Saturday Scraps - Super Sisters

Have camera, have something to occupy an afternoon. 

There you have it. Cheap fun at its best. 

I'm linking up with Jennifer at Knees and Paws today for her meme Saturday Scraps.
Saturday Scraps is a blog hop to share scraps of life, memory or process.
It's a friendship quilt in the making.

Monday Mugs

I haven't done a Monday Mugs post for awhile now but this week's assignment is "Just one picture from last week."  Just one picture. I can do that. So without further ado, I present just one picture from last week. 

You might rightfully ask what this is. That, my friends, is a Tree Quilt, a project Anna did with a few classmates in her Earth Art class. I never would have thought to do that but I'm not artistic. I think it's cool but it seems like a lot of work just to have to leave it hanging it there.

You can check out other Monday Mugs at Oswald Cuties.

Anna's Turn

I shared last month that Keith had each of the girls write something about our trip to Ontonagon. This is what Anna (age 17) had to say:

Vacation felt wonderful after lifeguarding this summer at camp. Camp was amazing and I’m so glad that I went. It taught me many things, helped me grow in my walk with God, and I feel like it’s really helped me prepare for going away to school this fall.

Camp was also exhausting and I didn't have very much free time. It took a lot of physical, mental, and emotional energy. I wouldn’t trade my summer but after a lot of work, vacation felt priceless. 

I loved being able to stay up late and sleep in. I loved having time to read and to journal. 

I loved all of the lazy beach days and just being able to lay out and soak in the sun. I loved the calm, relaxed feeling of this vacation.

 

But one of the things I loved most of all was that it was just family. No running to people’s houses. No dropping off this person here or that person there. Just us staying at the same place, doing the same things, and enjoying each other.

I love my family and am blessed to have them. I can truly say that my sisters are some of my best friends. Sometimes they can really get on my nerves but who doesn’t get on somebody’s nerves at one point or another. It’s life and we always work through it.

I wouldn’t trade my family for the world and appreciate all the time and effort Mom and Dad have put into us. They’ve done great and I thank God that they’re my parents. And I also thank God for each and everyone of my sisters and for my one and only brother. I am blessed and I will miss my family this fall when I'm away at school. 

Other family members chimed in on this topic. Click on their name to read what they had to say. Erica, Angie, and Keith.

I'm Still Here

"Mom, your blog is out of date!" (Yes, I know. I've been busy)

"Mom, you haven't posted for awhile." (Guilty as charged)

"Mom, our ages aren't right."  (Do you really think people keep track of your ages? But if it makes you feel better, I'll fix it.)

"You're going to lose your followers." (I hope not. Good followers are hard to find. Do friends stop being friends just because you haven't talked in awhile?)

Every day I plan to write a post and before I know it the day has evaporated.

Tonight I laid in bed for two hours, tossing and turning, completely unable to fall asleep. So here I am in the middle of the night, blogging, of all things. So much has come at me our way the last few weeks that I don't have any profound or witty things to say. I'll share a little bit of the hamster wheel I've been on.

*Keith's Mom had surgery to remove a skin cancer spot on her leg.

* My parent's were both hospitalized for pneumonia. They're home now and doing better but this is the first time my Dad has been in the hospital in a long time. We don't live near Keith's Mom or my parents so we're not doing any of the after hospital care, but there's phone calls to be made and worrying to be done. Even though worrying is wrong I have a hard time not doing it.

*Our adopted college student returned. We're happy to have our Canadian back in town.

*I went canoeing on the Brule River with our Youth Group. Lots and lots of fun.

You can't see me because I'm taking the picture

*Christina and Kiah started nursing school. We thought they were going to kill each other the first two days and hoped it wouldn't be a long year. But they both calmed down and things are going much better. It's a hard program and we suspect they were taking out their nervousness on each other.

*Erica started her second year of college in her Occupational Therapy program. I'm thankful for a good affordable local technical college since we have a platoon of girls who will need to go.

*Anna broke my heart by leaving for a semester. Seriously, who goes to boarding school anymore? Do you know anyone who goes to boarding school besides the girls on The Parent Trap? Three weeks down, eleven more to go. I'll write more about this in a future post.

