Wildlife

Sophia and I enjoyed the last weekend of “official” summer with a walk/bike ride.  We brought Daphne with so that she could enjoy the warm weather too.  The forecast of 71 degrees happened early in the day.  It cooled off later in the afternoon and then the rain began during the evening.  We spent an hour or so enjoying the weather, picking up fall leaves, acorns and other items for Sophia’s craft project.  We also enjoyed seeing some of the local wildlife.  No bears this day, thank goodness!

The first of the wildlife was a pair if deer in a yard about a half a mile from our house.  This doe was rather curious and watched us for a while before bounding off into the trees.

Oh Deer!

We saw a group of ducks including some nearly full-grown ducklings.  The colorful feathers on their heads had not filled in yet.

Ducks
Watching And Waiting
Water Fowl

We also saw this heron standing completely still in the pond.

Long-Legged Bird
Standing Still

When the bird had enough of our picture-taking, he/she flew off.

Fly Away

When we went around to the second pond, we saw him/her again.

Mirror Image

The geese spotted us and made their way over across the pond looking for hand outs.  We forgot to bring food with, so they lost interest after a while.

Snow White

Along the road on the way out Sophia stopped for a quick picture.

Biker

We noticed that some of the branches on the trees were sporting fall hues.

Colorized

Today’s weather is cold, windy and rainy.  We are glad that we got out yesterday to enjoy the last few hours of warmth.

Cousins At The Cabin

The Sullivan cousins enjoyed a warm Labor Day weekend at the cabin.  It’s so much fun to watch the kids, ages four to fourteen, hang out together and get along so well.  They stayed busy with swimming, boating, tubing and fishing.  The weather was gorgeous Friday and most of Saturday.  They even put on their swimsuits and continued the water activities on Sunday when the temperatures were only in the 60’s and the kids next door were in sweatshirts.

The weekend began in true Sullivan style with a bit of drama on the way to the cabin.  We left early Thursday evening and came across some nasty weather.  Fortunately, we were slower leaving our house than we had planned and came across its destructive path after the fact.  The system went through a rural area and a small tornado knocked down trees and did some minor damage to buildings.  We saw some amazing skies and although I wanted to stop and get my camera out to take photos, Mike didn’t pause our journey for picture-taking.  I did catch some of the clouds on my iPhone while we were on the move including this one of dark clouds looming over a farm.

Ominous

It was completely dark out by the time we got to the cabin.  Mike swerved around branches and debris on the road.  We also had to stop on the dirt road to the cabin to pull tree branches off our path from a fallen tree.  We also saw an owl catching a small rodent and fly up into a tree.  Quite an eventful evening and the weekend was yet to begin.

The first morning when we got up, Sophia found a very small frog.

Tiny Frog

Then it was time for some water activities.

Up
Down
Up
Down
Downward
Dive

All at once…

Up
Splash!

Here’s the way NOT to go tubing…

Balancing

Let the fishing begin…

Looking For The Big One
Got Em’
Taking Credit
Two Big Ones
The Cousins’ Catch

We took the annual “Cousins on the Dock” photo.

Cousins 2013

See how they’ve grown…

Cousins 2012
Cousins 2011

We missed a year at the cabin, but this is from 2010.

Cousins 2010 (Not at the Cabin & Max Was Napping)
Cousins 2009
Cousins 2008

We’re already looking forward to next year!

A Walk In The Park

After a long work week, we kicked off last weekend by heading down to the lake.  We visited the Rose Garden and Lakewalk. Sophia brought her roller blades and Sebastian brought his longboard.

Rose Garden With Lake View
Pink Roses
Bumblebee
Yellow
On The Lakewalk
Off They Go
Along The Way
Lakeshore
On The Rocks
Skipping Rocks
Looking For The Perfect Rock
Taking Photos
Taking A Picture Of Another Picture Taker
Making A Splash
Driftwood
Sprinkled In Sand
Water On Rocks
Outgoing Ship
Jet Skiers
Ship And Sail
Outgoing And Incoming
Getting Late
Super Night For Superman

Movies in the Park was just getting started when we were leaving.  Someday we will have to stay and watch a movie in the park.  Instead we made our way back to our car having already enjoyed the wonderful evening.  It was a beautiful night for a walk in the park.