Happy Fourth of July!

It's the Fourth of July, U.S. Independence Day, and Trevor and I are spending most of it inside, watching the World Cup. And U.S.A. is out of the competition. This is sad for us, and for all real Americans.

So, to ensure that we are still properly patriotic today, even in our period of soccer mourning when we are forced today to root for Germany and Brazil, here is a blog to celebrate these United States.

I made this wreath and it's hanging on our front door. Nothing says U.S.A.! better than crafts (FYI: supplies not purchased at Hobby Lobby because they are American failures--nay, embarrassments.)

Last month I went to Springfield for an awards banquet and invited my mom to come along. While we were there we visited the Abraham Lincoln Museum, and there's nothing more patriotic than a man who inspired dissent between political parties, and who wore a big silly hat.

I don't pull off the hat nearly as well as old Abe did. And Mom knows it but is too nice to laugh.

Here's me with the Lincolns. They were really nice.

And in March, Trevor actually met Lincoln! They talked politics, music, and haberdashery.

Can I touch your hat? No? Okay.

 Ice cream cones are also patriotic, especially when they're covered in jimmies.

Yum.

And there you have it. We hope that all of you are also celebrating Independence Day the best way you know how, whether that involves barbecues, ice cream, silly hats, crafts, and even soccer.


(And if you don't care about the World Cup but like laughing, read the Slate article, Who Won the World Cup of Arm-Folding? It's LOL-worthy.)

Happy Fourth!

Catching Some Zzzzzzzzs

I've been preoccupied the last couple of weeks with putting the finishing touches on our back-to-school faculty development day, and have been spending more time with my school blog than with this one.

Now, this is not an excuse. So to make amends I figured I'd give you a taste of what Roo has been up to while I've been working. 

She's been doing a lot of this...

...some of this...

...a couple of hours of this under the couch...

...and a whole hell of a lot of this.

Although she manages to squeeze in a few hours of this each day, too:

So I know that when I start classes on Monday, she'll be just fine. In fact, she'll probably not even notice that I'm gone.

Sister, Sister

The other weekend, a few days after we'd returned from our annual Power family Door County retreat, we headed out of Crystal Lake again to spend the weekend on another lake with the Bork family for a celebration of Dad Bork's birthday (I think he's 49).

Our retreat took place at Greg and Paula's lake house in Michigan, which they bought last year. The terrific cottage is on Little Crooked Lake, one of the Sister Lakes, about 17 miles east of Lake Michigan. The whole gang was there: me and Trevor, Greg, Paula and Bo, and Mom and Dad Bork.

Trevor and I drove up on Friday night after work, and although it was too dark to see them, these two fellows were there to greet us as we walked up the front steps:

I love these guys

We didn't spend too much time jabber-jawing because we needed to rest; the next morning we were heading out on the lake. T. and I had gotten bit by the pontoon bug the weekend before, in Sturgeon Bay, so we were ready to rock and roll. Or, really, ready to go tool around on a boat and drink beer. You know: rock and roll.

And Saturday morning, we were ready. Greg and Paula, who are kind of amazing hosts, fed us muffins and coffee, and Bo let us have a few pieces of his watermelon. And then, it was lake time.

Greg and Trevor get the Super Mable ready for the waverunner.

Looking good, fellas.

Since we spent the following three hours in the water (swimming, waverunner-ing, pontooning, swimming, floating with a noodle...), I didn't take any pictures. So, just deal with it.

We broke for lunch when Mom and Dad Bork arrived from the city. And after sandwiches and chips, we were back on the water.

Mom "Grandma" Bork and Bo, who is either screaming at the water or about to scoop it all into his little gob

Paula makes pontooning look gooooood.

The birthday boy and his lovely wife

Capt'n Borkster

G + P on the Super Mable

Now, you may be asking yourself, "where's Bo during all of these pontooning shenanigans?" Well, see the picture of Trevor behind the wheel of the boat? And see that lump of beach towel behind him on the right? That's Bosco.

It seems that Bo gets onto the pontoon and almost immediately falls asleep. In fact, as soon as everyone was on board, even before Greg pulled out onto the lake, Bo got onto the seats, his butt in the air, and asked Paula to cover him with his towel. The kid slept for two hours.

Is that a pile of towels?

Nope. It's just my nephew.

Apparently the novelty of having a lake house and an awesome pontoon boat have worn off for Bo. Lucky for me and T., we had no such disillusion and spent the rest of the day floating about, our pale legs kicking around in the gloriously warm water.

That evening, Greg grilled us up some dinner...

The Gregs, junior and senior, in their natural grilling habitat

...and then after waiting an appropriate amount of time (30 seconds), we headed to the front yard to get the fire pit roaring so we could do this:

Oh, hello there.

The careful roasting of marshmallows

Nothing careful about Paula's method: light it up...

...and then cool it down.

And this was the result.

Dad was a little reluctant to eat something that had been speared with a stick and roasted within an inch of its gooey little mallow life, so he abstained from the s'mores and opted to bond with Bo.

I left my pants on the boat, but I don't caaaaaaaaaare!

After we'd ingested more sugar than was good for us, we ambled inside for another round of man vs. woman Trivial Pursuit. And, obviously, we let the men win because we felt bad for them. That's all we're going to say about that.

Trevor and I drove back to Crystal Lake and promptly collapsed with vacationitis. We had a great few getaways this summer--Austin, Door County, and the Sister Lakes--but we were happy to be back to a semi-regular schedule and some work on the new house. And that work will be the focus of the next few updates, so stay tuned!

