A Day at the Lake

A peaceful end to a great day with the Decker side of the family at Balsam Lake. For more of the fun, click here.

The top ten ways to know you've had a great vacation

10. Your baseball fanatic has swung the bats of Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth at the Louisville Slugger Factory
9. You've stood on a mountaintop
8. You've taken your family on a tour of your alma mater, and they enjoyed it almost as much as you did
7. You've discovered that your campground offers all the mini-golf you can play for free!
6. You can now relax poolside with your spouse while the kids swim their hearts out
5. Your kids disappeared for hours with their cousin and all you heard was giggling--and all you discovered afterwards was a cool fort they built and filled with stuffed animals
4. You've consumed enough sweet tea to keep you sweet for the next year
3. You've seen several old friends, and picked right back up where you left off
2. Your kids have enjoyed their grandparents as much as their grandparents enjoyed them
1. Your kids thank you multiple times for the fun trip

Besides safety, health and rest, these were some of the major highlights of our 3400+ mile vacation/odyssey through eight states between here and Florida. For more photos, click here.

Bethany is SIX!

We had a very fun celebration today! Bethany's birthday party was a garden tea party with several of her friends from school. They made table decorations and most of the fancy foods. It was beautiful. Then we had Bethany's favorite babysitter teach the girls a dance. They made sweet garden fairies! And there was a certain boy who joined right in there with the rest of them.

A great thing about the day was having Dave and Mary and the boys join us, newly arrived from Africa a few days ago, along with Dayna, who helped keep everything going! Bethany felt very special, and she kept saying, "Mom, that was a good idea you had!" I wonder who had more fun...

For more photos, click here.

Happy Father's Day!

Night at the Dome

It was a great night to go to the Twins game...for all the Twins fans anyway. We were so excited that the Braves were making one of their rare appearances at the Dome, but one could argue that they didn't show up. Even Ben's rally cap couldn't help bring them back to life. Oh well, at least we brought a few Twins fans with us. The Twins are going to start paying us to come pretty soon, because we seem to be their good luck charm!

Kidwatching

Summertime is magical. Granted, it affords extra time for sibling squabbles, but overall it is so good to let them relax and reconnect with each other. It gives me a chance to enjoy my truly favorite pastime: kidwatching. It's amazing to see what they do when given nothing but time. Make newspaper hats. Organize shells while eating popsicles. Pretend to be tigers. Have races with stuffed animals and a deck of cards. Drink out of the sprinkler. Sit on the end of the driveway (read TEST BOUNDARIES) in a wheelbarrow at sunset, waving to the cars that go by. Thank God for time to be kids...and more to the point, thank God for kids!

Stay tuned...the summer is young.

School's out!

Summer vacation has arrived. This morning at about 8:00 the kids started playing "Risk". Mac and cheese for lunch, playing outside with friends...so far so good! The kids have had an AWESOME year at school, with fantastic teachers (who let me volunteer a lot!) and really great friends. We are so blessed, and looking forward to more. But for now, let the games begin!

Oh, by the way, Ben's face still had the remaining face paint from yesterday's school picnic--he was painted as a tiger. Surprise, surprise!

What college students do when they come "home"

Our nephew Joey is staying with us until his parents come from Africa to spend several months in MN. Like every other college student, he enjoys catching up on sleep, talking on the phone, emailing, texting...and, of course, he brought a little laundry. It's great having him around! What I haven't gotten yet are the photos of him with the kids, but they LOVE having their cousin Joey around. It's just that they spend all morning wishing they could wake him up!