new year's eve

we had our traditional celebration with nana and nonno.

jack watched the ball come down with us, but he didn't get to partake of the shrimp and herring hors d'oeuvres.

at midnight we banged the pot lids outside the door . . happy new year!

saturday: sixth day

yesterday at sag harbor we had also picked up little women paper dolls from the variety store. chanda spent the morning cutting them out while morgana read david copperfield.

the color outside was clear and saturated.

we decided to drive to south lake, since we hadn't been for a visit yet this trip.

it was quiet and peaceful.

a visit to sag harbor

we drove to sag harbor today. we parked the car on main street and walked to the beach . . 

we walked and walked and walked . .

we walked for a seemingly long time along bay street to the public beach . . it was much farther than i remembered!
 but we finally found it after saying, we'll just go around ONE more bend . . ! and we ate the nice lunch we brought on the beach while watching the seagulls strut about. they wanted our food, but we didn't give them any . .

i love swinging out over the water . .

sag harbor also has a wonderful health food store: provisions natural foods. we stopped to get coffee and hot chocolate . . i actually wanted a decaf since i had had my caffeine quota for the day, but they were out of decaf. morgana and chanda each got a chai and then i went to a different coffee shop (java nation) for my decaf. but in the health food store i did find two giant sized red beeswax candles for janet for her birthday!

the shops along main street make sag harbor so special.

we stopped at bookhampton, one of our favorite bookstores, and picked up a book for gabriel for his birthday: the phoenix and the carpet, by e. nesbit. we also found the sag harbor library . . it was being renovated! at bookhampton the proprietor directed us to it's temporary headquarters . . just west around the corner on bay street. we were incredibly excited to find ourselves in a library we had never been to before! in the past, we hadn't been able to borrow from sag harbor because it's in the southampton township. montauk is in the easthampton township. but everything has been rearranged and one can now borrow from any library in suffolk county. yay.

christmas decorations and dinner with nana and nonno

i wonder where this little guy is from? i wonder if my mom and dad remember . .

and where did my mom get these . .

next year, i'm going to have to remember to ask her where she found all these lovely decorations. she'll shake her head and say . . oh! who gave me this!

i LOVE this picture of the girls with santa (it sits on nana's coffee table at christmastime). it was taken on bleecker and west 11th streets at the marc jacobs store. for a few years each christmas he had a santa sitting in the window for children to visit. the second year i decided to have the girls go in . . just on a whim as we were passing by one day . . probably on our way home from third street. well . . santa was . . santa! he sang along with them in italian to their elephant song, and even spoke to them in greek and latin (korrina had been sharing with him the subjects she was studying). he was charming and had a special aura about him. i love that korrina is wearing the sweater she knitted. she had spent a long time working on it. i love the colors she chose. morgana is wearing the sweater i knitted for her from morehouse merino farms. (i had bought the kit impulsively while with the girls at a craft fair at lincoln center). and chanda . . well, she was always taking off her coat whenever possible!!! it was such a festive and peaceful visit. the memory is incredibly sweet.

yes, this is jack's special spot at nana and nonno's house!

what is nonno cooking up? breaded flounder fillets!

one of life's greatest pleasures . . reading while someone makes dinner!

nana is happy to have her feet up in the den while nonno cooks . .

almost done!

veramente delizioso! buon appetito!

a quiet evening

back at home kathy and jason got ready to leave. they took the ferry to connecticut as jason has friends to visit before heading up to burlington. kathy was getting back to see warren . . and a new kitty cat! her stray christmas cat arrived on the back deck on christmas day. a neighbor is keeping the cat in the foyer of her house until she can be checked out by a vet. kathy seems to be quite enamored with the little one already! she's not a kitten, and not quite an adult yet. i suppose she is a teen kitty.

the picture above is of the view from the deck with the wild ocean waves . . normally you can't see the waves from here, but they're so high today you can.

warm browns and whites with cooler blues. i love winter colors.

i think she's hungry and wanting dinner . .

never too much beach

today we took nana to ditch with us.

yes, her toes got very cold!

catching the sunset and hot chocolate at naturally good

i braided morgana's hair in the afternoon and we went out for a visit to the local health food store.

naturally good cafe has organic milk, tea and coffee, AND equal exchange hot chocolate mix.

what's this?! it looks like a charles atlas ad!

after the cafe treat, we walked . . i mean drove (though it was only a few blocks away, but this isn't the city . .) to hotel beach to see how the ocean waves were doing . .

they were still beautifully wild!

and the color from the setting sun was breathtaking . .

it's very exciting for me to take these pictures with my new camera!

red sky at night, sailor's delight . .

we stopped at the montauk public library before heading home to nana and nonno for dinner.

we checked out the movie, nanny mcphee. the girls would like to watch it with nana. morgana also checked out, the story of the magi, the glass angels, the twenty children of johann sebastian bach, hatshepsut - his majesty, and a picture book about charles dickens.