Always on the go

 
 
 

 
Plenty busy!!  Busy enough that even the little tastes of summer, like backyard watermelon, can easily be forgotten as mundane, we are fortunate.  We have had to celebrate some 'days.'  There was Sophia's birthday as well as Father's day.  The kids greeted me with an earlier morning breakfast in bed with cards and gifts.  I couldn't have been more proud.  There was birdseed and a new badminton set.  We managed to relax on the patio and play a few games until it got too dark to see.  Sophia's birthday was an adventure as well, she choose to head to Two Rivers and eat dinner down there, so after summer school was out we headed south for large plates of french toast and then off to the strawberry patch to pick and sample a little early summer sweetness.  We made some strawberry shortcake that night and froze up about 10 quarts of berries for later.   Ella had her last regular season game that day and plays tonight for the third in the tournament.  Soccer leagues will continue for a few more weeks.  We have been to the library three times already this summer and the kids are coming home with arm loads of books.  Grace and Merrick quickly reached goal to get a yard sign and are still plowing through the books and proud of what they are reading.  It is fun to listen as the four of them talk about the plots and characters of the books and series they have read, so many of them being in common.  Friday Ella, Grace, Amy and I headed up to Penninsula state park and had a beautiful bike ride on a maze of well groomed trails.  We had a few stops along our 7 mile route that include gorgeous overlooks and places to skip the ancient dolomite rocks.  The weather was perfect and as the day faded away we figured we need a wood fired pizza.  The girls were given dough to play with and after making a pretzel were allowed to toss it into the restaurants oven and bake it!  The pizza was great and not wanting the day to end we decided to walk the city streets and shops and then made our way over to the local drive in theater.  We pulled the bikes down from the roof and nestled into the car with tubs of popcorn to enjoy the double feature before heading back home and sleeping well past nap time the next day.  A couple of nasty sun burns have kept our pool time limited but we will be heading back soon and start working on the rest of our summer bucket list.