I had a wonderful Mother's Day with the boys and Bill! They made my day very special!
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| Ben, Collin and I standing out in front of our home by a flowering bush. |
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| Bill and I. |
After cooking me breakfast and cleaning it up for me, too, we took a meandering drive through the back roads to Ithaca. We had a gorgeous, 76 degree and sunny day with pretty puffy white clouds in the sky!
Ithaca is a scenic, hilly, small town with lots of rivers and water falls. It is home to Cornell University, and has an Arboretum with many unusual trees and ponds and bushes.
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| Water lilies on the pond in the Plantations. |
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| Cattails on the pond. |
We saw lots of geese and goslings - boatloads of them! There is no danger there will be a goose shortage anytime soon!
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| Ben, taking a minute of repose....or playing a game on his iTouch, I'm not sure which. |
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| Almost 15 year old Ben and 17 year old Collin - my joy! |
In the "Plantation" area of the University, where the Arboretum is, they had a tall hill that overlooked the town, with a big bell that you could gong - which of course all of us with "Y" Chromosomes couldn't help but gong very loudly!!!
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| The Bell makes a powerful noise when hit correctly. |
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| Pete and Re-Pete! Looking out over the valley. |
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| Collin taking a few minutes to take in the spectacular view |
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| Bill trying his hand at gonging the bell, which could be heard all through the Plantation area! |
We hiked trails along the river and looked at the falls. The mountains are all shale stone which was often used architecturally to construct stairs, bridges and paths. Photos don't do it justice - it was really beautiful!
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| From the overpass of the river. It was a very long way down. |
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| Ben, Collin and I at the base of a big tree on the pathway above the river. |
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| One of the smaller falls we saw. |
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| This is one of the many very old, very beautiful buildings of Cornell University. You can look right through the archway and see the hills beyond - it's a wonderful view. |
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| Walkway between buildings - reminded me of a monastery. |
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| One of the falls along the river. |
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| Ben skipping the shale stones - which make excellent skipping stones, as they are flat and thin - on the river. |
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| Here you can see the size of the falls relative to the guys. |
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| Collin standing close enough to the falls to feel the spray of water! He didn't get too wet! |
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| Even I was able to hike down to see the falls close up - this was no small feat! I was really glad I did! |
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| Ben, Collin and I enjoying dinner with Bill at Simeons. |
We ended this day at one of our favorite restaurants, Simeons,
http://www.simeonsithaca.com/ in Ithaca. We had good food, and it was the perfect ending to a really special Mother's Day!
I hope all of you Mom's out there enjoyed your day, as well! I hope you were pampered and coddled as I was! Blessings...until we meet again!
