August 2016

It looks like I'm going to have to post the rest of 2016 one month at a time. I've been having fun going back through photos. It's amazing how much we forget. Sure wish I took more photos to help me remember more.

I don't have any excuses about taking photos, especially since my awesome hubby bought me this little beauty. I suppose if I want to get better, I need to get out and do it! I have read a lot about photography, and was blessed by a friend who offered to teach a photography course to my son and I for one of his home school electives, but a lot of the stuff just didn't seem to sink in well. I am currently registered for Ashley's SnapShop course and am learning a lot! I like her style of teaching and the fact that I can go back to each lesson over and over till I get it. Probably the best thing I'm learning is to just pick up my camera and practice! I highly recommend her course. It's not expensive, and you can often find a coupon code on her blog.

The next few photos were taken with my cell phone while out picking berries. It's kind of hard to maneuver through the brambles with a basket and a large camera. Unfortunately, these photos never seem to portray what I see when I'm out picking. I get so excited when I see a long branch like this just full of juicy berries. Yum!

I think the little guy in this photo thinks the same thing. I think maybe he's had a little too much berry juice. 😊

I am often so fixated on looking for berries that I miss some of the other beauty in our woods. thankfully, this time I didn't.

In August we also started a renovation in our master bedroom, but I will have to post more on that later as I realized I still haven't taken any after pictures now that it's all done.

I'm finding that this is not an unusual sight for us in August. We seem to have one or two trees that think they should turn colors before everyone else. I think they just want to stand out in the crowd.

The rest of these photos are from Pioneer School. One of the local museums has a one room school house, and each summer they host a couple weeks of Pioneer School so the kids can come and experience a little bit of what life was like for those who settled in our area many years ago. I was asked to help teach and boy was that fun! Hot, but fun!

I took a LOT of photos, but since I was doing it for the parents, most of the photos have the children's faces and I don't have permission to show them here, so I had to search through to find some to share with you. Here's just a small sampling of the fun we had.

Not sure if marbles were around in pioneer days, but the kids enjoyed these while waiting for the bell to ring.

We played lots of group games outside. Someone made and donated most of the outfits you see here.

They all made corn husk dolls.

This little guy got super creative with what we had on hand and made an ax for his Paul Bunyan doll.

We also made butter. Yum!

And all the kids brought their lunches in pails and did their best to bring food that would have been available to the pioneers. No chips or other processed foods.

They enjoyed using chalk and slate boards as well as ink and a calligraphy pen.

We ended the week with a trip to the museum where the kids had a scavenger hunt. Here they are pointing out the corn husk dolls like the ones they made.

Ok, I had to include this last picture. 100 year old candy!!!

Well, there's a brief recap of our August last year. I am now officially less than a year behind on the blog. 😊 I better hurry up though 'cause with all this practicing with my camera, I've got a lot more pictures to post! Hopefully I'll be back soon with September's post. 

Till next time...

God's love and blessings!!

July 2016-Part 2

I'm back again. I had to split July into 2 parts because we actually went on a little family vacation and I have a lot of photos. Don't worry, I only picked a few to share. :o)

I have been in love with the idea of having a camper for a while now. Love the idea of a little home-away-from-home that we can bring along with as we go on adventures together. I love the idea of traveling, but the expense of hotels and food has kind of kept us at home. Well, that and the fact that hubby has to be at work. 😜 I also love camping, but this body does not like the idea of sleeping on the ground. We also have family and friends all over America that we like to go visit. It would be nice to have our own little "hotel" with us.

Since we've never really been camping together, hubby thought maybe we should rent a pop-up for a week or so and see if we even like it. We planned a trip to see several waterfalls in the northern area of Wisconsin. Unfortunately, I didn't keep track of which waterfall was which, or even all the ones we went to. I do remember Amnicon Falls, Copper Falls, and Patteson Falls, but I couldn't tell you which picture is which. Sorry. We weren't able to see a couple of the falls we'd planned to see due to some roads being washed out the week before from torrential rain.

Here's our little home-away-from-home. We got a great deal on it from a local camper rental place. If you're in the area and looking to rent, check them out R and R Campers. (No, they're not paying me to say this. Just our opinions.) It was clean, well cared for, and they gave us great instructions and walk through to make sure we knew what we were doing.

These were the first falls we stopped at, but again, I can't remember the name. This was as close as we could get to the falls from the trails, and the mosquitoes were so bad, we weren't inclined to explore much further.

