Making Connections Camping Weekend

 We were at Coon Forks this weekend on our annual camping trip with the church.  Mary and I had a very nice site next to the lake.  We set up our old relaible tent.  this is the same one we took to Alaska as a family in 1994

 We cooked aluminum foil dinners.  Here is greg preparing to start the fire.  We didn't have any newspaper or any type of fire starter so started the fire with wood chips and pine needles.

 Success!

We had three storms over the course of our time in Coon Forks.  We arrived Friday night, July 22, set up our tent and met the other campers at Paul & Pam's campsite.  Saturday morning we had blueberry pancakes cooked on our peak stove.  We had our traditional volley ball game in the morning with a family from Chippewa Falls sharing the court with us.  Soon after the vollevball game we had our first of three thunderstorms.  We improvised for lunch and had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the van.  But look how blue the sky was a couple of hours later!  Charlie & Lucy joined us at our campsite jsut after 4:00 PM on Saturday, July 23.  We invited them to stay and share our aluminum foil dinners.  Then just as the dinners were done cooking, the sky opened up with another heavy thunderstorm.

 Here are Charlie and Lucy enjoying their aluminum foil dinners.

We ate our dinners in the comfort of Big Blue.

Charlie brought a battery powered rotating marshmellow stick.  Charlie let Rony Lamoureux use it.  John Lamerouix is helping Rony figure out how to use it.  It was a big hit with all the kids.  It even had a light, like a flash light, so it would shine on the marshmellow.

Charlie showing off his magic marshmellow stick with rotating marshmellow.  Mark Gideonson is cooking a marshmellow the old fashion way.  Lucy is giving technical support.

 Jazel and Ann Lamoureux.

 Mark Gideonson and Jennifer Eddy.

Their son Nathaniel hung out with Noah all weekend.  Nathaniel and Noah spent a lot of time on their bikes.

 Our third thundertorm was in the middle of the night.  12:30 AM to be precise.  Just as the storm hit, this pine tree snapped off in the high winds. This was just across the road from our tent.  We decided it might be a good idea to spend the rest of the night in our van.  So Mary and I spent the rest of the night in the van. We slept OK but not great.

The tree snapped off about 8' above the ground.  The tree trunk was about 12" in diameter where it snapped off.  Despite the storms, we had a wonderful weekend.  The cammeraderie of the group was very nice and it was relaxing despite the storms.  Saturday afternoon we took advantage of the rain to go into Augusta to visit the Amish Woodshed.  Paul Braun led our worship service on Sunday morning and did a nice job with a centering prayer/theme. We skipped our usual stop at the drive-in on our way through Augusta to return home to dry everything out and get ready for Chelsea's visit.



Chelsea will be here for a couple of weeks with the bridal shower here and Brady's second birthday in Madison being anticipated highlights!

fawn alert

It seems our blog has turned into an update on the deer that frequent our yard.  This morning I went out to get the newspaper.  The mother deer and the two spotted fawns were eating around the swing set.  I went out to the mail box and back into the house and the deer stayed where they were.

I went into thehouse and came back out with the camera.  The mother deer and one of the fawns were in the brush and too hard to get a picture of.  However, one of the fawns stayed right where it was.  I was able to take this picture while standing in the driveway.

Tomato Plant Down!

Hello faithful followers,

As you know Mary is in Biloxi this week on a mission trip.  My main responsibility while she is gone is to take care of the plants.  Last night we had a huge storm with very strong winds.  Unfortunately this raised havoc with our outdoor plants.

Exhibit A.

Tragedy has overtaken us!  Not only was our only tomato plant blown over, the pot broke in two!

Never fear, Menards (save big money) still had a clay pot left.  So tonight I repotted the tomato plant in a new clay pot.  Voila!

We now have a healthy and repotted tomato plant.  I trust with a little water and tlc, it won't be long before we will be eating fresh tomatoes.  (The plant to the right of the tomato plant is our basil plant.  We have been enjoying fresh basil all summer.)

July 5

I see we have been missing in action.

I have been in Alaska for the past two weeks. Prior to that Mary was in Austin with Andrea and Chelsea shopping for Chel's wedding dress. We'll have to wait until January 6 to see the results!

 We put up a new bird feeder.  Our first customer was this deer.

 The deer felt so comfortable it rested under our deck after snacking at the feeder.

The Chugach Mountains east of Anchorage.  I took this picture on our flight home.  The picture below is my group.  I had 50 guests on the tour.  We started on June 21 and ended on July 3.