan's cousin Owen at a club where Owen's son, Gerrit, and his band, 28, were playing for the Saturday night crowd. A couple of days later, Owen joined the group for a sunset visit to Chapin Beach on Cape Cod Bay. (Unfortunately, Gerrit, Angela and Nolan weren't able to come by, as Nolan had other plans for the evening.)

After a few fine days on the Cape, Dan, Julie, Christine, Andy and Shannon headed to Long Island, taking the New London-to-Orient Point ferry. (Meanwhile, Jamie prepared to return to R.I.T. for the fall semester.) On their way to Noyac, the group met Dan's cousin Nanette on Shelter Island. They spent the late afternoon grabbing a bite to eat and catching some salty air at a local beach where the wind was blowing swiftly across Noyac Bay.

Additional posts coming soon with more from Cape Cod and Long Island!

Dan meets that other Dan in the Hamptons

In early August, Dan made a one-day trip from New Jersey to Long Island to bring some things out to the Noyac cottage, then spent the day with Kathy. They went to the ocean beach in Bridgehampton, and late in the afternoon they noticed a bunch of kites in the air at Sagg Main Beach. So they drove over to investigate.

It turned out to be the Dan's Papers 45th Annual Kite Fly, and Dan Rattiner, the founder and president of those Hampton weeklies, was on hand. "We met and chatted for a bit," says our Dan, "telling him we'd been reading his papers since they first appeared in the early 1960s. Then Kathy insisted we pose for a Dan-meets-Dan photo."

Can you tell which white-bearded Dan is which?

Kathy also met and spoke with local artist Lucy Rubin, who had drawn the cover art for that week's issue and brought along her own kite, embellished with angel wings. Unfortunately, she said, it didn't fly well.

Dolores teaches portraiture; Hugh assists

Hugh sends along this photo​ of Dolores conducting a class at the Rehoboth Art League, instructing students on how to draw/paint portraits in Rehoboth. "Note that she has provided a live model," Hugh writes. "She says that the hat and the beard provide a challenge, and he works cheap."

Balloons and music at annual festival in NJ

As they've done most summers for years, Dan & Julie attended the Quick Chek Festival of Ballooning in central New Jersey in late July. Christine, Andy and Shannon came along, and for a second time, they were joined by Dan's friend and former co-worker Tom and his wife, Marcia.

Although it was a beautiful day, the wind was too brisk for the balloonists to take off. Some had trouble inflating their hot-air balloons, while others managed to get them filled but stayed on the ground.

As dusk fell the periodic bursts of flame keeping the air heated caused the balloons to glow in the dark, while the crowd listened to a concert by classic rockers Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo.

Angry bird looks angry.

Visiting Grandma & Pop at the beach

Cathy, Stephanie and Christopher spent a July weekend with Hugh and Dolores at their summer residence in Rehoboth Beach, Del. Cathy and Stephanie were on an East Coast college-visit tour (Stephanie is entering senior year of high school). Chris joined them for the visit to the beach and the grandparents.

Cathy writes that they packed a lot into the weekend, hitting all their favorite Rehoboth spots. "We shopped at the outlets, walked on the boardwalk, bought some taffy at Dolle's, browsed at Browseabout Books, had brunch at The Back Porch Cafe, swam in the ocean and ate some Thrasher's fries."

Click here for more photos

Kathy travels to Switzerland, stops in Iceland

Kathy recently traveled to Switzerland to attend the wedding of one of Robert's relatives. Afterward, Robert headed to Brussels for business while Kathy headed home -- and paid a brief visit to Iceland on the way. Here are some photos of sights she saw in the two countries.


"The boat is the Italie, built in 1908, which took us on dinner cruise from Port D'Ouchy on Lac Leman (Lake Geneva) in Lausanne to Montreux in Switzerland," Kathy writes. "This is one of a fleet of restored steam paddleboats that are operating on the lake."

"This sculpture is on the grounds of CERN, site of the Large Hadron Particle Collider, in Geneva. I was there to get inspiration and ideas for the 'Science and Art' senior elective that I teach, and to enjoy some SCIENCE!"

"Here is a particle accelerator that was taken off-line 30 years ago. Just this year, it was deemed no longer radioactive and made available for public viewing."

"An art installation, 'Cosmic Song,' by French sculptor Serge MORO, inspired by cosmic radiation."

"This exhibit of Audrey Hepburn fashions by Givenchy was in Morges, Switzerland, about 10 minutes from where she lived most of her life (although she was born in Brussels). The exhibit was great, and included lots of clothing from 'Breakfast At Tiffany's,' including this red ensemble."

On to Iceland: "This sculpture of a Viking ship is in Reykjavik. The photo was taken close to sunset -- at about 11:30 pm."

"The geyser Strokkur is part of the popular 'Golden Circle Tour,' which includes the amazing Gulfoss waterfall and the tectonic plate rift visible in Thingvellir National Park."

One last shot, taken on Kathy's flight home: An aerial view of glaciers in Greenland.

A beautiful summer weekend on Long Island

A couple of branches of the family got to spend a bit of the Independence Day weekend together in Noyac.

Genevieve, John and Bea; Vivien and CJ; and Patrick were all able to join Kathy at her summer house for the weekend.

Dan and Julie, Christine and Andy and his girlfriend, Shannon, also came out from New Jersey for a couple of days.

A family of swans joined the gathering for a while.

The group spent Monday night enjoying a pleasantly warm evening and some unofficial fireworks displays from the "back beach."

Everyone was back again for a short time the next morning before setting off in various directions.

Dan & Julie's group also squeezed in time at the ocean and bay beaches during their roughly 30 hours on the East End. Here are Christine, Andy and Shannon enacting a charge into the ocean surf. (They did not, in fact, take the plunge. The water was still pretty cold.)