Labor Day Weekend

The long weekend found us "Up North" at Big Sandy Lake. It was a gorgeous weekend and we had a great time. The morning and early afternoon we spent at Hanni's cabin where Uncle Tony read books to the kids after breakfast. Later we all found something to do: the guys churned the homemade ice cream and the gals and kids did the wagon ride routine.









Later in the afternoon we ended up at Shayne and Sarah's cabin where Addy played and played and we ate and ate.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Renny and Marlene!!!

I called to chat and asked where they were. "We're just south of Duluth on our way to Fargo," Renny said. That means that in about half an hour they would be 10 miles from us. So we planned a meeting place, then talked them into staying overnight and joining us for Shayne's "Up North" birthday celebration. Renny, not being one to turn down a big, juicy steak and corn on the cob was happy to spend the afternoon and evening with us. Dijon (the dog) loved the Minnesota outdoors too!

It couldn't have been better if we had planned it!

Bryan and Stacy

See you two when we are back in November. Don't work too hard, Stacy, and good luck on the promotion opportunity, Bryan. We love you both!

The Last Hurrah

When the end is imminent you cram everything in -- and that’s what we did! Monday we enjoyed dinner at Bob and Jo’s in New Brighton and with the nice weather had a chance to eat on the new porch. Their newly remodeled kitchen/great room/porch is absolutely amazing. I love the wall of glass overlooking the back yard.



Tuesday we were back at Mille Lacs cooking up a Mexican storm. Our new friends, Mary and Paul, are wedding photographers and have a lake place just down the street from where we park. We have enjoyed a few games of Mexican Train this summer!

Wednesday we said good-bye to the casino -- and our money!

Thursday we figured we’d better see Bryan and Stacy one more time before we left, so we met them for sushi at Taiko Japanese (the best little sushi place in Moundsview). It just happened to be Bob and Jo’s “family” night and we joined right in.

Duluth Day Trip

We've had a great little vacation here at the Carol and Jim Campground. The venison is done and now we're just sitting around enjoying our happy hours and desserts.

We decided to take a day trip to Duluth to tour the William A Irvine, a steel cargo ship of the late 1930s. Mark, a former shipman, joined us to fill in the blanks on the guided tour. It was a great hour and a half tour and we learned a lot.

After a short trip up the North Shore we stopped at Betty's Pies for lunch and then did the scenic route along Lake Superior home.

CAUTION: THE FOLLOWING PICTURE IS RATED X

Yup, the coach lost power at the bottom of the on ramp and we made it to the side of the freeway. It took us about four hours to travel from the south side of the Twin Cities to the fix-it shop on the north side of the Twin Cities. After attempting to troubleshoot the problem on the side of I-494 (20 minutes on hold with Monaco who eventually returned the call five hours later and Cummins who gave us good ideas but told us we probably couldn’t do it ourselves), we called the tow truck. It took forty five minutes for the tow to arrive and a good hour and a half to get the coach ready to be towed and hooked up. After the long trip around the cities because of construction on the I-35 bridge and construction on I-694 the coach arrived at Cummins North. Now it was wait for someone to be able to help us and then possibly a two hour diagnostic, and then a five hour fix it schedule.

In the meantime the tow guy says to me, “Is your last name Mitchell?” “Yes,” I said thinking he needed to double check before I signed the tow charge. “Well, Mrs. Mitchell, you were my sixth grade teacher. Do you remember me?” And I did, so we had a nice little conversation catching up on 18 years! It’s a small world!

Waterfront Bistro, White Bear Lake, MN

When there’s nothing left to do, one finds a nice harbor side restaurant with sailboats in the background and orders a wonderful seafood dinner and a bottle of wine!

When we returned to Cummins, they informed us it was only a fuse (which did take two hours to find--but they couldn’t tell us why it blew) and they did repair a bad Monaco job on the air filter hose (or something like that!) So $300 later (and it was only 8:00 not 11:00) we headed for our destination--the venison sausage making house of Carol and Jim--up north!

Venison Sausage--UMM UMM Good

The sausage making has become a summer occasion--after all we have to do something with the deer that was taken last fall and has been stored in Jim and Carol’s freezer ! We purchased 42 pounds of pork and Mitch ground all the pork and the almost 40 pounds of venison. Then Carol got out the spices and she and Mitch took the recipes for summer sausage, breakfast sausage, and pizza sausage and worked their magic.



Of course we had to try out the results before we packaged the sausage so we nibbled our way through patties from about 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. In-between we were packaging, forming rolls and wrapping.



Since summer sausage making is a two day process, the second day involved baking, unwrapping, smoking, rewrapping--and of course taste testing! (Click on the picture of Mitch to get a good view of the summer sausage!)


