Today's HIS Day!

No ships on our horizons today. Hopefully, just a happy birthday in store for my nephew, Jon!

 



Today's HER Day!

Happy Birthday, Jill!

IF you were going out tonight it'd definitely be a hot time in the ol' town tonight. I hope you have a "hot" round on the golf course this morning!



Almost As Good As Being There

We have four webcams we can watch when ships are coming into the Canal up in Duluth. There's the one we've always used.

There's this one perched in the harbor pretty much looking straight down the Canal.

There's this one a little farther off to the side.

And then there's another one somewhere that looks over the harbor and the docking ports. You have to wait awhile before the ship enters the scope of this camera.

Every time these cameras refreshed I saved another stage of the Tregurtha's journey so if you scroll real fast through all of the ones I have it's almost as good as a video!

Then just today I had a view from another camera.

The Enger Tower cam! Actually, Jon and Mindy and the kids are up there and Mindy shared this spectacular shot with us. But, alas! We're headed to Duluth tomorrow to see if we can get in on some of that shipping action ourselves. Usually you can expect more temperate weather headed that far north and being by the lake but it's to be near 100 up there too! Yowser!  



Catching Up: EcoTri

For the fourth time the boys have competed in Rochester Eco Tri, an event where they kayak, bike and run for about 2 1/2 hours. We get tired as spectators. They should be exhausted! This year a friend from Mankato joined them and maybe next year his wife will too!  

It started out a rainy morning but we were prepared.

We came out armed with bells and signs and voices to support these guys.

 Ready to go.

And they're off!

Even though they'd like to have their best time every one of them took a moment to greet their family at the end of this leg.

Brian was the second one of our boys to complete the kayak.

We moved our ranks off the beach and up the hill to catch them go by on bikes.

 Brent kept sneaking up on us and was nearly gone by the time we realized it was him!

Kate and Maya found a spot where they could see everyone go by four times so we just might have to try that next year.
These girls all read the memo to wear pink for cheering!

The boys all finished strong.

They look just as good at the end as they did when they started...except now they had a medal to show for the morning. Great job, boys!

We'll go back as many years as they do. I know spectating's a hard job but somebody's got to do it! :)

And More "Culture"

70's culture, that is. On Sunday Three Dog Night was Down By The Riverside. It was a well attended concert to say the least!

From where we sat you could hear okay but couldn't really see all that well. We shoulda brought binoculars!

I think they must have done all their hits but the two that turned out the best (if you can call it that!) on my contraband video were "Old Fashioned Love Song"...

...and "Joy To The World".

Seems like if we wait long enough some pretty big names will eventually show up at this concert series. If only they'd schedule Gary Puckett!!



Color And Culture

On Saturday Mindy participated in the ColorVibe event with her niece, Ashton. You may notice the difference in their appearance from start...

...to finish.

Show me your best side, girls!

We had a nice little group there to watch the two of them come in.

Those that had already finished the race did a fun thing in the middle of the dance party called the Colortoss. Good note to end on!

Then in the afternoon we went down to ARTigras to watch and listen to Tony and his Med-City Jazz Collective play in the park.

 

Natalie and Harvey decided it was good music to dance to.

And how did they get down there in front? Why, jump of course!

But they weren't the only kids there. Charlie was there too in support of his dad! 

There were a few booths left open when the music was done. We wanted to do face painting but, unfortunately, that was one that was closed. So we went to the next best thing...balloon art! Natalie and Harvey both got pirate swords and an apple. Harvey also got a pirate hat and Natalie got a princess one.

I think that'd be a fun craft to learn but I bet it takes a little work!



Timberrr!

With all that's been going on you may think this is an odd blog post but it's one of the reasons I'm so far behind. We had a tree dropped a couple weeks ago...

...and had quite a bit to clean up before we did too much else. It took most of two days to drag the brush up into the woods, cut up the rest and haul away the ground up stump.

The last two summers we've had storms that kept breaking off limbs one at a time and it just wasn't an attractive tree, especially from the house. So here it was...

...and here it's not!

The only trouble is, it had grown so thick into the oak to the east that now we're left with kind of a silly looking tree with leaves on only one side.

We'll see how it does in the spring but if it doesn't branch out a little more evenly we might have another one to take down.



Life Of Leisure

Jill spent last weekend with her sisters family up at their cabin near Brainerd. Don't let anyone tell you there's no fish in that lake!

Then yesterday we decided to sneak in 18 holes of golf at Kasson since we had a coupon we'd gotten off SweetJack early in the season. Usually when you talk golf you talk about the greens. But these were more like the blues! I'm not sure what they had spread on there to make them look that way. 

And talking golf, we've already mentioned birdies in a previous post but yesterday, if we'd tried hard enough we could have had a doggie on two holes! 

My round on the scorecard might actually have been that of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The first nine holes was probably the best I've ever done...and no mulligans! For anyone that's golfed with me you'll know a 49 is pretty good for me. But the second nine was back to my old self and not even in the 50's anymore by the time we were done. But it was a beautiful day and the course was in great shape!



Birthday Girl!

Today is Kate's birthday.

We hope it's a great day all around!



Two Extremes

The oldest and the youngest in our family...

91 and 5 months.

Not sure which one makes the other happier!



Happy Birthday, Dad!

My dad turns 91 today.

Some days he talks pretty negatively about still going strong but he does amazingly well. Since they moved into Shorewood he's taken up walking on the treadmill and riding the stationary bike. And most days they walk about a mile too. That's way more exercise than I get! Have a great day, Dad, and we'll see you for supper!



There Are Deer...

...like the two does and three fawns in our backyard this morning.

And there are dears...

 

...like those across the table at lunch today!



Interpretive Dance Down By The Riverside

Last Sunday we went to the summer outdoor concert to watch Jon with his concert band. He was supposed to play percussion but ended up playing second fiddle! The kids had a great time dancing to the music and we loved watching them!

 

Oh, and we did pay attention to you too, Jon. It was a great show all around!

 



Musta Been Hungry

I'd planned to go to the Farmer's Market this morning with tomatoes and zucchini in mind. But everything looked so good I couldn't help myself!

I just can't say enough times how fresh everything is and how beautifully everyone has their goods displayed. I only wish the guy with the chocolate covered bacon on a stick would put in an appearance again!