YaYa had to work, and The Devious Snail elected to clean the kitchen rather than go to the beach.  The Banana’s soccer practice was cancelled, so she and I headed to the beach after we dropped of Mr. TOF at his soccer practice.  Dr. Peds was able to pick him…

Earlier this month we had to take our host daughter back to meet her teacher in Chicago to fly back to her home country with her group.  It’s always so incredibly hard to say goodbye.  It’s a post unto itself, and the transition back to family life without that extra…

This summer I’ve been loving the shimmery silky look of water on the shores of Lake Superior.  I love how it moves, heaves, and sways.  I love how it blends together and looks like bumpy, muted glass. I’ve been loving fresh herbs straight from my deck. I bought this fancy…

It has become something of an annual tradition that Auntie Dot braids all sorts of fancy hairdos on cabin weekend:  french braids that zig zag, wind around and look better than most people’s prom hair!  She offered to braid the Devious Snail’s hair, and he said, “Sure, but I want…

A Big cousin gifted the littlest cousin a ring pop, and while she wisely did not climb in the boat with all of those other big cousins, she thoroughly enjoyed her ring pop while watching the cacophony from the end of the d0ck with me.

Dr. Peds’ extended family were unable to meet at the family cabin where we usually spend a weekend together in the summer, so we needed to find a different cabin on a lake for our cabin weekend this year.  It all worked out, and we had a great place where the…

The bugs were vicious on this year’s family car camping trip until the last day when the wind switched off the lake and kept them a little at bay.  We spent a lot of time by the cold water of the lake, where there are not as many mosquitos, because…

Baseball has been over for Mr. TOF for a couple of weeks now, but I’m pretty behind around here!  Loosing their playoff game by one point after an extremely intense game that went into extra innings made for a tough day, but learning to deal with not winning is part…

There are, of course, additional pictures of this outing, but I am not able to share them.  I wish I could, because they involve two crazy girls hamming it up on a boulder with rock microphones! This was a short trip to the beach on Sunday night with just The…