I do remember that there were 150+ steps down to the falls and 150+ back up!

We were just a bit tired after that!

All the falls in Wisconsin look like root beer! We did find out it's from the tannin of the Tamarack and other trees and not because it's dirty or full of copper. Apparently Copper Falls got its name because early settlers thought there was copper and came to mine the area.

I believe this was at Patteson Camp Ground. The water was really too cold to swim in and there weren't many other kids around, so she decided to play with whatever friends she could find. 😊

One afternoon we had a bit of a rain shower. Time for mom and dad to take a nap. Michelle did enjoy having one end of the camper all to herself and her stuffies.

She constantly wanted to be in the water. Again, the water was a bit cold, but she was out there anyway. I just enjoyed relaxing on the beach and imagining what it would be like to live in that house across the lake. 

We did escape the campgrounds once to head into Duluth for some shopping and our favorite Japanese restaurant. Yum!!!

I'm telling ya' we couldn't decide if it looked more like root beer or Willy Wonka's chocolate river.

Because we weren't able to go visit several of the falls we had hoped to, we decided to come back a day early and "camp" in our own yard. My husband's ingenuity amazes me sometimes. 😋

So, what did we decide? Did we like camping? YES!! In fact, we ended up buying a camper later in the year, but I will post more on that in an upcoming post.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

July 2016--Part 1

Hello there! Yes, I am back again. I was hoping to update with a couple months at a time, but I don't think that's going to work. Looks like July may need a post all by itself or possibly 2 posts. I forgot how much fun we had last year. :o)

For the last several years we've had friends over for a BBQ and fireworks on the fourth. It seems our fireworks display gets a little longer each year. Fun, food, friends and fireworks!

The "launching station"--far from the house and vehicles. :o)

July is when the raspberries and black caps start getting ready to pick. This year was a pretty good one. Actually, it was the best one I've had since we moved here. I ended up with 13 gallons of berries in the freezer by the end of the summer. These are black caps, lots of lots of black caps. I believe they are also called black raspberries.

When I go out to pick, the animals usually follow. Layla, the black dog in the front, stays with me the whole time. Coco generally heads back to the house a couple minutes after we start out. He's not one for picking berries.

Yes, even Mittens the cat follows me out there. I often find him hanging out in a patch just ahead of where I'm picking. 

Michelle and I went to church camp again this year. It's a super fun week filled with lots of activities and time spent learning God's Word. Can't beat that. Here Michelle is studying her memory verses for the week hoping to "quiz out" and get lots of points for our cabin. The best part is she is hiding God's Word in her heart. 💖

Well, since this is already long, I think I will end here and finish up the month on my next post.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

2016 Part 2

I'm back with part 2 of 2016. We'll start with April.

April: This is such a fickle month. We never know what the weather is going to throw at us. It started out with a bit of snow, but by the middle of the month most of it was gone.

 I LOVE when I can start hanging clothes out on the line to dry.

By the end of the month, my flowers were peaking out.

It even got warm enough for a nap out on the swing. :o)

I'm trying to be intentional about getting in front of the camera once in a while. She's teaching me how. 

This picture makes me a bit sad. When we first moved here to this little town, she would always grab this cart to use. I remember it squeaked SO bad! Look how big she is now! I really wish I'd gotten a picture of her with it way back then.

Our home school group hosted a science fair in April as well. Here's Michelle and her pal demonstrating their experiment for the group.

May: The weather gets really nice here in May (sometimes) and it's the perfect time to go visit our town lake. We love to watch the geese families with their little goslings. Sorry for the not-so-great photos.

Everyone loves the swing. :o)

We get together with some of Michelle's girlfriends once a week or so so they can get some exercise in. Sometimes we hang out at the park, sometimes it's swimming, sometimes it's bowling. I have to post this here for Michelle as it was her first time breaking 100!

June: My garden really filled in this year.

What do you do when the power goes out and you still need to finish 100 flowers for a wedding cake? You work by lantern light and pray nothing melts in the heat.

This little cutie got to go to camp for a week. She doesn't look excited about it at all, does she?

One Sunday these two realized they had dressed to match. Michelle wanted me to take a nice picture of them. He has a hard time being serious.

Awww! I love this. I think this one needs to be printed. See, if I hadn't sat down to update this blog, this photo would have stayed in cyber limbo for who knows how long and that would have been a shame.

Stay tuned for part 3.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!