We have had the best 2 weeks of weather we have had all year. The first entire week of September there was not even 1 cloud in the sky. 75 degrees, no humidity. Just clear, wonderful, deep blue Lake Superior days. This last week was the same, however the humidity creaped-up and took the "perfect" days away. Still in the mid 70's that felt even warmer with the moisture. The boys have started school this week, and Kellen LOVES 6th grade (first year of middle school). He has said that it's "great", "fun" and was disappointed when he had to stay home due to some complications related to his diabetes. Kellen disappointed he had to stay home from school. I NEVER thought those words would come from my finger tips! Kameron is now in elementary school by himself and has been such a great kid and member of our family. He tries so hard to please and make sure everyone is happy. He is such a delightful young man. What a great boy he is. Breanna . . . is Breanna. She is headlong into the 2's. It is always fun to see if you can re-direct her into thinking it is her idea to cooperate when she would rather be a 2 year old! What a challenge. Her personality is so strong. She is going to be some kind of leader of something. We are praying that she will be a leader of something good!

Today was the first day of driving all 3 kids to 3 different schools. Kameron was first to elementary school, Kellen was next at Middle School, then Anna at the pre-school where she goes for daycare. Today I get to pick them all up, pick-up some pizza's, then go home where we are having friends over for pizza and a fire out in the pit. Maybe some fireworks. I can't believe that Autumn is on the 22nd and summer will officially be over. Summer was much too quick. The kids are already picking out their holloween costumes which means the first snow isn't too far behind. Unbelievable. I'll need to get the canoe out atleast one more time to fish for some trophy Brook Trout. We have a lake very close from our home that has the Michigan state record for largest Brook Trout. Kameron still has a brook trout he caught from that lake still in our freezer waiting to be mounted for his wall in his bedroom. It is a beautiful fish. Not the state record, but certainly bigger than what you normally catch. We need to get out camping too. There is so much that needs to be done before the first snow, .e.g., paint the trim on the house, etc., etc.

Anyway, all is well here in the U.P. We are looking forward to maybe having some winter-time guests come for some winter-carnival fun. Hopefully some visitors will make their way east to see us! Just call . . .

This is all too funny. I joined Facebook around a month ago as a way to reach this boy that I'm seeing as a patient. He loves Farm Town, so I joined FB so that I can play Farm Town with him and become a good farming neighbor. Now all the sudden I'm able to communicate with friends that I haven't heard from in years as well as communicate and share things with family in a much too modern way. After grad school, I was so sick of the computer. I wanted to go back to pen and paper and never see an Excel Spreadsheet, Word Perfect document, or Power Point presentation the rest of my life! I thought email was way too impersonal, too easy. It lacked the effort that it requires to really show someone you care enough to actually sit down, write a letter, buy a stamp and find a mail-box to mail it in. Look at me now. A blog. A Facebook page. Communicating in seconds with colleagues that are at home. What's next? Treating children with Autism while sitting in the comforts of home? Technology is scary sometimes. FB is able to tell everyone everything anyone wants to know! I'm surprised that FB wasn't able to broadcast to everyone that I was bad and ate two rolled up pancakes with blackberry jam in the middle down in the hosptial cafeteria for breakfast this morning! Come-on. If you really want to impress me FB, I want to know when I'm going to bed tonight, if the Detroit Tigers are going to choke in the 9th inning against Seattle tonight, if Lance Armstrong is going to pull a hamstring in his next race, is Michael Phelps going to take any more bong-hits? Come-on, impress me. Because if you know everyone I know and everything I'm interested in, you should be able to answer just a few simple questions, right?

Hot Summer Days

HEAT WAVE!! Man, I tell you, these 85 to 90 degree days make me wish for winter. It has cooled down today to around 68 and that is just fine with me. Give me a dry, 75 degree day and I'll call it a perfect day. Throw in 85 degrees with high humidity and I'm ready for a trip to Alaska. We have gone to the beach the last few days for some family swimming in order to cool everyone off. The boys and I went out about 75 to 100 feet off shore to swim around and you didn't have to dive too deep to remember your swimming in Lake Superior. The top foot or so is relatively warm to swim in, but you try to dive to the bottom to pick up a rock, and it feels like your going to freeze. Great way to cool off on a hot summer day. The shallows are much warmer where Belle likes to sit and play with her shovel and bucket. She will hold on to my back while I swim out into the cooler water, and she wants to go back in to the warmer, shallow area.

