Kimball Lake

We spent last weekend at Sally and Dick's beautiful cabin on Kimball Lake, about 30 miles north of Brainerd. Since we're going to Alaska this summer, we didn't rent our usual tiny cabin at Beacon Shores, and we were really missing going to the lake. Fortunately, our friends are willing to share so we still got our summer "Up North" fix.

Here's the cabin from the dock. It's way bigger than it looks from this angle - you can barely see it through all the trees. Somehow, we missed going out on the boat - too busy visiting, relaxing, eating, and shopping! The weather was great- just the right temp and not too humid.

The guys went golfing on Saturday, and then spent the rest of the day hanging out on the deck with Charlie, Sally and Dick's Wheaton terrier. He was a constant source of entertainment, and one of the nicest dogs I've ever met. Needless to say, Chuck had a good time with his name - the one-liners were non-stop.

We spent a lot of time shopping, and a little time in the kitchen (with some help from the guys - Dick makes the best blueberry pancakes around!).

They just built a new patio with a fire pit down by the lake, so, of course, smores were on the menu.

Sunday always comes way too fast, and it's time to head home!

Thanks, guys, for a great weekend!

Random Summer Happenings

Wow! Where does the summer go? It's almost the end of July, so we're definitely on the downward slide. Since I carry my camera with me in my purse, I've been snapping random pictures all month. There's absolutely NO theme here, but here goes:

***Maddox Eating a Dilly Bar***

Maddox is my all-time favorite subject!

"Mmmmmm! This is good!"
"Do ya think I can catch that drip on my chin?."

"Fingers work almost as well as my tongue!"

***Como Park***We went to a movie one Sunday afternoon in Inver Grove Heights, and since it was a such a gorgeous day, we decided to head up to Como Park for a concert at the Pavilion. We had some time to kill first, so we went to the Japanese Gardens by the Conservatory.It was beautiful there, and a good thing, too. I had the time wrong for the concert, and we missed the whole thing. Oh well.....

***Book Club at the Lake***

I belong to a book club made up of teachers and friends, and we meet monthly to discuss a wide variety of books. For our July meeting we had an overnight at Linda's new home near Alexandria. After an afternoon of excitement on the pontoon boat (the motor died in the middle of the lake and we had to paddle - not an easy job with 9 women on a big boat!), we had dinner, discussed the book, enjoyed dessert, and then camped out on air mattresses scattered all over the house.

Linda served a great dinner. House remodeling is still in progress - the floor in the kitchen/living/dining room just went in the day before we arrived!

We had coffee on the deck in the morning - notice all the "bed-heads?"

***Loose Cannons***

On Saturday night, the Loose Cannons, our favorite "old fogey" band (except for Bekki), played at Mill St. They were awesome once again, and so much fun to listen to! Nothing beats the oldies!


***Minnesota Zoo***
Sunday was Thrivent Day at the Zoo, so we stopped there on our way home from the Guthrie to see the new exhibit, Russia's Grizzly Coast. It was amazing!

The animals were very active, and several bears were wandering around offering lots of photo ops. These bears are actually from Alaska, and since we're going there in August, we may just see some in the wild! I'm afraid there won't be a plastic shield up there, though.
This one seemed to have an itch on his back. The tree trunk came in very handy.
There was also an exhibit of wild boars. They were running all over the place, so it was hard to get a picture.
These are all the babies.

There are only about 30 of these leopards remaining in the wild in the world! Since it was pretty hot on Sunday, Chuck started "sveating," so we just had to leave and replenish our fluids at Ruby Tuesday's in Apple Valley.

***New Roof***

We had a lot of hail damage from one of the storms that ripped through the area this summer. They started work on our new roof at 6:45 Monday morning. They will also be replacing the skylights, adding some roof vents, fixing some window frames, and repairing some siding. The painters will probably start next week.

Yikes - don't fall! That's quite a slide...
and the landing is in the dumpster!
I left for the day on Monday. It's going to be a noisy week around here!

***Cousin Reunion***

I headed up to Ted and Pat's house on Monday to get together with Joyce, Sandy, and Pat for lunch. Matthew (Teddy and Angie's little guy) was there, too, since Pat babysits him on Mondays. We had a great lunch, with everyone bringing something. Sandy made our Grandma's recipe for Swedish rye bread, and she even brought us each an extra loaf to take home - yummy! Thanks, Sandy!

It was another really nice day, so we spent most of the time on the deck.

Matthew had fun in the pool, too. We thought about joining him, but we forgot our trunks at home (good thing)!

S0....July is almost over. We're going up to the Crosslake area this weekend to spend some time with some college friends, then it's home in time to celebrate my birthday, then it's off to Alaska!

4th of July

We missed the CF Parade and all the local festivities this year, and instead spent a working holiday in Two Harbors as we painted, cut grass, pruned shrubs, and did general upkeep at Chuck's mom's house. Jenna and Andy joined us for all of the "fun," and it really helped to have some extra hands!

I had the fun job of hosing down the front of the house and cleaning out 10 years of spider webs, then scraping and sanding before Andy and Chuck started painting.

I also had to buy some pruning shears - that shrub behind Chuck was huge before I gave it a haircut.

