The kids and I visited the beach, because we were missing the water and swimming. Max was diving down under the water, flailing his feet everywhere while he practiced his dive and coming up with sand to triumphantly show off  most of the time. He's definitely my boy!

Rory was excited to have a beach again. She rarely left the sand to swim, mainly to wash off or a quick cool down before covering herself in sand yet again. We tried something new and the kids took turns burying each other.

It was a hit, they both really enjoyed both feeling the sand on their bodies and covering their sibling up!

I thought we'd be sick of the water after our extended stay at the lake but clearly we were all missing it as we spent a lot more time at the beach then usual. It was a lovely afternoon!

No photos today. Dusty took the kids to a friend's cabin where they fished, swam and played with other kids their age all before sleeping in the tent for the night. Yes, they came home exhausted (and early thanks to the oncoming rain) but they had a blast with Daddy. And Daddy doesn't take many photos.

Meanwhile I enjoyed being alone. After almost a month straight of always being with my kids and family, a little solitude was much appreciated. At the same time, having Cecil at home was also nice, he helped me put together the new bookshelf I bought and he and I had dinner with Randy and Ashley Saturday evening. That was a much needed break after 11 hours of working around the house. (It isn't every day I have an empty house and can actually organize!)

If I don't seemed spoiled enough already having a whole day and night to my self, let me also brag that Cecil cooked us Chicken Alfredo last night and it was the best Alfredo I've ever had. Amazing! He can never move out!

I'll work on photos this week. The kids have Vacation Bible School so I'm sure there will be photos to show from that and if the weather cooperates I'd like to go to the County Fair, so stay tuned!

It's a crazy week over here, so today, some Roryisms.

"Mom, that's too heaby!" - Whenever she can't (or doesn't want to) carry something.

"Mom, member?" - Instead of remember.

"I'm her mudder." - Explaining her relationship to her doll.

"last night" - Rory will remember doing something, playing with her cousin Lyla, fishing with her daddy, anything really, and she'll tell the story saying that she did it "last night" which really means at some point in the past.

"I mam." - How Rory says, I am. Seriously adorable, even when she's screaming it in response to your angry 4th request.

"Max leave me alone, I'm frust-er-rated" - Yes, my children know this word. Max's favorite question to ask when I'm visibly upset is, "Mom are you mad or frustrated?" Both buddy, both.

And this last one make me smile the most. Max and Rory have been planning their wedding to each other. Rory keeps asking Max, "Max, can I marry you?" And Max keeps telling her a different day. You know, a typical male, pushing off his wedding day. (hee hee). As if that isn't cute enough, Rory is a typical female and only cares about her outfit. After Max tells her the day they will get married Rory will tell him, "And I'll wear my prrreeettty dress and we'll dance and spin."

I do love that girl!

After 23 days at the lake house, including 3 excursions, at least a dozen frogs caught, lots of tubing for the kids and I even squeezed in a jaunt on the wake board; we returned home to mounds of work to do. Thankfully, the kids did not have vacation bible school this week as I originally thought, giving us more time to settle back into our routines.

Starting our summer routine the moment we got home was a trip out to the garden where a lot of our veggies are in and ready for picking! Don't those jalapenos look mouthwatering all stuffed up with cheese and bacon for the grill?!

Grammy, Dido and Rosie joined us for dinner last night as they were missing us. Well OK, probably more the kids. After dinner there was a couple stories before bedtime.

And today the kids got to work on a craft, which they've been begging me to do for some time. Max has wanted to cut, Rory has been wanting to play with the fuzzy balls, so we made little mini crabs (fuzzy balls shoved into colored shells, I know, genius) and set-up a pretend aquarium for them. Hey, it works.

Our week is filled up with appointments and play dates as we try to catch up with everyone we've missed. We had a great vacation but it's nice to be back!

We're wrapping up our month at the lake and the end has not disappointed; the sun has returned to shining, Daddy is back to play, and we're cramming in all our favorite things. Max has caught at least a dozen frogs during this trip, and on his own. We always let them go at the end of the day, but he sure enjoys playing with them before letting them go.

Daddy showed up with the hair clippers and cut off all of Max's bleach blonde hair. Max really needed a hair cut and getting one outside next to the lake has to be one of the best ways to get your hair cut!

Rory has been letting us throw her up in the air in the lake. She really loves it - as long as you catch her on her way back down and don't send her under!

Uncle Cecil is also here and he and the kids went tubing at Max's insistence. Rory and Cecil actually flipped on the tube and fell in. I don't have any pictures, I was too busy hooting and hollering at Rory and didn't pull my camera up, but she did great and was calm as could be when I pulled her back into the boat. That's my big girl!

Rory's also been working on her wakeboarding skills. Well, at least on land.

Today the kids will cram in a few more hours next to the lake while I scramble around the house packing everything up and cleaning up our messes. I'm excited to get home and hopeful we won't forget anything. (Fat chance.)

You can't always have beautiful weather. Tuesday's weather at Madeline Island was rainy and cold for most of our trip. Wednesday it rained all day while we were at the lake. (We may have stayed in our pajamas and read/watched movies all day.) And today it was just cold and cloudy. We took a pontoon ride in our sweatshirts.

Then we decided to try our hands at miniature golf. Rory, was really uninterested, we got her to play maybe 3 holes.

Max stuck it out for 9 holes before he slowly lost interest.

TaTa and I had fun attempting to compete while keeping an eye on the kids. You know, while they threw there balls in the water to retrieve with the net; running across the green right when you hit your ball distracting you and possibly even kicking your ball mid-hit; and you know, Rory's potty accident at the last hole.

