Family

Well, here is the family! We all got together in Grand Haven, where Grace & Will were staying for a bit of vacation - it was great getting to see everyone again! And I will include one more picture, just Clay is missing since he was the photographer!
No one was in the mood for more picture taking, so this is it, sorry to say! You can see the picture much better though if you click on it. The day was lovely tho - weather was perfect, there was a beautiful sunset and we had a great meal together!

Camping in the U.P.

More catch-up! And I have so many pictures I want to put on here, it is ridiculous - so tonight I will just make a stab at catching up, and get as far as I can.

The end of July and into August we drove up to Houghton, Michigan to see our son Ben, who is going to Michigan Tech and is working up there for the summer also. We camped at McLain State Park which is right on Lake Superior, and had just a wonderful time! One afternoon we went to Brockway Mountain with the family and Ryan. Let's see if I can keep the pictures to under a dozen. First off here is the family. We will be using this one for our church directory I guess, since this is one of the few times we can all get together! (if you click on the picture, you can see things much better!)

Oooh--I played around with photoshop for a bit to see what I could do with this picture - look at the difference! That is so much fun! I tried to keep Emily's cross necklace, but that didn't work out so great, but notice I did make my hand and the camera dangling there disappear!



Then here are just Ben and Emily

And here are Ben, Emily and Ryan

And here is Emily looking very pensive, and I would love to know how to make it look like the lake is a speech bubble with some great quote from her in it.

We made hobo dinners one night and boy were they delicious!

Then here we are enjoying them, altho I look a little goofy!
And here is a cute one of Adam as our official salt shaker, since we had salt, just had forgotten the shaker!
Then each night was spent having s'mores and enjoying the campfire for many hours. I took lots and lots of pictures of campfires, but will only show you this one, that has only a bit of the color left from our copper tubing and rubber hose. I grabbed the camera too late to show the fire filled with all the colors it gave off at the beginning! Next time.

Another night we went out to Ben's favorite place to eat - Ming's and have to document that!
And then here's my cutie baby girl!!!

We also got to spend one day at the beach, and everyone tried their luck at using Ben's windsurfer even though there wasn't much wind!
Ben
Emily
And dad

Plus a few more beach shots.

We also made a trip up to the Jampot Bakery and the Falls next to them.


And finally we were able to hunt down some Thimbleberries!
And there you have it. We did pretty good for spending two days traveling and three days there! We covered a lot of ground. Told you my post would be a long one Bennie! And I DO love taking pictures, so hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!
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P.S. Gee, how could I forget THIS??? We also went to a concert and heard Leo Kottke!!! (I know how I could forget it - I didn't have any pictures to remind me!) The concert was fantastic! It is so great to hear music live! And we've been big fans of his for YEARS!

Catch Up!

Oh dear - it seems the faster I go, the further behind I get! We just got back from camping up in the U.P. and will write more about that - but first have to catch up with family visits at my brother Paul and Gwen's house. I got to see my nephew Mike and his wife Bonnie, and their two kids this time - it was great getting to see them too!!! But I am going to start out with a picture of Kim. This is just such a perfect picture of her and the day. My niece is only four years younger than I am, so I feel quite close to her, but here she is coming up from the beach where we spent the afternoon relaxing and visiting and just catching up with eachother.

And then here is Mike & Bonnie, who I hadn't had a chance to see either for several years with them all living in California!

Then here is the whole group, ah what the heck, several of the whole group eating supper.

Then Jessie and her boyfriend Jason

And finally, the Mike & Bonnie family!

There - hope everyone enjoys looking at the pics. Sorry the ones of John & Jessie didn't turn out too hot - so had to skip those! It was great seeing you all! Love ya!