First Day of School

Ok, so I am a week late on these but they haven't changed too much in that time.  We have a middle schooler and a high schooler now-hang on, this may be a bumpy ride, but it'll sure be fun!

What Jill did today...

Bought gladiolas at the farmers market, finished moving our stuff from the crates!, watched a beautiful sunset and sent my yoga teacher training form to Sun Moon Yoga in Mankato!!!!  Yippee!  I will start September 19.

View from our front door

The view from our front door-looks west over a field and the Des Moines River.

Mississippi-here I come!

We went to the Mississippi River last weekend on a seriously needed camping trip!  The weather was warm, the scenery was gorgeous and the company was great!  We boated up river a ways from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin and set up camp with the Hannas.  Serious fun followed for 3 days and 2 nights!  We swam, hiked, rock hounded, tubed and lazed in the river with the clams.  We made big fires on the beach and played in the sand.  We killed killed a spider that was, as Mikayla puts it, the biggest spider you will ever see in your life! Bigger then she ever wanted to see in the first place!  There were a couple girls on a Huck Finn style raft that were floating all the way down river that made us all jealous!

Jessy and Zane held the "Best Air while remaining in the tube" award while Abby and Mik took the "Best Air with a major crash-limbs flailing" award!  All were proud although it took the girls a while to realize they would, indeed, live.  Unfortunately no photos :(

The weekend ended rather abruptly when we were breaking camp on Monday.  We figured we would bring things back to the trucks and then play some more before we left.  So we took tents down, Matt and Chris took a load down river to the trucks while the kids, Cyndi and Jill finished up back at camp.  You hear about thunderstorms ROLLING in?  Well, we got rolled over by this one-complete with dime size hail and no tent to run to.  Chris came to rescue us after the worst was over and we made it back with no harm done.  But nothing dry either.  It was an exciting end to a wonderful weekend!