Good Bye Summer, Part 2

Before the leaves fall off the trees, and I forget all these special memories, I offer the rest of our summer, in no particular order.

We went to our cabin in Northern Wisconsin for a week with the grands.  We all have the best time and make so many memories.

My brother has a place 30 minutes away, and we spent a few hours there enjoying his lake and his new cabin.

No railing on the deck then, but it has one now.

Claire and grandpa ~

Cooper and my nephew Evan 

Ben and Cooper in the front, Elizabeth and Jackson in back, and Jessica, the lifeguard I guess.

It looks like they are in an inch or so of water, so I will assume that they took a little ride.

Elizabeth and Laura

Our Claire Bear

Cooper on the boat at our cabin.

Elizabeth

My grands plus my niece and nephew, Emma and Evan.  Not too bad, maybe 2 kids are looking:-)

The whole gang.  Isn't it so green and pretty in Wisconsin?

{Too bad most of the years it's white}

Cooper and Evan.  Our centerpiece of flags was used later for a rousing flag hunt.  That was a fun activity and one we will do again.

{I give no directions for the game because I think you can all figure it out.  It's that simple:-) }

One of the reasons for the family to join us in Wisconsin was to help celebrate Bob's folks 60th wedding anniversary.

We held a dinner at a small hotel ~ all arrangements made from Texas via phone and internet.

I was so happy and relieved that the whole evening turned out just the way we wanted.  Whew!

When they married 60 years ago, Bob's dad was in the Air Force and they married on the base, no wedding dress, no cake, or pictures.

The cake turned out so well, and the topper has some "diamonds" as the 60th is the diamond anniversary.

This is a picture of Bob's dad with his 2 sons and his 5 grandsons and his 6 great grandsons.

The table decor was simple, white flowers and "diamond" picture frames and gemstones scattered.

The whole family, missing is our Laura's husband Tom:-(

What a legacy from 2 people!

4 children

9 grandchildren

9 great grandchildren ~ so far

Our family, missing Tom.

Bob's mom, 1 daughter, 4 granddaughters, and 3 great granddaughters.

Bob's sister, Jan, passed away in 2010 and was missed terribly.

We all did have a wonderful time.  We stayed together at the small hotel and all met in the morning for breakfast before everyone had to travel back home.  No one lives near his folks, the closest are about 5 hours away, so I was so glad that all of the children, grands, and greats were there.

Bob and I put together a DVD highlighting the 60 years and all received a copy as their party favor.

And now the party is over ~ we actually took this on our way to the 60th on our way out of town.

And for reasons that deserve their own blog post, this may be the last BIG FISH picture.

sadness

And, totally unrelated to the above trip is this picture.

Early in the summer we met some good friends for a stay at this resort.  It is the Osthoff in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.

Such a lovely place.

Our guys went to a few golf courses in the area and Robin and I yakked and ate and sat on the beach or at the pool.  Pretty much a perfect vacation in everyone's opinion.

One of the golf courses.

And while they golfed we toured this lovely basilica that we could see from miles away.

And, to close

A few pictures of our Camp Read A Lot

I did do the "camp" again.  The kids read lots of books and earned lots of prizes.  I now have 3 readers and we do have lots of fun doing different activities. 

Sad to say I didn't take many pictures.

But of course swimming is our primary fun, and a close second is playing with oobleck.

We did that a few times, with the addition of shaving cream for a real mess fun time!

One of our activities was making this pizza.

It went with the book Sweet Dream Pie. 

This is a sugar cookie, strawberry jam, orange coconut, and jelly beans and gumdrops for toppings.

Elizabeth and I made it and it really fooled the boys.  They didn't want to try it with all of those toppings!

Of course it quickly changed when they found out it was sugar.

These next few pics are of a reward night ~ snacks and watching Monsters Inc.

{they seldom watch a movie at my house}

The kids spent the night and all had fun.

{Claire went home with mom and dad after snack:-) }

Such a fun summer, and we ended it celebrating a little girl turning 3!  But that's for another post.