What Summer?

Labor Day is less than a week away; we’ve already been to the MN State Fair; we’ve had a couple of nights with temps below 40; a few trees are beginning to lose their green.  Fall is definitely in the air.

We spent some time beautifying our new driveway by adding a rock border.  We still have a ways to go on this project.

We have also spent time with cabin neighbors, either playing cards or just sitting and talking.  Bob and Kathy Almekinder came for a short visit.  It was so good to see them.  Here we are at cousin Steve’s enjoying the fire. 

Late last week we made a quick trip to the Twin Cities for a day at the state fair with Brett and his girls, plus LaJoy and her kids (a first-time trip for them).

The shorter days and cooler nights let us know that summer won’t last much longer.  We will still be here for a few more weeks, and more company is coming to visit.  Our plans for the next few months are firming up:  after a Nomads project at a church camp, we will return to working for Amazon (this time at a warehouse in Tennessee), then we will spend the winter in Florida doing Nomads projects and just enjoying the warm weather.

Update

Last weekend was busy.  On Saturday afternoon we went to Paige’s class reunion.  It was small (30 classmates out of 350 attended) but we enjoyed seeing some old familiar faces.  The weather was perfect for it and it was held at a classmate’s lake home not terribly far from the Whiteface.

We left the reunion early as cousin Steve and Deanna invited us to their cabin for a steak dinner.  We had great food and great company there!  We sat on their deck and watched the sun go down – it was a beautiful sight and so peaceful!

When we got back to our cabin, we saw the moon coming up.  The moon has been spectacular this week!  It can be so beautiful up here!

This week’s weather has been great – just warm enough and a little rain.  We worked on the ceiling in the cabin and shampooing the carpet.  Mom came for a visit one day.  Not too many projects but enough to keep us busy.

We’ve started collecting rocks and creating a cobble stone edging around the driveway to stabilize the slope and make it look better.  That’s hard work and not anything we need to get done in a hurry!

This weekend we have our good friends the Almekinders coming for a quick visit.  We haven’t seen them in for 2 years so we’re real anxious to see them!

The Summer is Flying By

We just noticed that we only posted once during July – Sorry, we will try to post more often, but can’t promise it.  We have had some more company when KJ and Rob came for a long weekend.  We had a good time playing cards, going for walks, and a boat ride.  They also brought their watchdog, Kody.

                                       Rob and Kody on the kayak

After they left, we spent a day in both Superior and Duluth, doing routine errands but we were able to fit in a stop for lunch with Joyce at one of our favorite burger joints in Superior.   We celebrated the signing up on Medicare and a Medicare supplement for Paige.  Should cut the cost of healthcare for us a little bit.

We have had the area around the cabin to ourselves for most of the summer, but our neighbors on both sides have been here this past week.  These 3 families have a long history here on the Whiteface, so there was a bit of reminiscing when they were all together.  Joyce came up on Wednesday for a barbecue with some of the neighbors and she also got an opportunity to visit with Joe who bought the cabin next door about 6 years before Cliff bought ours.  Lots of memories and activity with the kids around!

We took a few hours earlier this week to get in a motorcycle ride, checking out a couple of new-to-us county roads and stopping in at Mineview, a tourist information stop outside of Virginia MN.  Here on top of a huge pile of mine tailings is an overview of some former open pit mines

They also had a couple of older mining trucks:

These have been retired since newer trucks are even larger.  These make our motorhome look small.

The weather up here has been perfect – sunny and in the high 70’s.  It’s so nice to be here when it’s like this!