School ended!  The next day we drove to the cabin to retrieve Cousin Alex for a 5 day “Camp Aunt Rachel.”  It was a busy adventure, and I have some images I will share soon.  We drove back to the cabin for a few hours of lake fun with the other…

Cousin Alex spent the weekend and the first part of the week at our house for “Camp Aunt Rachel.”  Among various other fun things, we of course went to the beach on Sunday night.  Alex really wanted to go to the sandy beach, so even though we got a late…

We headed to the rocky beach after a cold, rainy weekend.  It was a peaceful night.  The kidlets were off and about climbing on rocks a distance away.  The wind was blowing the water away from shore, but it still swelled in and out of the big rocks.  I love…

Two years ago The Banana trained to run the 5K race at her school’s annual Cougar Chase, but then she broke her foot and couldn’t run.  Last year she was still having some foot issues and couldn’t run a long distance.  But this year was finally her year!  She loved…

On the cello I learned several etudes, and I am learning to be patient as I slowly put together some pieces that are a bit challenging for me section by section. At the piano I learned a piece by Debussy, an accompaniment for a student, and another for The Banana.…

We loaded up some neighbors and headed to the sandy beach on what I think was the hottest Memorial Day weekend since we’ve moved here.  It was crazy hot on the hill, but a good 35 degrees colder down at the beach, which meant we were actually shivering, partly because…

There’s a reason I send Mr. TOF to the shower every single day in the summer.  He’s a sweaty monster!  He plays so hard in the front yard, and on Saturday he was glad to have some siblings and a neighbor join in.  For a bit Mr. SP was in…

One teenage kidlet tells me that my blog is getting more boring by the day because there aren’t fun little people around the house anymore, and well, my life (while sometimes slightly more peaceful in the middle of the day) is just pretty boring.  Another teenage kidlet tells me that…