It has been an odd summer up here. It has been cool all summer, without any hot streaks like the last week or so. It feels like summer just got here to tell you the truth, and summer is almost over. It is a strange feeling. The boys start school the day after Labor Day, and like I said, it feels like summer just got here. Even the trees are confused. In order for us to drive home from town, we have to drive through some woods. Some of these poor confused trees are already starting to change into the beautiful fall reds and yellows. It's way too early for that. We just started going to the beach this year! Next thing you know the poor salmon will start to run into the rivers early, dogs and cats will start living together, and we'll have chaos all over the north. What's a poor yooper to do?

I'm not complaining. I would much rather be cool than hot any day. With the southern, moist breezes it's been hard to cool the house at night. Everyone tends to gather down in the coolness of the basement at the end of the day. As I walk up the stairs with Breanna sleeping in my arms, with every step I feel the heat and the humidity rise; I want to turn right around and put her on the couch and let her sleep downstairs with the boys. But like I said, today was a nice cool down, with temps to rise again tomorrow to the mid-high 70's . . . perfect. It's funny to listen to yoopers complain about the heat. If they only knew how hot it can really get, like in say . . . Phoenix! I don't miss burning my hands on the steering wheel and I especially don't miss burning my thighs on the leather seats. I don't miss praying my air conditioner would blow cooler sooner than it did. What I do miss . . . friends.

Anna-Belle at the Beach

Great Northern Pike

Small Mouth Bass

Little Small Mouth with lighthouse in back-ground

Busy Summer Already

Here is a picture of Breanna at the Strawberry Fest Parade in Chassell, Michigan. All the kids surrounding her would pounce on the candy as it was thrown to the curb, but once she got the hang of it, she was able to hold her own against them. What a little dandy she is. She is developing such a personality and sometimes it is a challenge just to simply get her hair brushed in the morning, let alone, do another one of those non-preferred activities that can create quite the emotional outburst! All-in-all she is a wonderful little girl. Please. Thank-you, "sorry daddy" which gets me every time. Her mother is teaching her that all she has to do is say, "please favorite daddy" and then she is coached to bat her eyes, and she gets what-ever she wants. She loves her older brothers and uses them as her little play mates. Help up on the trampoline, ring-around-the-rosie mates, hide-n-seek mates, you name it, she can get them to do it. She will laugh and laugh with enjoyment while playing with them.

We were looking forward to having Uncle Richard and Uncle Trent come from out west for an fishingpallooza event like no other. But bad luck with health (flu) and unforeseen circumstances has canceled the event like a drummers bad elbow can cancel a show. We were really looking forward to the company way up here where visitors are very few and far between. Maybe a winter carnival can be planned that will include 80 mile snow-mobile trips, ice fishing, snow shoeing, or skiing. We'll have to wait and see.

With the time off this week that would have been spent with brothers and nephews and nieces, I'll have to get the family out on the lakes and do some fishing and camping without extended family. I'm looking forward to a little break from work and just relaxing with a fishing pole in my hands. Nothing could be better than watching bald-eagles skim the surface of a woods bound lake, no sound at all but the splash of a bird catching more fish than you. Man is it beautiful up here. I love it so much and I'm so happy to be up here, away from it all. When I want to engage with the big city events, I can just go to the big city and then come home to the "quiet-of-the-earth"

All is well with all of us. The boys are not looking forward to the end of summer vacation and wish the next 5 weeks would go slow as cold tar. Breanna has been going to day-care at the school districts pre-school since the end of June. There are some positives and some negatives about taking her out of the old day care but I think the positives outweigh the negatives. Hopefully she will get used to it and not be so tearful at drop-offs like she did at her old day care. Time has a way of changing us all.