Summer is here

June flew by, mostly because we were on vacation for half of it! Went back to work today, which was hard after being off for so long.

Our vacation was great. We left straight from work and drove to Galena, IL. We camped right outside of town. Our first morning we had to weather a severe thunderstorm in our pop up! Thankfully it didn't last long (or cause any damage to us). We spent the day exploring shops downtown and took a tour of Linmar Gardens. It rained a little bit, but stopped early enough that we were able to take in a balloon glow that evening. The next day we toured President Grant's home and Belvedere Mansion. We also stopped in to Galena Cellars and did a wine tasting and went to dinner at the DeSoto Hotel (Lincoln, Stephen Douglas, and Grant all spoke from the balcony there). What I liked about Galena was the history and it was a nice size. We were able to park the car downtown and walk anywhere we wanted to go. It was also nice because we would run into people that we knew from previous tours as we wandered around town. There are so many neat things you can do in Galena-maybe next time we will stay in a B&B and have the spa treatment!

From Galena we drove to South Bend, IN. Jim had a conference there. I went to the same conference last year in Charlotte, NC. It was so much better than South Bend. Our first night, we were approached by a hustler in the parking lot and someone broke into our camper. There wasn't much to see or do in downtown South Bend, so I went to the laundry mat and grocery store. My sisters came down and we did spend one day at the Amish flea market in Shipshewana. Haven't done that in years! We were so excited when we arrived and got parking three rows from the front gate. Mom would have been so proud!! We quickly realized why we got such good parking-it was sweltering hot. The temps were in the high 90's with the heat index well into the 100's. For the first time, we didn't make it to all the booths. We actually only did about half the booths. Still, it was good to be together and we did find some bargains.

From South Bend we drove to Silver Lake State Park in Michigan. That is where we had our family camping trip. My mom only had one sister-she had 4 kids, and we had 4 kids. Everyone was there except 4 of our kids that had to work. We occupied 9 campsites and spent our time going from site to site, visiting & eating and laughing. Jim's mom and stepfather were also able to camp with us and his sister's family came to visit for the day. It is so great to be surrounded by family. The weather was very comfortable in MI. We biked, swam, fished, and rode the dunes. Our brother in law, Dom, has a souped up dune machine and took us on some thrilling rides. Some interesting things happened at Silver Lake. Many of us broke out in a case of swimmers itch. Not fun! One evening, it looked like storms were rolling in. I looked behind our camper, and saw a young man setting up his gear in a clearing. I told him to finish up, storms were on the way. He said he was done-which confused me because all I saw was a tarp on the ground. He explained that he had biked in and that was his sleeping gear. I invited him to put his stuff under my camper and come join our family. We were having a big chili feed that night and had WAY MORE than enough to share. His name was Joel and he explained that he was biking from South Bend, IN up to Traverse City, MI and was on his way back to South Bend. Impressive! It didn't rain long, so Kim asked him if he wanted to go on a dune ride. His eyes got so big-did he ever! He came back with a huge smile on his face and couldn't wait to take a picture so he could tell everyone back home. The rain came later that night, and I invited him under my awning and even into the camper (I wouldn't have slept, but I couldn't leave someone out there laying on the ground in a tarp in a storm). He did come sleep under the end of the camper, where he had stashed his bike. Thankfully it didn't rain hard or long and in the morning he was on his way! We were able to stay a few extra days in Silver Lake, but had to move our camper to the site next door. I thought it would be a pain, but it wasn't too bad.

We left Silver Lake and started back towards home. We had hoped to do some more camping, but the weather was quite cool and rain was forecast everyday. Instead, we stopped at Starved Rock State Park in IL and treated ourselves to a night in the lodge. Always wanted to do that! There was a country music talent competition on the patio that night, so we had fun listening while we ate our dinner. Wish we could have stayed longer......

We came home to grass that was as high as the corn, and some mess, but all in all it wasn't too bad. Spent the next day cleaning up the camper mess-and we had to really clean it due to the sap from the trees at Silver Lake. Spent the rest of the weekend getting caught up and enjoying the 4th with both of our boys. Glad we had the time to do those things and get caught up on sleep too!

Now it is back to reality. I have an adult program tomorrow night, which I haven't had enough time to prepare for. The city budget crunch continues to be a source of stress. No good news there. Started the process of looking for tile-overwhelming.....need to get a friend to help. Still the boys are healthy, we are both working, and we are thankful for everything the Lord has seen fit to bless us with. Life is good.