The Fourth, The Sam and Itasca State Park

Hi Family,

We had a lovely Fourth of July weekend.

Did you? I hope you did.

If you have any photos, this would be the perfect place

 to share them (Hint hint. Ahem!!)

We were super happy to see The Froelich Family.

I think it has been five years since they were here!

It felt, to me, like they had never left.

It was happy.

We had a yummy lunch and just visited. Katie is so big, and

it was fun that Becky and her sweet little baby could be here too!

After they left, we were total bums.

We didn't even watch fireworks.

(We did see them during Buffalo Days, after all.)

We just lounged.

It was great!

We got up Saturday morning to drive to Many Point. 

Poor Sammy was running a really high temp, felt horrible and

just needed us. He was feeling somewhat better when we got there.

We got to swim and play on the fun island

Awesome!

The water was sooo cold!

Brrrr!

Dad and I both got fried.

Ouch.

It was still wonderful.

Then we had a ridiculous picnic lunch.

I say ridiculous, because (silly me!) I forgot 

plates, cups, and silverware. Oops.

We luckily had paper towels to use for plates and chips

 to spread Miracle Whip. Sam beveraged on 

the yummy lemonade alone.

And will you look at that sky!?!

So happy to see my boy!

After lunch we went to the archery range. It was really fun. 

I haven't shot a bow for a long time!

I actually even hit the target a good chunk of the time.

Did you know Dad and I got to do archery in P.E.?

After archery we gathered up Sam's things, checked in at 

Family Camp, set up our little cabin, and headed for Detroit Lakes.

 Sam needed a little break from camp.

We took the scenic route.

Lovely!

As we came around a corner, here was this mama

ruffed grouse, and a whole pile of little fluffball babies.

And they were, quite literally, in a pile.

When we started coming they hit the ditch, but mama

stood guard scolding us.

We saw tons of these guys.

It was apparently good sunning weather for turtles.

We also saw a whole island filled with pelicans. 

The whole island was white, in the middle of a lake. 

I wish I could have gotten a picture of that. Unfortunately, they were too far away.

After our loooong, scenic drive (shortcut. Ha. Snort.) we got to town.

We went to Pizza Hut and filled up. Delicious!

Then Sam needed a little Walmart therapy.

He bought himself a hammock.

I confess I'm a tiny bit jealous. =D

We headed back to camp and got pulled over.

Oops! Dad was going a little fast.

Thankfully we only got a warning.

At the cabin we started Sam's laundry and got ready for bed. It was so horribly, oppressively humid and hot. We could hardly breathe. We couldn't sleep even though we were all super tired. Then suddenly, "Boom!" A huge storm hit, that went on and on and on. Constant lightening. Constant thunder. Rain. Wind. Interspersed with super close lightening strikes and booms of thunder so loud that the whole cabin shook. I about jumped out of my skin. There was so much hail! I was actually kind of scared. If we had been home we would have totally been in the basement. Eeeek! It just went on and on and on. 

After it passed we slept like babies until morning.

Finished Sam's laundry.

Cleaned the cabin.

Loaded up.

Got Sam where he needed to be. 

Dropped him off.

Cried.

Headed out.

And then we decided to check out Itasca State Park.

It is gorgeous! I wish you all could have been with us.

The Dad

And The Mom. 

Not actually saluting, though that might

 be appropriate on Independence Day.

The Sun was blindingly bright. This is the only

way I could have my eyes semi-open for the picture.

We parked the car and walked to the headwaters

of the mighty Mississippi.

(Every time I write that word I still spell it in my head like a third grader)

M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i

A gracious stranger was kind enough to take our picture.

Wading a little bit.

Hiking along the river.

This was just so green and lovely I had to take a picture.

I'm a weirdo about moss.

I admit it freely with no shame.

This is the biggest White Pine in the Park.

It is about 6-7 feet in diameter.

A pretty little spillway between two lakes.

The sky was so amazing that day!

Is this someone's home? 

Or a multi-tiered dining facility?

We wanted to go out in these so bad!

Unfortunately, there were no paddles.

It would have been like heaven!

And off we go, heading home.

And see this tree? As we were approaching the entrance to the park, this tree let go and crashed to the ground right in  front of our eyes. It landed just a couple of feet from the road. We about had a heart attack! I can only imagine what the driver of the car on THAT side of the road felt like. Yikes!

Anyhoo,

We headed for home. 

We stopped at A&W for lunch.

We don't have one here anymore. We weren't impressed

We stopped at the Silo ice cream shop

 (remember the one by the flea market?)

Rum Cherry and Chocolate Peanut butter Revel.

And made our way home in really gross traffic. 

We were happy to get here.

And Luna was sooo happy to see us!

We love you and think you are great.

We hope you are finding things and people in your life

 that bring you joy and happiness.

You sure bring joy and happiness to ours!

Love,

Mom

And The Rain Came A-tumblin" Down

Greetings, All!

Welcome to the lovely, green, resort-like, and 

somewhat flooded city of Buffalo.

This past Sunday Dad and I were looking for an outing.

We thought about a long drive, stopped for just a 

minute to check out the lake, and decided 

this was outing enough.

As you can see, it has been raining like crazy here in Minnesota.

This is just down from the parking lot.

It was crazy windy and the waves were bigger than

I have ever seen them on Buffalo Lake.

These are some of the new instruments that have been 

placed all over Sturgis park and at the splash pad. There 

are ten (I think?) of various types.They are such a nice addition 

to the park. There are even drums up by the playground. 

It is such a happy sound all over the park! 

They are not tuned to a regular C scale, which I

thought was kind of weird, but interesting.

When they are played they have a sound much like wind chimes

This is the beach area. A couple years ago on Mother's Day 

we sat here enjoying the sun and polishing our toe nails.

