Bales

This painting was created by Steven Henning from Evansville.  We've been lucky to have him as a artist in residence at our school a few times.  I found this painting on his website a couple of weeks ago and absolutely love it.
Yesterday, on my way home from Elbow I had to stop and take some photo's of these bales just along the "shortcut road" to Barrett.  
The big one looks like it's about to roll down the hill.
I like it in black and white and the farm in the background is a nice addition don't you think?  I didn't even plan that.
I did a color boost on this picture and a little fading around the edges.  On the way up to Shari's, Ellen and I stopped to take photo's of an Amish hayfield.   They had little old fashioned stacks, and you don't see that everyday.  It would be neat to see how they do their corn.  

Better Loon Picture

Okay, this is the picture I was looking for.  In this photo alone, there are 20 loons and there were more off to the sides and some were diving too so our best estimate was 35 for sure...maybe more.    I'm guessing it is quite a few loon families congregating for fall migration. Or possibly a lot of loons raise families on this lake.  It's very clean and deep.
I should have taken a better picture of Paul's fishing boat.  Dad asked me about it and I couldn't even tell him what kind it was.  Shari, is it a Crestliner???

Swan Lake Boat Ride

When I was up in Keewatin, Paul took us all out for a nice long tour of Swan Lake near Pengilly on Friday afternoon.  It was wonderful!  Here are a few fun pictures.  I have some neat house/cabin pictures but will post them later.
Carly didn't really want to go at first but she ended up having a great time.  Shari let me wear her favorite vacation hat and I didn't lose it!!
This isn't the loon picture I thought it was.  I have a better one that I will post later.  I am sure that I will never again see so many loons in one spot in my life.  At first, we were excited to see 5.  Then we saw at least a dozen in one spot.  At the end of the ride, we counted around 35 loons all hanging out together!  They did a little calling too, probably a warning cry, it was amazing.  I commented that they should call Swan Lake, Loon lake instead.

Ellen got the navigator's seat!

Paul usually fishes on this lake but was happy to just do a tour for us that day.  Thanks Paul, it was so much fun!   (Doesn't Paul have a nice fishing boat?!)  Thanks for the walleye you sent home with me too!

Carly is flexible!!

I bet you can't do this!  And if you say you can, then I'd like you to prove it.

David reads....

Doesn't David look cozy?

I think I need a better reading light for the bottom bunk....

David finds another quiet spot to read...in front of the neighbor's cabin.  They weren't there that weekend and we're the ones who gave them this little hammock anyway!

Okay, I'll stop following you now, David.  Read in peace.

Go Twins!

Shelly sent this neat picture of Sam & Miranda before the Twins game today.  She doesn't know if they got circled or not but don't you think they should have?  Great sign, Shelly! You can tell it was made by a teacher. :)  Glad the Twins won!

Larson Weekend

All the Larson Family minus Paul was up last weekend.  It started off with rain on Friday when just the Floms were up.  Sat and Sun were very sunny and Monday was very rainy again so I guess we were pretty lucky.  Here's Ellen with Gracie who is just learning to walk.  It was fun to watch her.  She's such a happy pleasant baby!
Ellen's favorite cat is Maisy.  She also happens to be the hardest to catch!  Carly likes kitties too but at a distance.
Royce snapped this of us Sat afternoon.  We got this at Costco and it's perfect just for lounging although it's great behind the jet ski too.

Mom taught Carly how to play badminton and they played for close to 2 hours I bet!  I made them pose here.  I have lots more pictures to post.  Shari and Carly stayed til Tuesday morning.  Ellen stayed with me and we're having fun together just the two of us.  Later I will bring her back to Keewatin and spend a few days up there too.  We have a full day ahead of us in Elbow so I'd better get ready to go.  Ellen is going to help at the Bargain Bazaar today.

Vegas catch up

We stayed at the Monte Carlo mainly because of it's great location on the strip and nice pool area but my favorite hotel is the Bellagio.  We stayed here once and loved it.  This glass piece or whatever you would call it is in the hotel lobby.  I might put the top picture in a frame someday.

This photo of Dan is taken on the Bellagio grounds but you can see the Paris hotel in the background, the Venetian too I guess.
Just laying out here (in the shade) enjoying the view of palm trees overhead and construction straight ahead!
I got about 4 inches cut last week and had Dan take a photo for you.  My favorite thing about Vegas is that my hair doesn't flatten due to humidity.  I LOVE Vegas hair.  No wonder they just had the hairstyling convention there last week.