We also took down the shutters and gave them a fresh coat of paint.

We had to be quite creative with our saw-horses. The backs of those chairs were kind of curvy, so the shutters weren't too stable as we painted them. Oh well, it worked....

Late in the afternoon, after the work was mostly done, we took the boat and went off exploring some new fishing lakes. This was a little pond called Indian Lake. It was smooth as glass, but we didn't even get a nibble from a fish. However, the mosquitoes got quite a few nibbles off of us when we came in around 7:30. I, of course, made the mistake of leaving the car door open for a few minutes while we were loading up, so we were still being eaten alive as we drove back to Two Harbors. We went to the Two Harbors fireworks display at night, and it was awesome! I left my camera in the car, so no photos of that.

On Saturday, we checked out Seloh Lake. It was a little bigger, and at least a few fish were biting. No mosquitoes, either! Chuck got several small perch, Andy missed a big northern, and then Jenna gave up her book and cast out a line, too. I just kept reading the whole time.

Maybe these t-shirts were actually scaring the fish away -

"FISH tremble at the mention of my name."

The Tilley hats are cute, though, aren't they?

Jenna finally caught a bass. It doesn't look like much, but it sure put up a good fight! They started reeling in some sunnies after that, and the total catch for the day was around 11-12 fish, at least enough to clean and make a meal.

Jenna, Andy, and I headed home Saturday night, and Chuck stayed until Sunday to finish up some painting. Thanks, guys, for your help, and hopefully , more fish will be biting next time!

Tiny Tumblers

Question: What could be cuter than watching little kids explore gymnastic equipment?

Answer: Watching Maddox do the exploring!

Last week, I took Maddox to his "Tiny Tumblers" gymnastics class in Northfield while Heidi was busy doing more landscaping work. What a hoot! The class of about 10 pre-schoolers started out with stretching activities (I did great, Maddox watched), and then the little ones had about 1/2 hour to use all their large muscles in free play (Maddox did great, I watched).

Maddox's first stop was the in-floor trampoline. Walking on that bouncy surface was pretty challenging! We jumped together for a few minutes, then he tried it on his own.

Ooops - down he goes!

The landing was very soft, though, and he just got up and tried again. Even getting up was tricky.

He wasn't quite ready for that vault, but climbing on the big mats was fun!

Maddox loved jumping into the foam cubes (the landing area for the horse). Then he decided to dismantle a tower that some other child had made with the cubes. He spent about 5 minutes throwing cube after cube back into the pit - what a concentrated effort!

This pile of mats led to a slide. He negotiated the first few steps, but this one looked pretty big - "Help me, Grandma?"

After all that work, it was time for a little relaxing - watching the girls (hmmmm!).

It's so nice to have summer vacation so I can have the chance to do some of these fun activities with Maddox. Sure beats cleaning closets and painting bathrooms!

Summer Projects

Summer is the time for me to get at the many house projects that have been waiting for attention during the school year, and this summer is no exception. However, most of my projects have been on hold due to.....hail damage! My first job is usually the deck. We had just had some rotten boards replaced, completed sanding, and purchased stain when the storm hit, causing extensive damage to: the roof, skylights, siding, deck, back door, some window frames, the hot tub cover, and our new car! So, we've been waiting for the insurance adjuster to check everything out, and finally the checks have arrived. The car has already been fixed, and now we're in the process of getting some bids for everything else. Hopefully, the work will begin soon!

In the meantime, I started working on the main floor bathroom. The wallpaper peeled off very easily for a change (surprise!), so I finished the whole thing in a few days instead of a few weeks, like the upstairs bathroom last summer. I painted it a darker shade of silver sage from the kitchen and mud room color, and since the ceiling is about 20 feet tall in there, I only went up to regular ceiling height and taped off a stripe all the way around so the color change isn't quite so abrupt. There's no way I was climbing that high to paint to the top!

Since we haven't been able to work at our house, we've been spending some time helping Corey and Heidi with their landscaping projects. The dirt has been a pain all spring, and they're ready for a yard! The patio was all laid out and ready to be poured, but they needed some footings for the deck (to be added next summer). The company doing the patio told them if they got the holes dug, they would pour the cement for free while they did the patio. So....that meant renting an auger and going to work to dig five 4' deep holes. Not an easy project in dirt almost as hard as cement.
Corey took to the air trying to balance the crazy machine.

Almost done.

See the nicely filled holes for the footings? The patio is done, too, and it's time for the edging, plastic , and rock. Fortunately, the weather last Saturday for this stage was nice and cool, although we waited out one rain shower in the garage. We had quite a crew working all day! I'll have to admit, my job was mostly watching Maddox, although I did spend some time raking and digging trenches for the edging.

Here's Andy filling in dirt around the edging.

Rob brought along his "digger," as Maddox calls it, and that saved a lot of bad backs from shoveling and hauling rock with a wheel barrow.

Maddox got into the act, too, with his little toy tools. Mostly, he just got dirty! "Watch me dig!"

"Which one should I use now, Daddy?"

"Maybe I'll just supervise."

Ahhhhh, a bath and some sleep. That's what everyone felt like doing at the end of the day! The sprinkler system and sod are going in this week, so pictures of the finished product will come later.