What we've been doing

It's been 3 months since the last post and we've been busy this summer. Camping with friends, visiting with family, eating some great food and the occasional house hunt (that's enough for it's own post later).

In July, Mike surprised me with a backpacking trip to the Black Hills in South Dakota. We dropped Josiah off with Mike's parents for four days and headed west. We stopped at the Badlands National Park on the way and hiked a short trail to an overlook of the park.

We backpacked in the Black Elk Wilderness just down the road from Mt. Rushmore. We swam in Sylan Lake and hiked Harney Peak. At 7244 ft, Harney Peak is the highest peak east of the Rockies. On the way back home, we drove through Sturgis, where everyone one was getting geared up for the rally. We had a great time and the weather was perfect besides the afternoon thunder storms that blew through. Check out the photo albums to the right for pictures of our trip.

In August, we went on our third annual berry picking trip to Bayfiel, WI. Our friends and their brother's family joined us so we had six kids under 4 in tow. We camped along Lake Superior and survived the nightly thunder and lightening storms. The kids slept through it all while the parents were awake praying and counting the miles between lightening and thunder. We picked blueberries and raspberries and probably ate as much as we picked. We arrived to the farm late so many of the berries had been picked but we still enjoyed the annual berry pancakes the following morning.

That next weekend, we drove to Madison, WI to help my sister move in. Yes, that's right, Lauren is now 4 hrs east of us in Madison starting her Doctorate program in Music Education at the University of Wisconsin. She had many universities to choose from but this one seemed to have the best program and also it was closest to us! That weekend we also got to visit with my Dad and Grandmother who drove up with Lauren to help her move. And with Mom who flew in for about two weeks.

The Monday after all this visiting, we went and looked at THE house. Stay tuned to find out why it's THE house!