We spent our three-month summer
vacation in Minnesota, beginning in mid-June for Clara's birthday and ending
mid-September to celebrate Chase's birthday and several other birthdays in
between. From Minnesota, we began a month-long RV road trip to visit
family and friends in Nebraska, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Colorado, New
Mexico, Arizona and on to California to celebrate more birthdays.
Denise turned 45 this year and we
spent an evening at a Pizza Farm near Northfield, MN to celebrate her
birthday. The farm produces most of the ingredients for the pizza and
bakes it to perfection.
On our way home from the pizza farm,
we stopped in Northfield where they were preparing for a week-long celebration
of the "Defeat of Jessie James' Gang", where many of the gang members were killed,
but Jessie got away.
Despite getting up at 7:00 am for
school, Clara continues to compete in ice hockey games, some starting as
late as 9:30 pm. That's dedication!
In addition to ice hockey, Chase
signed up for football. After one practice day, he played his first game and
went away with a fantastic tackle. Awesome!
The
tradition of celebrating birthdays in the backyard continues. The
party started with making SLIME, which the kids got to take home.
After opening presents, the
traditional Piñata was hung and the kids were blindfolded as they took turns
hacking to get at the candy.
Singing "Happy Birthday" and
digging into a chocolate cake decorated with a hockey puck and stick.
Hmmm!
The
kids spent the rest of the afternoon having fun on the lake--water tubing and
playing on the lily pad.
We took one more family picture,
this one with the "old" house in the background. Plans are underway
for it to come down and be replaced with a new home.
We had a chance to spend an afternoon
with Larry's niece, Patty and Paul and got to experience their 50th anniversary
edition Mustang.
Larry's niece Bryndon, Eric,
Avery and Evin invited us over for an evening of great food, some great home
brew and a chance to catch up with their growing family.
Our last weekend in the north country
was spent at O'Neil Creek Campground near Chippewa Falls, WI. They celebrated
Halloween early, as the campground would be soon closing for the winter.
The
campground has 450 sites set on rolling hills spread out over 30 acres.
We rented this golf cart to get around. It was great using it to go
"Trick or Treating".
The
"creek" is the center piece of the campground. They rent out tubes for us to
flow down this shallow, slow moving lazy river.
The
mid-September weekend weather could not have been better--sunny and warm.
A great way to end our three month stay in the north country.
One of the down sides of camping in a
tree covered campground is the unstable weather of the north country as pictured
here.
The kids introduced us to a game
called "Watch Ya' Mouth." Click to watch the game being played.
With the house soon to be demolished,
Clara uses this sling shot to start the process. Click to watch.
Nebraska was our first stop where
we met up with Glorine's niece Roslyn at a cool restaurant at Old Market in
downtown Omaha. Since we seen her last, she has gotten into the
rental business with five homes.
Our next stop was with Larry's
brother Bob and Francie, along with most of their family. We got to check
out their new apartment at an independent-living facility in Lincoln.
On to Chicago where we spent the
weekend with Glorine's sister Alvina, who is recovering from chemo and
radiation treatments to cure her cancer. Glorine cooked a lot of
Alvina's favorite dishes.
Next on to Kentucky where Glorine got a chance to do some
volunteering with her friend Diane. Here they are sorting through and
storing two pickup loads of food for needy people in the area.
In addition to playing cards with
David and Diane, the girls made pocket bread while the guys did some work on
the RV. The time flew by too fast.
We spent a few days at Green
River Lake State Park with Larry's buddy Scott and Lois playing corn hole, riding bikes,
playing cards and lots of catching up.
As we drove to our next stop, we
took a picture of this USA icon, the Gateway Arch a symbol to the great
western expansion started by the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
We celebrated anniversaries with
Glorine's nephew Ken, Vickie and their son Austin and Ella and had a relaxing
(but short) weekend before we started our next trek across the American
plains.
September's web page includes September 1 through September 30.