If you have already checked the Addy, Addy, Addy pictures, go back and reread them. I forgot something that was really cute!

Brayden Update

Congrats to Caryn who has just joined the workforce outside of the home. She took a job with a family owned paver company in Ft. Lauderdale as an estimator, but their interest in Caryn was her experience in design, hoping she can develop a design segment for the company. So Caryn goes to work and Jason takes Brayden to "school". The first day was successful, Brayden enjoyed playing with all the kids.

A couple of lessons to learn from Brayden, however, are shown in a couple of pictures I borrowed from Caryn's blog (BRAYDENandus.blogspot.com):

1) Just kick back and view the world from a different angle, whether it be clouds, butterflies, birds, or "copcas" (helicopters--four news choppers were flying overhead covering a burning building), and 2) Take time to smell the rosemary! (After playing in the dirt!)

Pat and John

Guess who we ran in to in Minneapolis? How fun to see Pat and John in our neck of the woods! They have been traveling with their friends Marilyn and Bill and the six of us went to Canterbury Downs Race Track. John and Pat shared their "racing" expertise, we had lunch, and enjoyed the outdoors. We learned a lot about racing, but we didn't win in the wagering department!

Addy, Addy, Addy

We spent the day at Shayne and Sarah's and had a chance to play all day with Addy. When I took out my camera Addy said "camra" and smiled so pretty for the picture. I showed her the picture and she said, "Addy," and kissed the camera. Then she said, "One more," and posed so I took another one, and she said, "One more," and posed again. I think she has learned to love the camera.

Addy in the swimming pool

Addy just loves to play, and she says "pool" "swimming". We will certainly miss her and her antics when we leave Minnesota.

The new dog, Harvey

We finally had a chance to see Stacy and meet the new dog, Harvey. Harvey is a two year old black lab/ rottweiler mix that the kids found at the Humane Society. He is the friendliest guy and is well loved in his new home.

Happy Birthday, Shayne!

August 12 was Shayne’s 34th birthday and Mitch cooked a birthday dinner of grilled rack of lamb with grilled red potatoes and grilled asparagus. We ended the meal with homemade coconut ice cream topped with Dulce de Leche con Ron (rum-flavored caramel sauce) and fresh pineapple. Bob and Jo, Bryan (Stacy had an evening meeting to attend), Shayne and Sarah, and we enjoyed the evening. We were so busy I never even thought to take a picture.

Before we cooked the meal, there was a little prep work. We took over Shayne and Sarah’s kitchen. In between times, Grampa had time to play with Addy who would say “one more” when Grampa would play “This Little Piggy” and would tickle her.

500 Card Club

It’s been two years since we played 500 with our card club. We have played cards at least once a month (and more when the kids grew up and we didn’t have kid activities to attend) for 30 years.

When you spend that much time with each other you never seem to get old because everyone ages together. It’s a great way to stay young!

Rick and Rose still had wedding stuff to do so they weren't able to play.

Steve and Diane's new house on the lake

Sunday we had some let’s hang out time and gave Diane and Steve a call. We hadn’t seen their new lake home, so made a trip to Sugar Lake. Diane and Steve prepared a wonderful Sunday dinner which we shared with Diane’s cousin and fellow teacher, Darlene.

Our old houses in Elk River

We were driving around Elk River and decided to check out the old houses. Boy have the trees grown in the old neighborhood. It was hard to see the house. We even ran into Linda, the old baby-sitter, and had a nice chat.














I guess the trees are pretty big in the new neighborhood, too!

Eric and Abigail's Wedding

We have been out of Internet connection and therefore the blog has been quiet. Not so our lives. There is always something going on to keep us busy.

We attended the wedding of Eric and Abigail last Saturday. Eric is a classmate of Shayne’s and the oldest son of our good friends, Rick and Rose.











The five Larson boys enjoyed all being together again.

Abby has just arrived in the United States from the Philippines within the last six weeks and Rose basically planned the wedding over the phone from Florida. Most of Abby’s family had not seen her until 48 hours before the wedding, including Abby’s mother who had not seen her in 13 years. Rick and Rose had flown Abby’s father from the Philippines to be a part of the wedding. It was a great family gathering.

Rose has been suffering from a gastrointestinal disease for the last three years. Although her condition is improving, it is a slow process and she still has more bad days than good days. She was a trooper to make it through two nights of partying with the groom’s dinner and the wedding. It was great to spend some time with her.

Friends at the wedding

The Grupas

Bob and Sue

Bob and Joyce














Nancy and Dave

JoAnn and Gary

Reg and Joanne were gracious enough to let us park the coach in their circle and then have cards at their house on an unconventional Sunday night!