Hope you all had a wonderful summer, too. And who knows? We might just get a few more days of warm summer weather before the snowstorms start in September!

A Summer of Lakes

Earlier this month we took our annual Power family vacation to Door County, WI. We've been taking this trip with the Power clan for about five years now, and every year it gets better.

This year we stayed just outside of Fish Creek in Juddville. The house we rented is called Kinney Farm, and it was a pretty spectacular place for a group like us. It had plenty of space, all the kitchen utensils and appliances we needed to make dinners for the whole family (plus Grandma & Grandpa Madel and Jim, who came for dinner one night).

The front

The back

The barn (the silo soon became a target for water balloon launching--keep reading)

The windmill

 And it was covered in wallpaper. Amazing, wonderful wallpaper.

 

Did you count? Nine. Nine flowerific, plaid-tastic, dot-mazing wallpapers.

But of course, we had fun outside of the house, too. Our first full day together, we went up to Washington Island to tour around and see what all the fuss was about. John and Fran had been there before, but none of the Power kids had memories of it, so even if they'd gone, years and years ago, they were too little to remember.

We took a ferry to get up there...

...and then we hopped on the Cherry Train (which is not actually a train) to see some of the Washington Island sights.

Sadie and Uncle Trevy-Trev, on the "train"

The Powers, heading up the caboose

We stopped at a little farm and Sadie hung out with this fellow.

He seemed a little vain to me.

This is the kind of rain barrel we're going to get for the new house.

Rae and Fran, getting real up in the Do-Co.

Uncle Neill, trying out the horse

Um, why is no one watching?! This is tremendous!

Aaand, Sadie shows us how it's done.

We headed back home that night, sun-burned and happy. Sean hooked up his giant projector screen, which he'd set up in the Kinney Farm's huge screened in back porch, and we watched cartoons, stand-up comedy, and episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia until we couldn't keep our eyes open any longer.

The next day we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's place to spend some quality time with them. And Grandma immediately set us to work pulling grass out of her beach walkway. We didn't mind at all, and it turned out that we're really good grass pullers.

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to pull we go!

Sadie's hands are too small to be good at pulling (yet...), so she and Sean hung out down at the water.

Who's cool? These three.

The finished, grass-free walkway

After we worked, we relaxed with Grandma and Grandpa. The day was warm and breezy, and we had a cooler full of beer and some of the best company I could have asked for.

Sean, Angelique, and Sadie, hanging around

This is one of my favorite places in all of Door County: the Madel's back porch

The only thing that was missing was a big meal, so we decided to meet out that evening for dinner at Cooper's Corner in Fish Creek.

The whole gang!

The youngest Power sibs

After dinner, we wandered up to Dippy's Ice Cream Shop for a couple of cones, and spotted a fish boil. Of course we stopped to watch.



Our second full day on the farm was a pontooning day. We rented a boat from a place in Sturgeon Bay and headed out at 10 a.m. on Saturday morning. We'd packed beer, sandwiches, and cookies, so we had all of our bases covered.

Captain Neill

Angi and Fran as we headed out onto open water

Fran, contemplating the day ahead (and looking good doing it)

The crew

Roo, unwinding after her adventures in the water (she did not like it and almost drowned Neill as he tried to get her back on the boat)

We returned to the farm that evening even more sun-burned than we'd been after the trip to Washington Island, but--I think--even happier: our bellies full of Coronas and egg salad sandwiches (a better combination than you may think), our arms tired from swimming, and our eyelids a little droopy with vacation fatigue.

But were we too tired to have more adventures that evening when we got back to the farm?

Hell no.

We all wandered down to the water to watch the sunset that night (we'd tried a night before, but missed it). The waterfront was rocky but serene, and we were the only people there. We watched the sun go down, skipped some rocks, and tried to ignore the hundreds of alewives on the shore.

The sun goes down at Kinney Farm

Who's that maniac in the middle of the picture?

That's us.

Auntie Rae and Sadie, just hanging out

And we couldn't end the night there, so we headed back up to the farm...

  ...and onto something that was essential to our stay in Door County: launching water balloons.

I'd gotten a water balloon filler-upper at the store the week before our trip. It was purple and came with about a thousand little colorful balloons, and I knew that we needed it for our vacation. So, coupled with a giant slingshot that just happened to be among our vacation supplies, the balloons became almost better than fireworks.

The Power boys get ready for the shot, as Roo looks on.

The next day, before T. and I headed back home, we all spent a bit more time together at the farm...

...hanging laundry...

...drinking beer...

...running with a tennis ball...

...knocking over Laura...

...goofing around with Letty...

...pretending we're a puppy...

...and being an amazing family.

We stopped by Jim's place on our way out of town, where Sadie and Grandpa John got some final minutes of quality bonding time.

So, Grandpa, here's how this game works...

Got it? No? Okay, I'll explain it again.

And Trevor dug up some of his old scouting gear (or was it Sean's? that point is still under contention).

It should still fit. Yep. I'm sure of it.

And then T. and I left the rest of the gang--who were staying until the next morning--and got on the road back to Crystal Lake.

The weekend following our Door County vacation, T. and I joined the Borks for our family vacation to celebrate G.B. senior's birthday. But that is a blog post for another day, so look for it later this week.

Until then, enjoy this weird July autumn!

Bye, now. Gobble gobble, and such.