summer again

back in time now, again.  

with cousins in the community garden their mom and dad made... 

playing at grandma's lake house...

william and i carefully cleaned up the rooms of my sister's old doll house that our great-grandfather made...

apparently i put down my phone after that and didn't pick it up again until a week or so later when greg and i are here, in traverse city, celebrating our 10 year anniversary.  the first time since before william was born that we've both spent a night (or in this case three) away from the boys at the same time... well-earned, i'd say!

we're not sitting in those chairs

we're over here, in the shade.  how do we do this self-(i have a hard time using this term for some reason)-ie thing?

okay, there we go...

just a little reflection on our ten years: it's been eventful.  i don't think i'm overstating it.  and i'm not going to lie when i say that i wouldn't mind it if the next ten years were slightly less eventful.  a nice, peaceful decade to get us to twenty years-- sign me up.  'stille og rolig' as they say in denmark.  but for all the events we've had (law school/grad school, two kids, international move, cancer), i don't think it's hurt the "us" part of us.  if anything, it's made that part more... unwavering, i guess you would say.

the boys joined us after our three days, as did my dad and step-mom who live there.  on one rainy day, the boys and greg and i went to the children's theatre to see a production of 'the hobbit'...

and on another day, we kayaked...

william and i tried saving a whole bunch of honey bees we saw in the water on our route (randomly dispersed honey bees that seemed to fly into the water (including way out in the bay) and (i assume) not able to get themselves out, except that at one point, trying to save another bee (and with five on our kayak), i accidentally put my hand down on two of them, they stung me, died, and man did it hurt.  william's such a good kid that i know he probably wouldn't repeat all the cursing he heard in that moment.

later at the beach... as for henry and greg, they saved a big, purple ball from the river...

and another day still-- on our way to mackinac island...

with grandma and grandpa...

william was definitely into doing his own idiosyncratic poses for the camera on this day.

on our ride around the island...



this attachment was really cute, but i guess it was made for more of those "stille og rolig" kids out there...

big W...

we stopped for awhile to sift through the rocks along the shore...

i guess we were really into taking family pictures that day.  i think william took this one of us...

a living creature...

crayfish

here's his/her close-up...

none of these came from the gal above...

and another day-trip-- this time to the sand dunes (there is just so much fun stuff to do with kids in traverse city, but i think i'm biased as i spent time here each summer from age 0 and up, so i'll always see it from the lens of a child)...

william and i hiked to the lake, thought mistakenly we'd taken a route that would allow greg and henry to drive to a nearby parking lot to pick us up, but we'd picked the wrong trail.  it was a long walk to the lake... he was hungry.  the sand was hot.  our feet were bare.

so turning back to walk it all in reverse... it was like draw down deep for those reserves little man, because there's no way i'm carrying you.

but on our way back we ran into this guy!  (who had been carried by his dad, to meet us halfway.)

survivalists... okay, we don't look that bad for the wear...

later that day we had a little early celebration for my early summer birthday...

i'm not sure if there are more traverse pictures, but if there are i'll have to find them.  not sure where the next set of pictures went.  so i'll end here for today and just say that i got a running shirt in that gift bag and have yet to run... eek!