The past week was everything an idyllic summer week should be. The first weekend was spent at Apple Canyon Lake with the whole family. We went out in shifts since there are too many of us to fit in our red boat. The lake gets pretty rough when there is so much boat traffic out there, but the big boys especially love being bounced around on the tube. Most of the time I was back on dry land relaxing with the rest of the group. We enjoyed brats cooked by the Scales Mound fire department and then stayed for the fireworks. It was a perfect day. We laughed so much and the five grand kids caught lightning bugs, played games, fished and just hung out together. It’s my favorite time of the whole year.

Before the rest of the family arrived, we enjoyed some 1:1 time with Kelby who was surprised with a go-cart from his Uncle Andy. Hopefully, he will be safe, but he does remind us of Andy at that age who started with a wooden go-cart that coasted down our street in Decorah and progressed to a motorized go-cart that he ran up and down the alley in Manchester. Next, came a moped that he hoped he would drive after we moved to Illinois but due to a later license age he sold it and bought a dirt bike which was perfect for our then-empty subdivision. Erin was swapped for Kelby on Thursday when Dawn and I met at this restaurant in Port Byron that’s right on the river. Usually, we meet in Cordova so the kids can play at the park there. It’s cool and shady and a welcome respite between turning around for the drive back to Freeport.

We usually find a movie that we are all dying to see but this time we had to create a movie matrix. Between the 13 of us we were interested in at least three different movies so we created a signup sheet to keep track of where everybody was going and what time they were going there. My group went to Karate Kid and we were enthralled. It’s a huge improvement over the old movie.

Molly’s family came back the next weekend to get in some extra lake time and we were so thrilled to see Jason get up on skis the very time he tried and to see Molly ski, as well. Considering what Molly has been through the last few years with her surgeries this is especially remarkable and wonderful for her Mom and Dad to see. The girls were scheduled to go to the Eclipse movie this time. The guys weren’t very pleased with it – in fact, Jason pronounced it the worse movie ever. Popular games for the week were: Mexican Train dominoes, Euchre, Monopoly Deal and Uno.

The weeks were super busy and now I’m returning to my outstanding photo orders. But I just loved going to Krape Park with the kids to run a remote control boat, watching them grow from year-to-year gauged by their size on the carousel, running round around on Kid’s Kastle and playing putt-putt golf. Oh, and their visit wouldn’t be complete without a trip to Union Dairy – lovely memories from the summer of 2010.

NIC TOOK THIS PHOTO

WHAT A POSE

MUST-HAVE Swords after THE KARATE KID MOVIE

PAIGE’s “Little Sally Walker” song

JASON and NIC – “Tube Me Gramps”