Not this weekend

Did I share these pictures? This was from our Zoo weekend back in July. Two groups here..The guys and the girls. Well, the girls are outnumbered. Actually, that's ok, though. That means, with all those guys we can feel free to leave the little guys with the big guys while the girls disappear for awhile. And that's exactly what we did. We took a book- Welcome to the Great Mysterious, by Lorna Landvik and went to one of Mindy's favorite coffee places and talked about the book. Now that's an afternoon worth having. Coffee and a book. Wow. I'll have to get another one of these shots in November when everyone comes to our house for Thanksgiving. The girls will disappear then, too because we have another book to share. The Help by Kathryn Stocket. Yup, being outnumbered isn't such a bad thing.

Evening Walk

Buster and I walk every evening. It's not a very long walk but it's through the neigborhood. Here are some pictures of our corner of the world.

back from the Boundary Waters

So Ron spent a week in the Boundary Waters fishing, fishing and some canoeing. Through an interesting set of circumstances, Ron was able to snap quite a few pictures of his trip. He got some great shots! It sounded like they had a great, warm time.

Girls weekend out

So speaking of camping...I got the camper to Sioux Falls, unhooked, set up. The lights didn't work and neither did the refigerator, but that wasn't my fault. We were sitting in the camper and someone moved a bit and what do you know, the lights and refigerator came on. Hoo RAh because it was HOT! wow, we needed the fans to run too.

But we had fun anyway, We went hiking on Saturday morning until we were so hot we nearly dropped. Eeek. It was pretty, though. Then we shopped til our money was gone. Ate supper out at an italian resuarant. We tried Marscapone. Mmmmm. Decadent.

I think I could do this again.

Bomb blast

Ron is getting ready to go camping and canoeing in the boundary waters for a week. He leaves on Saturday with 5 other guys. But in the beforehand our house looks like there's been some sort of internal explosion. I try to avert my eyes when I walk by, or through, or is it around all this heap of stuff. There are bags, and underwear, sacks of unknown yet to be packed stuff, pots and pans, dishes, packs, fishing gear, tackle boxes, rain gear, baggies and then there is stuff on the table and it leaks over into the kitchen and has been rolling down the stairs. Did I say it looks like a bomb went off around here. In a few more days it will all be gone, and I will have the house to myself for a week. But when he gets home from this trip we will have to go through the pain of unpacking and putting it all away again. What a mess. er, I mean organizational process....

Church of the Holy Family

We visited this church while we were camping this weekend. This is a very prominent feature on the interstate between Omaha and Lincoln and I have often wondered what in the world it was, it looks so much like a, well, a corn crib. You have to get off I80 at hwy 6 and head down a gravel road to get to the church and it's well worth the hunt. It's landscaped as a natural part of the prairie with lots of prairie flowers and grasses. Running water is a key theme. There is an sod type welcome center that is beautifully cool and full of light at the same time. But the church itself is absolutely stunning. It's all glass and overlooks the Platte River valley.

This was posted in the Welcome Center:
People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered. Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest person with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest person with the smallest mind. Think big anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack if you help them. Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you might get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you've got anyway.

Camping Weekend

We just got back from the grandest camping weekend. We tried a new park out-Mahoney State park near Omaha. That's a pretty incredible place-it has a water park, the space museum, gardens and bike trails all over. We had a pretty good camping spot-under lots of oak trees. That was helpful as Friday night was hot hot hot. Worst I've seen all summer even.

We went with friends Dave and Anita and with Jon and Mindy and Jeremiah. I think Jeremiah loved the camping especially. There were campers to explore with lots of new buttons to push, the swimming pool to play in, a tent to sleep in and he could help lots. He really loved "driving" grandpa's truck. He even figured out where the key was and how to get the horn to honk. Yikes.

We had one dandy thunderstorm on Friday night. I really don't like thunderstorms with wind. This time it was just hot heat and thunder rolling through the evening. We put everything away and headed to bed. All of a sudden the lights went out a blue light filled the camper and a tremendous Crash boomed over everything. Wow! It scared me and the whole campground to death. Then it started to pour down rain. That was the closest I've ever had lightning hit. A camper up the road got it's air conditioning knocked out. phew.