Scooting Scooter!

Nolan has begged for an electric/battery scooter for months. Yesterday was he lucky day in that Pete and I caved and finally bought the crazy thing. The battery had to charge for a very painful 18 hours. This is a shot of his second or third time down the hill by the cottage driveway. he loves his new scooter!

Summer Memories!

Well, as we get ready this week to pack up and go back to East Lansing, I started looking through some of our fun summer pictures. These are mostly of our Sunday afternoons with our friends who come from East Lansing for tubing,swimming,boating,sweet corn, hot dogs, watermelon and great, great fun! We have had so much fun on these Sunday afternoons it will be hard to say good-by to them. It is great watching all these kids together making memories! Our annual family portrait on the steps is included in this batch, too. It's been another fun and wonderful summer at the lake!

New Camp Themes

For several years we've referred to the cottage as Camp Kakela---even had t-shirts. This year, we once again, rearranged bedrooms. Pete and I moved to the sleeping porch. The girls moved to what was originally the 'guest' room and the boys moved to what was originally our room. The downstairs bunk room is now the babysitter's room. Aidan and Jane and Lilly had a great time decorating the girls room and naming it "Owl Cabin" and the boys room and naming it "Bear Cabin". Both rooms really look great and they did a terriffic job!

Happy Birthday, Darlings!

A couple of week ends ago my dear friends, Susan and Carol and I celebrated our 60th birthdays together at the Barnes Lake Michigan cottage. We liked to refer to it as the celebration of 180 years of wisdom and beauty.
We had a wonderful week-end of laughing and sunshine and relaxing. I didn't take very many pictures until Saturday morning when those kids we are married to took their inner tubes out into the big waves and got thrown around for a couple of hours! Susan actually went out too---always has to prove she's a lot younger than the rest of us!!!
Thank you Mike and Carol for such a great time! I will always think of it as one of our most fun week-ends, ever!

Summer Fun

We are all having a great summer ath the cottage! Ben and Jane fish from the time the sun comes up until it goes down. Everyone has become even better swimmers than they were before and we've caught some great turtles in addition to the fish. Ben has caught the biggest bass I've even seen come out of this lake.
There is a picture of Buffy with her friend Addison the night she caught her first first fish. She was pretty lucky in that mainly she dances and sings on the dock while the others fish!
The best additon this summer for John and Pasha and Nolan is a used 35hp boat to run around the lake and pull 'tubes' of kids behind them. John and Pasha are really nice and careful to drive all the little kids and their friends tubing and Nolan just wanted a boat! So, everyone's happier.
As for me, I pretty much am happy in a chair by the lake watching kids swim or fish or sitting on the screened in porch watching them chase fireflys!
I hope you are all having a warm and fun summer, too!