I love the passing of time

Don’t even know where to begin with summing up the past 2 weeks.

We don’t have all of the pictures uploaded, yet. Just this morning I took the ones off of our camera & put them to Fotki, but I haven’t even really had a chance to look through them myself (and my work monitor sucks, anyway). Allison hasn’t uploaded the pics off of her camera, yet (and, I know we all have some pics & videos on our phones). Just going to pick a couple quickly & post them here now (I am at work & should be working on the project that I was hoping someone would do while I was on vacation, so that I wouldn’t have to do it when I came back, but, alas , no one did). The rest are at http://public.fotki.com/gazoogle/2006_july/2006-07-31/ , if you feel like looking at 179 unsorted, untouched photos

Our campsite was inches away from a campground playground. The kids hit the swings right when we got there.

We toured a lighthouse on the 2nd day. Shelby was afraid to go to the top of it (and it wasn’t a very high lighthouse at all - about 3 stories). I think the fact that you had to go up a cast iron spiral staircase with open steps added to his fear. (Mine too, a bit).

Went on from the lighthouse into the State Park - beautiful view.

I believe there’s a matching photo like this on Al’s camera

Sideways pic of Annie & Allison on their way down from the ‘Eagle Tower’. It was too tall for Shelby or I to overcome our fears & go up - but, everyone else did.

Eagle Tower (Allison & Annie are up there somewhere)

Allison took this from the top of Eagle Tower - That’s Shelby & I in the parking lot.

Then we went on a two mile hike of Eagle Trail. The trail was marked as ‘Difficult’, but Annie did great - walked almost all of it without asking to be carried or for breaks!

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Cherry Harvest Festival on Saturday. U-Pick Cherries, face-painting, Cherry Queen. Jim entered the (no hands allowed) Cherry Pie eating contest (came in 4th of 4, but still did great!). Annie entered the Cherry Pit Spitting Contest & did as well as could be expected for a 4-yo who doesn’t usually spit her food (well, not for a year or so, anyway).

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Sunday or Monday, we took the Ferry out to Washington Island. Rented bikes & rode around, stopping at the Ostrich/Exotic Animal Farm & SchoolHouse Beach.

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Jellystone campground was great! Clean bathrooms & showers. Movies every night (except Saturday - when there was a DJ-driven dance). Very helpful staff. Clear, cool pool. Annie & Shelby loved mini-golf (Everyone else just kind of survived mini-golf, for their benefit). I enjoyed experimenting with cooking in Poppy (our camper) & on the fire. Not a lot of successes - but, definitely a lot of learning experiences (and enough food to keep us all alive )

Pics with Yogi!

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Thursday morning, we decided to close up the camper & splurge on a waterpark hotel in Lake Geneva, since we were going to Hedgpeth in Twin Lakes, WI on Friday evening.

Pics from Hedgpeth!

They Might Be Giants were good - fun show - you could tell that, despite the heat, they were still really making an effort to be 100% in the show for us.

Flaming Lips were AWESOME! Unbelievable! Joyous! It was, truly, an EPIC EXPERIENCE!
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Drive home on Saturday highlighted by missed turns, re-routed traffic in Algonquin, Overheating near Bartlett, being 5 minutes late to pick up the dogs from boarding & dead bird in living room when we got home. But, still…

Wherever we wander, wherever we roam - be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home