Weather – Page 29 – M. Sullivan Photography

September 21, 2012 M. Sullivan Photography Flowers, Garden, Photos, Weather

Signs Of Autumn

Although not quite officially fall, the signs are evident that it is close at hand.

The final garden flowers.

We picked the grapes from our Concord grape vine earlier this month. We had enough juice to make three batches of grape jelly (12 pints). My brother generously offered the grapes from his vine and even picked them for me and delivered them to our house. In total, I made six batches (24 pints) of jelly, froze 10 cups of juice (equivalent to 8 more pints of jelly) and made a quart of grape juice that we drank. I’m quite certain that I don’t want to look at another grape for a very long time. We are stocked with grape jelly for the entire school year of lunch boxes filled with PB&J’s.

Sophia’s school had a “Harvest Festival” this week. Students were asked to bring in something from their garden to show during the festival. We still have carrots, peppers, tomatoes and apples, but Sophia decided a bouquet is what she wanted to share with her fellow schoolmates.

She won 1st prize for her bouquet.

We were fortunate that the festival was early in the week. We had a hail storm come through on Wednesday which shredded the leaves on our few remaining garden plants, our grape vine and took many leaves and small branches off the trees. A few hours after the storm had passed, this was what still remaining on the top of our rain barrel.

The decks were littered with pieces of foliage and sticks.

We are planning to get outside tomorrow to take care of sweeping the decks and cleaning up the yard. A little bit of nice weather would be nice so that we can also enjoy my nephew’s soccer game Saturday and Sebastian’s last day of baseball camp on Sunday.

September 9, 2012September 9, 2012 M. Sullivan Photography Animals, Family, Photos, Weather

Labor Day Weekend

We spent Labor Day weekend at Mike’s parents’ cabin. We lucked out and had great weather. We enjoyed fishing, swimming, boating and playing in the sand. Sophia also found a special friend to play with while we were there. Here’s the recap in photos.

Sophia’s new-found friend…

Where Is Mr. Frog Now? Can You Find Him?

It was nice to see the kids working together to build a sand castle kingdom.

In the evening, we watched the full moon come up over the lake and enjoyed the campfire.

A little late night fishing for Mike and Sophia brought in a catfish. It was quickly removed from the hook and released back into the lake.

The next morning Sophia hooked a huge sunfish.

After Sophia’s big catch, Mike caught two bass. Tom and Sophia volunteered to scale, clean and filet them. I was quite impressed that Sophia took part in this. She is a city girl and becomes sad when a spider is killed instead of being released outside.

After the fish were cleaned, the kids continued work on their sand castle kingdom.

They finished the weekend with one last cannon ball into the lake.

It was a great way to end summer. Bring on fall!

June 27, 2012June 27, 2012 M. Sullivan Photography Family, Photos, Weather

Piercing, Boating And Flooding

It’s been a wild couple of weeks. We celebrated Sophia’s birthday nearly two weeks ago, spent a weekend at Mike’s parents’ lake cabin and experienced flooding in our city and neighboring towns.

I will begin with the birthday girl who has been begging to have her ears pierced for the past two years. We finally gave in and took her to mall to on her birthday to have it done. It rained the entire day so it was actually nice to be indoors. We also did a little shopping while we were there which Sebastian benefited from. He loves his new Nike shoes. 🙂

Here’s the birthday girl after the first ear was done, but before the second one was finished. You can tell by her face that it hurt, but she was brave and didn’t cry.

Here she is after arriving home from having her ears pierced.

We spent Father’s Day weekend at the Sullivan cabin boating, enjoying the warm weather and the lake.

We have had our share of precipitation this year. We had a big snowstorm in March and many, many inches of rain this spring. We welcomed summer with over 10 inches of rain in a 24 hour period on Tuesday-Wednesday last week. Our house came through it okay, just a little water in our garage and laundry room and a small area of damp carpet in the family room. Others we know have had extensive damage with several feet in their basements and also friends in Superior with 3 feet of water on their main floor and over $100,000 in damage. Some roads have considerable damage, others are perfectly fine.

Here’s how it all started.

We ventured out in the afternoon after the water had receded a bit on Wednesday. Here’s a look at our neighborhood.

Below is the road that Sophia’s friend lives on. She was at Sophia’s birthday party just two weeks ago. Now they can’t drive out of their driveway. Photo from MPR website.

We didn’t have any damage at either of our workplaces and feel very fortunate to have come through the flooding with no damage at our home as well. We know many others that have a long road of clean up and rebuilding. Please keep them in your thoughts.