So yeah, miniature golf and the kids? Not so much fun at this point in their lives. At least the sun finally started to show up when we were finished and we were able to lay out on the dock when we returned home. Let's hope it keeps up for tomorrow!

Yesterday my mom, Tara, the kids, and I took a little drive. In fact we drove the van right on to a ferry and shipped ourselves off to Madeline Island for the day!

The day started out dreary with clouds, wind, and even rain. Our first stop was to find a store that sold kids' sweatshirts since I forgot to pack some for the day trip. The sweatshirts were over priced but oh-so-adorable for photos! We took the van and visited Big Bay State Park. (Another park to mark off our list!) The beach was beautiful, really, there is no other way to describe it.

We took a nature hike to check out the lagoon too, which was extremely picturesque. This is on their wildlife observation deck, we didn't actually see any wildlife.

We found quite a lot of insects while walking along the beach. Max was very interested in all the bugs.

Once it really started to rain we headed back to the car. Tara and Max opted to stay in the van and out of the rain while Rory, Grandma and I ran down the Point Trail to get a quick peek before we left for lunch.

After lunch we decided to check out Big Bay Town Park. The sun had finally started to show, along with the heat. Town Park hosts the entryway for the water that leads to the lagoon that we saw at the state park. Can you see how clear and beautiful that water is?!

Max and Rory had a ton of fun trying to escape the waves along with playing in the water. It seriously sounded like we were at the ocean.

I really wish we would have had water shoes, I think we would have enjoyed it more if our feet wouldn't have been so sore walking all over those rocks! Either way, we still had a nice time at the beach!

As we headed back up the kids wanted to check out the lagoon's entrance again. And then they gave me this. Best photo of the day!

Madeline Island was really fun with the kids. There wasn't much more we could have done together as there aren't a lot of stores and shops but our two beach visits along with lunch and some quick shopping filled up our day and left everyone, except me, napping on the drive home. (I mean, I was driving...)

Yesterday was Auntie TaTa's birthday and we all celebrated at the lake! Grandma, Rory and TaTa took a swim together out in the lake.

I steered the pontoon over to the bear rock where Tara could attempt to reenact The Little Mermaid. (Such a good sister, spoiling her on her birthday.)

We all met up for lunch (Bopa and Max were fishing). Then celebrated with some birthday ice cream cake.

Happy Birthday TaTa, we love you!

We made another visit to the Wilderness Walk. It wasn't the same without Jean and the boys (and now a new baby girl addition) but I guess I can't expect her to fly from Atlanta every time we go there!

We started out in the nursery where we were greeted by a buck. The kids couldn't stop laughing as he followed us around the nursery, nudging us with his antlers.

We also got to check out some peacocks shaking out their tail feathers. That is always fun to see, especially when you can get up close!

The kids fed the camel, which if you'll recall was eating Rory's arm last year! (I didn't remind her of that.)

We also got to see the baby bears. Tell me that isn't adorable! It also was rather fitting as the night before I saw a Mama bear and her three cubs go strolling through the backyard by the lake. So cool!

The kids panned for gold again. Once they got their gold they took it to the gift shop and got a sucker. (I may have actually found their gold pieces.) Rory would just grab whatever rock she found while Max sloshed water all over his feet causing him to lose interest.

Rory and I had fun posing with the head locks.

Max and Rory "Bit the dust at the Wilderness Walk".

Waking up to a cloudy, misty day sure wasn't something I was hoping for this morning but I think we ended up making the best of the situation. I know I had a good time, and based on the kids' excited phone conversation with their Daddy, I'm pretty sure they did too!

Yesterday the kids and I spent the day in Ashland. I was really excited to take them swimming in Lake Superior as they had not done this yet. We went to the beach that had lifeguards on duty as I figured it must be a really nice beach. Instead I found a rocky shoreline and an old ship dock with a diving board at the end.

The kids didn't mind the rocky shoreline. As long as you can dig in it, they're happy.

Max asked and asked and asked if he could go off the diving board. I never told him no, I just told him I didn't think they'd let him jump off in his life jacket. So when he saw a girl jump off in hers about an hour later? Yeah, I lost. I figured he'd get to the end of the pier and chicken out. He didn't. Then I figured he'd walk to the end of the diving board, realize it's at least 10 feet high, and chicken out. Instead? He crawled onto the board.

He got on his feet and ran himself right off that diving board!

And then he did it 6 more times, so cool to watch! The lifeguard that stands at the diving board couldn't help but laugh every time his head would pop out of the water with his huge grin.

Eventually the kids and I made it to Aunt Judy's where we met up with my Aunt Mary Kay, cousins Taylor and Gavin, and their grandma. The kids had a blast playing together.

There was hide and seek,

catch with Aunt Judy,

and swinging in the swing.

We also took a picture to send to Brookey in California. Taylor setup the pose and it turned out cute. She's so smart, and Brooke enjoyed her photo!

It was a nice little excursion on a beautiful day!

My mom caught a frog for Max.

He was very excited and didn't want to leave it alone.

Thankfully we convinced him to let the frog go at the end of the day.

He launched him as far into the lake as he could. Hopefully the frog made it back to shore before a fish ate him!

This weekend both Auntie Tata and our friend Nate joined us for some fun in the sun. Dusty and Nate had fun tubing together behind the pontoon. Dusty striking his best GG poses.

Auntie Tata and Max went tubing together. In their own tubes! Max was a bit too light causing the rope to be slack and splashing water in his face but he continued to smile the whole ride anyway.

Rory decided a nap was in order instead of tubing.

We also stopped for some deep water swimming and Tata taught Max the joys of jumping from higher up on the boat. Look at that boy soar!

Dusty and I also attempted to teach the kids how to chicken fight.

It was a fun weekend with beautiful weather and great company!