*With all the other girls doing their own school thing, Amy, Lani, and I have started another year of homeschooling. Three days down, 150 something more to go. So far, so good. Sure would make things easier if I could find the geography book. The older kids all liked geography so I'm pretty sure no one lost it on purpose.  Sigh! I am so not organized.

*I was foolishly deceived by all those wonderful do-it-yourself blogs that take yucky looking furniture and transform it into something seriously awesome. A month ago I started painting Amy and Lani's bunk beds. My beds did not turn out as well as the blog projects. My family is ready to commit me as I still don't have them done. Keith warned that he wants his side of the garage back.

We're going camping Sunday night. Since Keith is a pastor, camping on the weekends doesn't work for him. But come Sunday afternoon, we're out of here and headed to Big Bay State Park on Madeline Island for two days. Keith wouldn't camp if I didn't push the issue, but it's my birthday on Sunday so he's obligated to be nice to me.  I'm really hoping it doesn't rain. Who wants to sit inside a tent in the rain on their birthday?

It's now 4:30 am and I'm going to try sleeping again. Good morning, everyone.

Ontoganized

Around here school doesn't start until after Labor Day so that's why we're still posting vacation pictures when other people are posting Back to School pictures. As a homeschooler, we start whenever we want, but it's not easy to convince your children to start school when their public school friends haven't started yet.  

Keith did something neat on our recent trip to Ontonagon, MI. We spent the afternoon at the beach either swimming or cogitating. 

Then he sent us off for 45 minutes with notebooks and asked us to write about our vacation. 

After which he built a fire on the beach and we roasted hot dogs. I'm not a big fan of hot dogs but they taste great cooked over a campfire. 
 
We forgot roasting sticks so Keith improvised by duct-taping two bamboo skewers together. Then he stuck them in the mud near the shore so the waves would wet the sticks and keep them from burning whilst we cooked our hot dogs.

After eating, he asked us to gather, still on the beach, mind you, and read to each other what we wrote. It was a sweet, affirming time, probably the highlight of our week. By then, the coals had burned down just right for S'mores. 

Then we sat and watched the sunset over Lake Superior together. 

Talk about soul satisfying. 

Some random thoughts Keith wrote about our trip:

I've been Ontonagonized. 

I really like this place. I don't know why but it's very hard for me to relax. Not until five days into this vacation was I able to quiet down inside.

I needed this break. I take on many problems, mostly my own, but people share their burdens with me and it weighs a lot after awhile.

I’m fascinated by how my girls can seemingly go with the flow and adapt to different sleeping arrangements. As a kid I hardly every slept anywhere other than my own bed in a very familiar bedroom.

I love my family, every one of them. It is good to have them here.

This is about as close as it gets to my style of relaxing.

I whine a lot.

I LOVE the beach.

I love to watch my kids play in the water

They are growing up so fast.

Time is short, eternity is long.

(Click here if you want to read my take on vacation and here if you want to read Erica's version.)

Beach Bums

On our recent vacation to Ontonagon, Keith had us each write about our week. My installment can be read by clicking here. This is what Erica wrote:

Our family vacation was magical. That's because we were so ready to take a vacation that anything we did was fun. Even with a few minor fights along the way, we interacted positively and genuinely enjoyed each other’s presence. 

Such a relief after lifeguarding all summer to know this beach wasn't my responsibility.

An amazing gift was the weather. It was glorious to look outside each morning and see the sun. Every place we went was beautiful and awe-inspiring. It’s crazy that beautiful places like this exist a mere couple hours away from home, not in some foreign country.

My favorite sight was simply Lake Superior.  Every time I see it, it makes me happy. The horizon was absolutely stupendous!  

I'm trying to dunk Kiah

I'll always remember sitting by the lake one night and seeing huge black storm clouds and lightning dance across the horizon.

I also enjoyed the sound of the waves rolling onto the beach. I love how the lake changes personality. One day, it's super calm, almost without a ripple. 

The next day it has big waves breaking into white foam as they roll onto the beach.

 

I enjoyed our beach house. It was such a blessing to stay there and it was just what we needed. It’s inspired me to find my own house sooner or later (definitely later)

I’ve also enjoyed seeing Mom and Dad relax.

I was thankful to do all these activities with my family and to share these beautiful, wonderful things with them.

