Summer

It's the lazy days of summer here and not a lot going on.  We just had a heat wave, with temps. in the mid to upper 80's and high humidity.  Our insect population is booming and it's almost impossible to spend much time outdoors most days without being harassed by either mosquitoes, biting flies, gnats, or a combination of the three, and we are constantly putting bug repellents on the dogs to try to keep them somewhat comfortable.  Really makes us look forward to fall and winter- give us cool temps and no bugs over this heat, humidity and bugs anytime!
  We've been cooling off at the lake as much as we can, although unfortunately the biting flies are almost always a nuisance on Lake Superior's shoreline this year.
  We did take a ride up and spent the day in the Porcupine Mountain State Park the other day, hiked at Presque Isle and then drove South Boundary Rd. and swam at Union Bay, which has the nicest, perfect sand beach at this end of Lake Superior.  Then we went up to Lake of the Clouds and enjoyed a packed lunch and walked up to see the Lake.  Elliot was not content with just hiking and strolling and had to be his a little bit dare devil self.  He likes to jump over most things and climb on everything else!

Like a monkey!

We've had quite a bit of rain, too, so the water is flowing fast for this time of year.

The customary "on top of the rock photo".  We always take a pic of the kids on this rock when we are there.

Snake.

Tadpoles.

The photographer gets photographed.

Lake of the Clouds.

The cute kiddos.

A rare family photo (successful use of the timer on the camera)

More pics from this summer:

Rare sighting of a deer in our front yard (rare because of the 23 huskies in the yard)

Had a big bon fire for Elliot's birthday (June 20)

Elliot likes to cook over a campfire.

Went to the fireworks in Wakefield, MI (bout 13 miles from home).  We got Elliot some of his own fireworks this year and let him light them while we were waiting for the show.  No, it's not snowing-those are mosquitoes that were harassing us.  Bug spray is a necessity this year!

Lighting a mortar.  Elliot's show was better than Wakefield's!

How Elliot started watching the big show.  Yes, he's laying in the middle of the road.  He loves to entertain!

Our pond and flowers-I'm pretty happy with the results of our work to put this in.

And of course, some current pic.'s of the "summer dogyard".  We are really glad we decided to do this.  With all the rain we had this year, we don't know if the winter yard would have ever really dried out good.  The grass has overtaken it and it should be ready for the dogs to move back down in the late fall.