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.

No Tears

 

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

Newly Pierced Ears
Birthday Cake

 

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

Going For A Boat Ride With Nana
Fishing Lesson From Dad
Sunset
Pink Sky
Daisy
Aster

 

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.

 

Submerged
Overflow
Damaged Road

 

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.

Damaged

 

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.

Recap

A quick recap of the past few weeks.

Mike chaperoned Sophia’s school field trip to the Lake Superior Zoo.

2nd Grade Field Trip
The Overlook

 

We went to the Sullivan cabin over Memorial Day weekend. The weather was cool and somewhat rainy, but that didn’t stop Sebastian from christening the swim season by jumping in the lake.  With the air temperature in the low 60’s and the water temperature even lower, he didn’t stay in the water long.

Taking The Plunge
In Mid-Air
Contact
Splash
Drying Off & Warming Up
Life Guard On Duty
Cousins

 

Sebastian spent a day in the Twin Cities for his class field trip.  They visited the Children’s Museum and History Center.  He was very excited to enjoy the day riding in style.  They took coach buses instead of school buses.  It may have been the highlight of the day.  No pictures, he opted not to take a camera with.  The boy travels light.

Sophia finished the school year with a picnic at Chester Park.  The kids played, hiked and enjoyed picnic foods for lunch.  I stopped by for a bit to check out the fun.

Merry-Go-Round
Just Hangin’ Around

 

I celebrated my birthday at the beginning of June.  Mike and I took the day off from work and enjoyed most of the day outside on the deck.  We did have to do a couple of errands in the morning.  I renewed my driver’s license – nothing like waiting until the last minute.  We also had to go to the grocery store.  Mike informed me that for his birthday, he doesn’t want to spend time doing either of those things.

Birthday Cake

 

Sebastian’s class had root beer floats to finish off the school year.  They also spent time signing each other’s yearbooks.

Final Days

 

Sebastian headed to the bus stop for his last day of elementary school.  He barely stopped for me to take a picture.  He will be going to the new middle school in the fall.

Last Day Of School

 

Sophia sat on the big rock next to the bus stop to pose for her picture.

Last Day Of 2nd Grade
Close Up

 

The bus finally arrives.

School Is (Almost) Out For The Summer
The End

Cousins 2011

The Sullivan cousins were  all together for one final summer weekend at the cabin last week.  We missed out on taking a group photo on the dock last year, so Karen made sure we got one in this year.  It’s never an easy task to keep your balance while standing up in a boat and taking a picture of six kids.  The sun was bothering my blue-eyed children so we had to wait for a cloud to pass before they could keep their eyes open.  Sebastian wants everyone to wear sunglasses in next year’s photo.  Getting everyone to look at the camera and smile at the same time is also a quite a task.

Here’s what we got…

Cousins I
Cousins II
Cousins, III

 

We did get this “cousins” picture last year at Sean and Melissa’s house while the kids (minus Max) were enjoying the warm weather with a homemade slip-n-slide.  This is one of my all-time favorites.

Cousins 2010

 

And here’s the dock photo from two years ago.  Looks like they have grown a bit!

Cousins 2009