Annual Camping Trip

Our yearly trip camping was last weekend. We chose to go to Northern Minnesota just south of the BWCAW.

The scenery is gorgeous.

Lots of wildlife to be seen, this is a turkey vulture.

The lakes are like nowhere else on Earth.

Kids enjoy the touristy things like taking pictures.

We had art class one day and make tie dyed shirts.

Our campground on Crescent Lake was pretty nice but super buggy!
Just a bad time of the year to camp because of the bugs. Good thing I brought other things to do, Miss M and I painted our nails one evening while the guys fished.

Noley shot things with his sticks.

Our highlight was a Momma Moose and her 2 babies eating at a lake. We stopped and watched them 3 times this day. They had lots of viewers and didn't seem to think much of the fuss.

Very little knitting was done but that is alright, sometimes you gotta take some time off. Hope your summers are getting off to a good start.

The End is in Sight, Will I Survive the Summer?

The end of the school year was today for my kiddos. Where has the time gone?

I went on a field trip Tuesday to the roller rink with Miss M and her class. Talk about a flash from the past. How many of you held hands for the first time on the roller rink? There was some fun activities while we were there, Miss M tried the hula hooping on skates and did pretty good!

Then we went to a local park for lunch. I can't imagine what the locals thought when 2 buses full of first graders pulled up. No kids were lost or hurt so we went from there to the OmniMax theater to see Mysteries of the Great Lakes. It was pretty good I thought, but it was mostly just fun to go with her class and enjoy the end of the year.

That night we went camping for a night. It was a beautiful night.We stayed in our pop-up camper in this field. It was pretty fun but BFing Cold! (don't ask what the BF stands for its not PC) I think it got down into the 30's that night and our heater is broken on the camper. I guarantee it won't stay broken too long.

The next day was beautiful though 60-70's with a slight wind and hardly a cloud in the sky. The older kids had school so Noley and I got to hang out there alone. We played a game.

I knitted on Noley's sweater.


Noley blew bubbles.

WE searched for and found some treasure.


We found some pretty rocks to take pictures of.

The field was used for haying so there were rock piles all around and in the field, big ones we could climb up on, so we did.

A fun end to the school year for all, I promise a FO for next blog post. The seamless sweater is done it just needs the right pictures taken.

Last but not least, it was KD's birthday last weekend and he turned 9, I thought you should see his new legos. Jealous? Oh come on you know you are!

It even comes with a little Darth Vader:)

Boundary Waters Bliss

In case you think I have given up knitting all together, here is a picture of my latest project. I am using the Yarn Harlot's sock recipe from one of her books. Webs was having a sale one a grab bag of Regia sock yarns, so Saunaknitter (Ravelry link) and I split the bag of 10. This is one of the colors I got.

This was the project I brought into the woods with me for last weekend's camping trip.


We go on this trip every year my girlfriends and I, it ranges from 2- 7 people each year but the core group has always stayed the same. I think this was the 8th year we have been doing this but I'm not sure. The first night there we were greeted by 2 deer, one was a buck with the velvet still on his antlers.

We enjoyed the best meal we can make in the BWCAW of steaks and mashed potatoes. Then went to bed late due to a malfunctioning bear rope, *#!&%*.The next day we were going to move camp but decided on a day trip to the back bay area nearby. Good thing we didn't move since at the end of the 2nd portage there was this.
A huge swamp of carpet-like floating grass and weeds interspersed with muck up to your thighs. We turned around and went back the way we came. We stopped at a sand beach for a little swimming instead.
It was heavenly. So was the sunset that night.
The hot bev's are always good too, I had to have a shot of ours waiting to be mixed up. Hot cocoa and tea were the most popular request.
Of course there were things to do like dishes and firewood getting, but it is all spread out through the days so it doesn't feel like you work all the time.
Every night we had a swim by of a beaver who's lodge was across the way from us. It was fun to watch them build their lodge and hear them "talk" to each other.
Our way out was easy going but a bit hot. The lake was like glass. It makes it hard to come home when it is like this.

Only one night of a quick rain and sunny warm days that weren't too hot. Good times were had by all.

Going Camping

I off to the BWCA for the annual "girls" camping trip. Bringing some socks to knit on, will update when I am back!

Back From Vacation

This is a picture heavy post sorry!

It's that time of the year again. Time to load up the camper and truck for a camping trip.

We headed up to Ely, MN and drove up the Echo Trail. The road is only good for a short while and then looks a lot like this.Then it turns to dirt.We got to the very small camp ground area. Literally this is all the space we had there. (Roasting marshmallows here.)Did a little fishing. This is Noley's first ride in a boat, he did pretty good. Two days were really windy so we headed to town for some time at the park in town. I can't remember the last time I saw one of these jungle gyms. The kids were all about it.
We made a requisite stop at the International Wolf Center. This is just one of the big wolves.
The highlight is that they have puppies! We got to see them for a program they have there aimed at desensitizing them to human contact.That wore out Noley who fell asleep eating a Oreo.
The last day brought a false sense of security with a sunny day to start then slowly disintegrated into thunderstorms and hail.

On the third round of hail we decided to go home the next day.

We did have a beautiful sunset that night though.

Our last stop on they way home was at an underground mine tour. KD thought this was the cats meow. I quote, "Mom, do they still have mines like that? I think I might want to do that when I grow up."

Home again, playing catch up with house stuff and kid needs. Happy summer!

Camping Queen!

We went on yet another camping trip last week. I am officially all camped out. This was a trip with the camper and kids though which was fun for the family. We camped, fished, swam and ate s'mores until our eyes popped out. All the kids enjoyed it, the adults did too. My brother's 4 girls were there with 2 of their cousins too. That made 9 kids and 8 adults. They just edged us out in numbers. It was a little rainy but most of the time it was sunny but not too hot. As always the last day was the nicest. Note the elaborate tarp system the guys rigged up. It was like a web of rope around there.

I got a huge kick out of my little nieces, the littlest one is fearless. The oldest is hitting puberty big time but is still willing to spend a little time with her old Auntie. The second oldest is quietly growing up way, way too fast, such a sweetie and the second youngest is full of mischief and a lot like Miss M. The kids put on a Talent Show one day it was the highlight of their trip I think.

Little Eva singing her ABC's.

We had some really funny times but the funniest thing was when my dad was taking down his awning on his camper and my oldest niece was sitting close by in a chair. All of a sudden there was a HUGE gush of water from off the top of the awning and she got soaked! Good thing she has a sense of humor! Too bad we didn't have a video camera on her.

This is a picture of the kids on the way to camping, there is no more room in the car!
On another note:

The problem with knitting something for your friend who is home with her brand new baby is that she has lots of time to look up things like your blog. Not that I'm complaining that someone looks at my blog but, it is hard to show pictures of the thing you've been furiously knitting on for weeks. It (the gift) is coming along with a few modifications. I love, love, love it. I hope she will too. The baby, Liam, will probably not care much but it is designed to keep him warm so I guess he will like that.

So yes the baby we have all been waiting for arrived July 11th. He is a gorgeous boy with Big A## hands. Sorry Jess couldn't help it:) I have never seen a baby with such big hands. I will try post a pic, with his mom's approval of course.

I got quite a bit of knitting done and made good progress on the baby gift. I will take pictures and post once she has the gift. Hope you're all having a great summer!