Remember, Mia? This is the tree we sat under.

As you can see, there is pretty much no beach.

Here is the dock just in front of the pavillion.

Just behind these benches is where the flower beds are.

Here is The Dad in front of one of the new xylophone-y things.

I think it looks rather like a large (quite large)bow tie.

Pretty dashing, am I right?

Dad and I waded out onto this dock. 

It was quite the adventure and so fun!

 The water hit me mid-thigh at the deepest part.

 The waves were splashing and the dock was

 rocking like a bucking bronco. It was

 ridiculous trying to walk on it. This young guy saw Dad 

and I heading out and told us it was really

 dangerous and cautioned us like we were old people.

 It was really funny. (Rude!)

We went anyway.

Look! We made it!

Mom and Dad selfie.

Love that windblown look!

The sailboats were rocking like crazy and looked so beautiful.

We were wishing we had one so bad! 

It would have been so amazing to go out on one.

The fountain was doing some kind of wild dance.

The daylilies are blooming just gorgeously right now.

I really think we might just live in paradise.

The library steps

King's House from behind the library.

Again, The Dad.

The waves!

Super wet Mom and Dad after full on wave attack.

I had my back to the railing, trying to take a picture and

 protect my camera from the spray, and a giant sneak 

wave doused me.Can you see the difference 

in the color of the front of my shirt

and the back? Soaked!

And this is where we ended up.

This is the OTHER fishing pier.

We brought our fold up beach chairs, books and snacks. 

We made our way through the pounding waves and the insistent

shaking of the dock. (I really think it might have been

 trying to buck us off.) It felt completely like we were out on

a pontoon. No one else came out and we had the place

to ourselves. And there we sat, in our little piece of heaven, 

with our books, and our Nutter Butters.

And life is good in Buffalo.

Hope you have some sunshine, 

waves, a good book, and 

some Nutter Butters

 in your life, real soon.

Love you!

Kim

Launching The Boy

Well it is a bittersweet day in my world.

And this is another fairly mushy post.

If you can't handle mushy today, just

go look at a Jimmy Fallon video or something.

I'll try to be more amusing next time.

See that giant guy in the picture below? 

That is my baby, Sam

I know.

 He doesn't look much like a baby any more.

He is sixteen and off to his first job as

 a merit badge counselor at scout camp.

This is in the car on the way to Many Point Scout Camp.

He looks excited and nervous.

And he was.

Here he is in the doorway of his home

 for the next couple of months. 
What a a handsome dude!

This is a place without wi-fi or phone coverage.

Communication will be scarce.

I love that happy face and will miss it 
and his general silliness.
Here he is with his roommate, Sam.

I love that they are both Sam.

I'm not sure what he is doing here, but he looked 

so happy that I shared it anyway.
It was ridiculous how quickly he sent us on our way
 so he could get started on his adventure.
I think we might have been out of the car for two minutes.
Maybe?

It was a cool, misty, sometimes-rainy day.

And it was so beautiful.

I admit. I might have cried a little when we left.
Although it could have been the rain.

I wish I could have better captured the color and mist and 

 loveliness that we drove through. My camera batteries were dead and I could quick snap one picture at a time before it shut off.

 There was no time for fine tuning.

Grrr.

Seriously.

The green.

And the clouds were fabulous.

Anyhoo.

I called this a bittersweet time. And it truly is.

This is the first summer in twenty seven years that I won't have 

kids to play with in the summer. If you have ever met me 

(and you all have since only family reads this) 

you know that being a mom and spending time with my kids is everything to me. 
It's my gig.

I keep thinking about all the days at the park and beach. 
All the picnics and make-believe and music. 

All the noise and joyful hubbub. 

All the gardening and just playing and laughing.

And it was awesome!

But I am also thinking about spending time, dating really, this man I am married to. The idea of Ross and I kayaking and swimming and hiking and eating what-we-want-when-we-want-if-we-want, and just hanging out together certainly has its allure.

 It is almost like we get to be young adults again.

If only we got our young adult bodies back too! 

I am excited to get to know him (and me) better again. 

What to do? What to do?

Pretty much anything!

Anyway.

Life is a funny funny thing. 

It is so often happy and sad at the same time.

Is that what they mean by "when a door closes a window opens"?

It is such a painful squeeze of my heart to have to

 let Sam try out his wings.

And a bit scary .

But my stomach gives a jump of excitement

 to think about it, too.
For both of us.

I hope you are all happy today

 and feel the love I have for you that is 

way too big 
to in any way put on a page.

YOU ARE THE BEST

- Kimberly

(And another poem for your literary growth. Haha)

Riches

They say that times were tough then
That money was very tight
But I remember my childhood
And I know that can't be right

Mom would cook our dinner
Dad came home at five
We were all sitting at the table
Waiting for him to arrive

We wouldn't eat from a microwave
Or a restaurant down the street
We all ate Mom's home cooking
And boy that can't be beat

We didn't eat in front of the TV
Or with a phone in our hand
We weren't plugged into a stereo
bopping to the latest band

We would all sit at the table
Everyone in their place
There were never any surprises
We recognized every face

Brothers to the left of me
Sisters to the right
That's the way we ate dinner
Every single night

We laughed we joked we talked we ate
We were a family don't you see
Though some may have been raised poor
You can see it wasn't me

We ate collards we ate biscuits
We ate fatback and blackeyed peas
We said yes sir we said no sir
We said thank you ma'am and please

So when you talk of family life
Or how it used to be
Though many had more money
None were as rich as me
-Jeanne D. Rhein

Family

Best gift I was ever given.

Ever.

Ugh! Just missing all my favorite people today, 

and wishing you were here.

I'm thinking about you and loving you 

wherever you are.

Mom