So, what haven't I told you about Vegas...we went to Penn & Teller one night and enjoyed their show.  It's basically a show where they explain all the tricks but it still looks pretty magical.  They're funny guys.  We caught Teller talking outside after the show with a big crowd around him.  Penn was further down the hall with a smaller crowd so I went up and said hi and got to give the big hairy sweaty guy a hug.  My lucky day!!!   Too bad we didn't have the camera along.

We ate too much food at the buffets, relaxed a lot during the day at the pool, read a lot, did a little bit of gambling, and spent time out enjoying the sights on the strip.  We discovered that it isn't much hotter there in August than June.  A cab driver told us that June-Sept are pretty much the same.  He also said that things are dead in Vegas, the economy is really hurting them.  We decided to go because of the cheap airfare/hotel so maybe there will be more of that in the future.  We only stayed for 2 nights and that was just right as we were ready to get home on the 3rd day.  

More fun in Vegas

Bette Midler is awesome. 

Yes, we spent our entire trip at the wax museum.   This is why we didn't win any money.  We were too busy staging photo's just for this blog!!!  You think I'm kidding don't you.  Your pleasure is worth much more to us!!!

He should have worn a suit.

One of the coolest guys ever!!!

Dan's dream job!

This is definitely NOT my dream but how can you resist this photo op?!

More Stars

Getting chummy with Cameron Diaz.

Tough Guys!

A tough guys needs a good body gaurd.

I said...yes!!!!!!

No!!!!!!

(Actually, I had to MAKE Dan put his hand there.)

Stars in Vegas

We bumped into some celebrities in Vegas this week.  We were there from Tuesday-Thursday. It was a fun trip even though we didn't win any money.

Simon liked me!!

Dan liked Jessica!!!

The King Lives in Vegas!!!!

We had a lot of fun at Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum.  I'll add other pictures in the future.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes!!  Nice to hear from you Jimmer.  We miss you!!

44 on the 4th!

Is that still like a Golden Birthday?  I was born in 1964,  there's another 4 for you.  It's 2008 and 4 plus 4 is 8, wow......freaky.  Okay, I'm stretching it a bit.  

At my ripe old age, I learned something new this weekend.  Charice taught me how to text. Thanks Charice!!!!  I could read them but now I can even send them.  I've sent out a few and am becoming somewhat proficient.  It's a handy thing, this texting, I can see why people have been doing it for the last hundred years!!!  Better late than never.  

Wow, why am I up so late...I need my sleep at my age.

Good night!

Friends/Storm pictures

A lovely weekend with great friends!

Do you see the storm coming up behind us?  There's the finger in that cloud just behind Sean's head that was shooting out.  Jan, Gary and Toby stopped over with garden produce and Jan took this photo for us.   Thanks Jan!

In minutes, it looked like this.... so the 6 of us (and Toby) headed for safe shelter...inside the screen tent.  Toby was the only one with enough sense to want to go inside.

And then like this.  There was lots of thunder and lightening so we heeded Toby's warning and ran over to Jan and Gary's cabin.  (That way Charice and Sean could see it!) After some wind, lots more thunder/lightening and a 1 mn downpour it cleared out.  We all headed back to the tent  and enjoyed the following sunset back in the screen tent.  

We ended up having dinner in the tent dark after all the storm excitement.

It's a good thing we put the stakes in!

Yep, that was pretty close.

Munsinger Gardens-Trolling

On Friday morning, I picked up Charice in St. Cloud where Sean was working-bright and early in the morning!  We toured the Munsinger/Clemens Gardens on the river.  It was Charice's first visit.  It was absolutely gorgeous- nice and quiet at 7:30 am too.  If you've never been there, it's definitely worth a stop if you're in the area.

We arrived home and got our outfits ready for a little trolling.  Charice was the official "Face Painter!"  She did a great job as "Horace" the troll!!!  We had a lot of fun and besides trolling we hit a few rummage sales, took a tour of the Bargain Bazaar, my classroom, the public library and other events going on that afternoon.  There were 30 rummage sales but I only went to 4 including a huge one at the Humane Society.  People have a lot of junk(treasures) to get rid of I guess.  Nancy, does Charice's mask look familiar??  Charice only made one toddler cry and she was at least 10 feet away.  It must be the mask as Nancy had the same thing happen last year.

After enough fun in town, we went home and made 2 Key Lime Pies(one for us and one for the pie sale.) We used Mom's recipe that is very easy and will show up in a post soon.  Sean decided to go to Dan's game in Alex so Charice and I hung out at the cabin and had  good tour of the lake on the jet ski.   The lake was totally calm so it was perfect for that.  We got the screen tent up and a good fire going just before the guys got home.  It was a very fun day and nice to have lots of time together.  I have other good pictures to post later.  Dan's working at home on Monday so I won't get a chance for awhile.