The Vineyard

In addition to a degree in theatre (that I don't actually use in my real life), I also graduated from college with a wonderful group of guy friends. To be honest, I didn't expect our friendship to very long-they are boys after all. Right after graduation, they all moved to New York and I stayed in Boston. But, a couple of years later when I finally packed up and moved to Brooklyn, they were there waiting for me. I lived in an apartment with four of them for a summer and quickly realized that these were going to be lifelong friends. Since that time, most of us have left the city and many of them have gotten married, but we still manage to squeak out some time together. Usually it's in small groups of three or four with an occasional wedding thrown in, but last weekend a large (but not complete) group of us met up on Martha's Vineyard. I could only manage to squeeze 36 hours of Vineyard time into my schedule, but I was able to make the most of my time there.

Of course there were games. These boys love games. Games that involve frisbees, bocce balls, wiffle balls, bean bags, uno cards, chess pieces. Every game imaginable. I am not a game player, I prefer to watch and take pictures.

My friend Dan's wife orchestrated an amazing meal that included some of the most amazing appetizers. Martha Stewart and Ina Garten have some serious competition in Stacey. That coupled with some vodka infused with cucumber or blueberry cocktails, ahhhmazing.

These donuts. I can't stop thinking about these donuts. Some time after dinner a couple of the boys hopped on their bikes and headed into town. A few minutes later, they showed up with three bags of warm goodness. Goodness isn't even the right word, they were better than good. It took some serious self-restraint to keep myself from devouring all of them. There is a bakery in town that makes donuts and apple fritters at night and sells them right from the fryer and out of their back door. Isn't that awesome? Don't you wish they lived next door to you?

One of the boys bought Sky Lanterns. Have you ever seen these? They are so beautiful. You light them and they just float up into the night sky. It's almost magical. Plus, for some reason, I love the photo of the three of them working together to get it lit. I was sad to leave, it was a bit too short of a visit, but I do feel like a squeezed a lot into a little amount of time.