I’ll always remember our hike across the Porcupine Mountains. It was challenging and beautiful. Even though the hike was hard, we had fun and cooperated with each other. 

One of my favorite sights was the Lake of the Clouds. It took my breath away when I saw it for the first time. There were some great looking storm clouds that day as well.

I also liked walking around Houghton. It’s such a cute, quaint little town. We ate at a cool restaurant called, "The Library." We talked about old memories and shared inside jokes with each other.

Then there was Great Sandy Bay north of Houghton. What an amazing day! Even though the water was cold, we simply did not notice because we were having way too much fun! We body surfed for over an hour. (Even Mom)

Sure things weren’t always amazing. Ticket to Ride kicked my butt  bottom (oh the hardships of writing a blog post for a Mother who doesn't like the first word I used), Mom and the girls took forever at the surplus store and Amy felt a little left out at the beginning of the week, but they were very minor incidents in a majorly fun vacation.

I thank God for the great time He gave us and the beauty we experienced. 

Happy Campers

Lake of the Clouds - Porcupine Mountains State Park

We just got back from a week vacation with five of our seven children. I almost don't want to tell where we went because it was so quiet and peaceful and if people find out how wonderful Ontonagon, Michigan is they'll all want to go there for vacation and then it won't be quiet and peaceful any more.

My usual vacation philosophy is to visit anyone we ever knew, try new things, pack each day as full as possible, come home exhausted, and take two weeks to recover.

Keith always said those kinds of vacations were exhausting. To which I usually said, "So?" Vacations aren't about resting and doing nothing. I can rest at home. On vacation I want to be doing something, preferably things I haven't done before.

This year reality trumped my desires. Depleted savings dictated we try Keith's idea of the perfect vacation, which is staying in one place, not doing much of anything, sitting by a lake, and reading a book. 

Turns out he was right. We had a great time. Or to be more honest, we had an 87% good time. 6.5 days out of eight were great, the other 1.5 marred with an argument or two and the fallout of seven imperfect people in close quarters for a week. But all things considered we had a nice time.

I've sung Lake Superior's praises before but we saw a new side of her this week. We live on a bay close to the Apostle Islands so we can always see land across the lake. But in Ontonagon, we were on the open lake and can't see the other side. It's like being at the ocean. Hot sand, long beaches to walk on, waves, driftwood, sea gulls, and sand dunes.

For some reason I've yet to discover, Michigan owns a chunk of land attached to Wisconsin, not Michigan. This "Upper Peninsula" is abbreviated "U.P." and residents are nicknamed, "Yoopers." (U.P. mutated like this - U.P. - pronounced as letters, 'You - Pea' morphed into U-pers and then abandoned all restraint and went straight to "Yooper.") I'm explaining this so if you ever visit Upper Michigan you won't give yourself away as a tourist by asking what a Yooper is.

Ontonagon (pronounced On - tuh - naw - gin - stress on the "On" and let the rest bounce off your tongue) is two hours from our home and located on the western edge of the U.P. 

A friend let us use her empty house that she's trying to sell. At first I had a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that we'd be staying in an empty house and would need to bring everything. But then I told myself to think of it as a really nice tent. We brought air mattresses, a small folding table, camping chairs, lots of games, and set up housekeeping. 

Erica

The girls loved the cute little house. It worked perfect for us. Kiah walked through it and said, "Now this is the kind of camping I like." I'd much rather sleep in a tent, but I'm not going to lie. Indoor plumbing, electricity, and a working stove and refrigerator were really nice.

The week's highlights included:

Swimming everyday

Watching the sun set over Lake Superior every night

Body surfing at 10:00 at night in their clothes

 Hiking in the Porcupine Mountains State Park

Digging a hole in the sand, roasting Hot 

Dogs and making S'mores on the beach

Umpteen games of Ticket to Ride, a game Andrew and Rachel gave the girls for Christmas. Anna, the stinker, got the high score of the week.

- Watching the movie Soul Surfer on my laptop - 
- Sitting on the beach late at night watching a storm over Lake Superior -

- Day trip to Houghton and Great Sand Bay -

We took tons of pictures and I'm trying to decide how to share about our trip so you won't get tired of hearing about it and your eyes won't glaze over. Keith had us each write about our vacation so in future posts I'll let our family members speak for themselves.

Stay tuned...