Summertime, and the livin' is easy...

Since Taylor Anne is on summer break, and this week she didn't have any camp or swimming lessons, I decided to take the kids to my parent's lake house for a few days this week... it was a lot of fun!

Queen Anne's Lace - reminds me of Anne of Green Gables...

We did a lot of hiking/exploring, playing in the dirt, a little bit of swimming, blackberry picking, and some fishing too! It was quite hot and my parents ended up getting a new A/C unit for the house! Whew - it was really needed, and boy does it make a difference. The new one is so much quieter than the old one, and it doesn't spit ice chips at you! My parents also invested in a couple of other cool-new things for the house, but I'm not going to talk about them here, I want to see if my sister notices them on her next trip there! (Ha ha!)

Here are some photos from our trip: Anderson hiking, really looking for bugs or rocks or something - it was actually really hard to take walks in the woods with this little man. He could spend an hour exploring a 10'x1o' patch of dirt!
Here are my sweet kiddos lounging on the couch. I was so excited to get that boy to smile for the camera, usually he squints and closes his eyes.
We did see some wildlife on our trip this time. A blue heron, fishing from a stump.

I think this is a Barred Owl, roosting in a tree about 30 feet from the lake house... I decided to keep Buster inside, because this guy was huge!

Taylor Anne with her baby catfish that she caught using a worm. She was so happy!

My sweet fisher-girl with her new sunglasses (thanks Gramps!) and me hanging out on the boat, getting ready to start fishing.

My Dad caught 2 little bass on one lure (at the same time!). Cool!!!

While we were there I also finished up the swimsuit cover-up I was making from that shirt pattern I found... it is OK... but looks much more like a Mu Mu, house dress, or a nightgown, than I had hoped. I will still wear it, but probably not out shopping or anything! I have to tell you that the pattern I used (Simplicity 2962) is insanely written. The instructions aren't clear AT ALL, and especially for a "It's so easy" pattern, it didn't seem easy to me at all. These pictures show how shapeless and 'Mu Mu-ish' it is! The length is actually the shirt, with a little ruffle added to the bottom. I only added the ruffle to the bottom of the shirt pattern as written, I would never imagine wearing a shirt that long in real life. Taylor Anne was the photographer, she did pretty good right?

Yeah - the back shot is a little weird... Anyway - there it is... in all it's unflattering glory! Ha ha!

In other news - I finished the hand sewing on Frank's Emmeline apron (he won it in my 100th post giveaway) while we were out of town, and I also made one for myself, so I'll have pictures of those up soon. Then it's off to the post office to send the beautiful thing cross country, hopefully just in time for him to get it when he comes home!