An Evening by the Lake

The sun was low in the sky

 

Kids looked for the perfect rock to throw

 

And climbed the big rocks

Settling into a comfortable hole

 A pair of loons swam by

Raina explored further up the beach

Ollie hitched a ride on Barry's shoulders

Family Photography Challenge

Last year I participated in a photography challenge with Laura at A Step in the Journey.  This summer, I'm challenging Jackson and Raina to take pictures with me.  This week we took self-portraits and pictures of what we were wearing.  We all had a hard time with not cutting off the top or bottom of our heads, but ended up with some nice photos.

 Shows Raina's style: pink and purple/butterflies/sparkly

 

I told Jackson next time he should smile

  

He was wearing his Captain America shirt

I was wearing a blue striped dress--cool and comfortable for summer

Radishes

My garden has had a rough start.  I planted it on Memorial Day, and right after that the weather was in the low 30's at night and we had quite a bit of rain.  After everything sprouted, something started eating the leaves.  It may have been tent caterpillars or some other type of worm/caterpillar, I'm not 100% sure, but my plants were in sorry shape.  They continued to grow, and then we had the great rain deluge that brought Duluth 10 inches of rain.  My pea plants were plastered to the ground, right when they were almost tall enough to grab the fence and start climbing.  A few days later, I saw deer tracks in the garden (only a few feet from the house--pretty daring!) and half my pea plants eaten down.  Sigh.

Will the peas recover?

Despite all the trouble, I was able to harvest all the radishes.  Barry likes them the most, but Raina will eat them, and I like a thinly sliced radish on my salad.  The rest of the plants finally seem to be recovering.  I'm finding less pests, the deer hasn't returned, and the warm weather is good for the plants.
 

 

Eaten up radish leaves

No harm to the radishes

Summer Fun: Toppling Towers

I'm always looking for ideas of things to do during the summer so the kids don't get bored.  This week we tried Toppling Towers, an idea I found in Family Fun magazine.

After we gathered empty cardboard boxes and assorted recyclables, each kid built their tower.  It was interesting to see the different strategies each kid used in building his/her tower.

Next, each kid had a ball to throw at the other towers to knock them down.  Ollie was intent on knocking down Jackson's tower.

After throwing their balls, they had to leave the towers undefended to retrieve a ball to throw.

Jackson tried to keep Ollie away.

Standoff between Jackson and Raina.  These two lasted the longest, as Ollie lost interest quickly and Remy was frustrated with his bad aim/inability to hit towers.

Raging Rivers

The sun is shining today, but earlier this week we had rain upon rain upon rain for days in a row.  Although flooding in the Duluth area has caused millions of dollars in damage, up here the damage was minor.
Barry and I took a drive around to check out the rivers in the area.

Beaver River
The Beaver River is a few miles south of us.  It empties into Lake Superior.  In the summer it's usually a small stream with a slow flow.

 

Gooseberry Falls
I've been to Gooseberry Falls many times since we moved up here.  Even during spring run-off, I've never seen it running so fast.

 The water flow was stripping the bark off trees.

 Splash!

Baptism River
The Baptism River is north of us and runs through Tettegouche State Park, also emptying into Lake Superior. 

A small little waterfall by a foot bridge

Lake Superior looks brown from all the run-off.
 

 

   

 

I hope this camper stayed dry through all the rain!

 

Always lots of interesting things wash up on the shore of Lake Superior.  I like the pattern of these pieces of bark.

At the Pool with Remy

We go to swimming lessons on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.  While Raina finishes her lesson and Ollie and I are in the pool for Aqua Tots, Remy sits on the sidelines and plays games on my phone.  Apparently, he also takes pictures.