Chappy

I have an aunt who is just the best at aunting (that's her over there, in the stunning hat, at my wedding reception.)  Everyone should have an aunt like this. 

Example: the time she bought her sisters and nieces crazy hats, including a turban (my sister) and a 20s-style cloche (me.)  She then took us all, wearing our hats, to high tea at the Four Seasons, for a Mad Hatter tea party.  We were quite the sensation. 

Example: she has, for decades, kept a bust of Elvis and a fake Christmas tree covered with purple feathers on display in her home, year-round. 

Example: she insists on "candlelit breakfast."  There is no one so elegant.

She has a teeny tiny cottage on Chappaquiddick, a bit of Martha's Vineyard that is sometimes an island or sometimes a peninsula, depending on the tides and how actively the sea has been reclaiming the beaches.  She took six or more of her nieces and nephews to the cottage for "cousins' weekend" every summer that I can remember.  And now she's invited our children to do the same.  So this year, Jon and I took the three little ones on one big boat, then one small boat, to the cottage, crammed them all in, and had a wonderful, perfect weekend.  With little to no sleep and little to no privacy, but, just look at this:

tired selfie attempt on ferry no. 1

 This is childhood to me.

Not pictured: the Flying Horses (epic), candlelit breakfast (of course), me driving around the island for hours with a baby who insisted on trying to wake the whole house at 5 a.m., then seeing a deer running full-speed across the sand dunes (sleep-deprivation-induced hallucination?  possible), fireworks at 10:00 pm (three hours later than the boys should have been awake), a farm stand with cucumber-basil popsicles, lots of snuggles with an incredible aunt.