Kids at home

A couple of funny shots from home. The first is of Ellie eating an animal cracker, which Cooper just happens to love. You can tell he was just hoping to steal some from her.

The other day Micah came running out from his bedroom saying, "Mom, come quick. Get the camera and come quick." I thought, "Oh, boy, what is this child up to now?" It turns out that this is what I found and he thought we just had to have a picture of it. Like the Little People may never stand all together on the stool again. I captured the moment to humor him and he was happy about it!

Maiden Voyage

Our first trip out in the new pop-up was Father's Day weekend. It was such a fun time! Everyone did better than expected (kids and dog included!). We camped at Bent Trout Lake Campground near Barnum, MN. It is a private campground on a small but beautiful lake. We were joined by AJ's aunts, uncles, cousins (& boyfriends), grandma, and mom. There was a good storm that came through on Friday night, but Saturday was picture perfect. We were able to spend some time on the beach and in the water swimming and canoing. Sunday morning threatened rain, so we quickly took the trailer down, which is why our family picture is with it down. It ended up not raining, but we didn't want to take that risk. If we take down the pop-up in the rain, we would have to set it up at home to let it dry out to avoid yucky mold growing where we do not want it. It was such a great time and we cannot wait to make another trip out again soon.

Summer is here....

Yesterday we headed to Spooner, WI to visit my sister and brother-in-law and their kids. We had a great time at their church and then having lunch at their house. They happen to have a lot of dirt in their backyard, which the kids LOVED to play in! His is a pic of Micah and his cousin Caleb hiding beneath layers of dirt!

My Golf Trip (Adventure)

There is an annual tradition that a couple of college buddies and I have. We try and find a couple nice golf courses and take a couple of days and go golfing. This year we went to Giants Ridge Golf and Ski Resort. We stayed at the Villas at Giants Ridge which were very nice.

The first day, Sunday, we golfed the Legend. It was OK. It was scenic but the greens were in pretty bad shape. Here is a picture of hole #3 it is a par 5 476 yard hole from the blues.


But the fun did not happen until... between hole 12 and 13. You know what it is like when you get 4 college friends together. We were having fun trying to pass each other in the golf carts when Aaron almost pushed Brent and I into a tree... at that point it was on. We were back and forth while driving and then came the big hill... with a very sharp corner the bottom of it and a very steep hill or wooded embankment of impending doom. Can you see where this is going? Unfortunately Aaron could not, he was busy looking back at us making sure we were not going to pass him or try something. Then he turned around and look forward (a novel idea when driving a cart towards the wooded embankment of impending doom) once he turned around it was too late. He tried to make the corner and hit a good sized rock, which put the cart up on two wheels. Amazingly he gained control long enough to get it back on all fours just in time to hit some loose rock and put him back up on two wheels and into the embankment (it was about 35-40 degrees steep). We saw Aaron bail and thought the cart landed right on top of him but thankfully it had hit a rock and skipped over him. Scott, the passenger (who, according to Aaron may have deserved this, was also in the cart. Scott had rolled a vehicle in our college days with Aaron in the car so Aaron just called this even) Both people were safe. They hit a 8-10ft dead tree stump which shattered when they hit it and they also killed about 30-40 little saplings. Here is a picture of where the cart landed (we did not take a picture of the cart down there because we wanted to get it out of there as fast as possible so we would not get in trouble). Amazingly we got it out. It was about 25 feet into the woods on a steep hill. The cart had landed on it's side and we righted it up and actually got it out. There was only one scratch on the entire cart and it ran... until the next hole then it promptly died and started to rain. HARD



One last picture of the Legend. This is their signature hole, #17



On Monday we played the Quarry twice. We are all glad we chose to play that course twice... It was one of the nicest courses any of us had ever played. The first time through we played for individual score. Ouch is all I am going to say. When you start with a 9 on a par 5 you know it is going to be rough. Then the second time through we played two man best ball. Brent and I won last year by seven strokes. This year Brent and I only hit 5-6 fairways. We were horrible but kept it close and only lost by 3 or 4 strokes... Aaron feel free to correct me, but be accurate. When we played best ball we played from the tips (for those not familiar with golf that is the farthest tee box back) the course played 7,201 yards that way. All in all it was fun. Here are a couple of pictures of the Quarry.