She loves a midsummer evening, swimming in the cold, big water as the sun sets behind the shore.  Front crawl, backstroke, and that lovely butterfly, she slices through the silky water parallel to shore without boundaries or limits, no wall to touch to turn back around.

He’s not a fan of his front teeth, but I am!  I know that space won’t be there forever, and some day he’ll grow into the size of those top teeth.  There’s just something lovely about an almost nine year old and crazy orthodontics. This week he’s counting down his last…

Not pictured in this blog post:  The Banana and our host daughter built an enormous raft out of driftwood logs, and it sort of floated.  It was like a STEM project on steroids.  They had so much fun creating the raft, and squealed and giggled while trying to successfully float…

I’m loving wildflowers!  Lupine, buttercups, Queen Anne’s lace, daisies, those adorable orange flowers that I don’t know the name of.  It’s a good time to be a wildflower. Our host daughter from Eastern Europe is back to spend the summer with us through Project 143.  I’m so happy she’s back.…

Sibling love.

Camp Aunt Rachel for Cousin Katherine ended midway through the week right after our school dismissed.  Dr. Peds drove to the extended family cabin on the other side of Minnesota to take her back, and pick up Cousin Alex who came for his session of Camp Aunt Rachel.  Both visits…

We squeezed a lot into Camp Aunt Rachel, but of course we didn’t have time to do everything we wanted to do.  One evening I asked Cousin Katherine if she would rather go to the beach, go hiking, or make play dough.  It was a really tough decision, but she…

When you spot that last chocolate chip no one knew was there in the trail mix your cousin is holding . . .  

When Cousin Katherine was visiting, all the kidlets dressed up in costumes to visit the tower.  Dressing up to visit the tower was something my kidlets loved to do when they were little, and when I mentioned that it might be a fun activity for Camp Aunt Rachel, all four…