Storing Up Warm Summer Memories

We have a picture book called, Gathering, by Betsy Bowen, that is read quite frequently around here.   The family in the book has to store up warm summer memories for the cold winter.  A few weeks ago, after jumping off the dock at my extended family's cabin, Oli said to me, "Mom, I'm storing up this memory for the cold winter!"  So along the same lines, here are the memories of summer 2011.

In June we took a family trip to the north shore of Lake Superior.  We camped at Gooseberry Falls State Park.  It was Jacob and Henry's first time in a tent, as well as the first time Olivia could remember sleeping in a tent.  The only tent we have is the four-person tent that we got for our wedding and it was a bit squished.  The low temperature for the night was thirty-eight degrees so it was a good kind of squished.

State park camping is a great way to camp for families.  You can sleep in a tent but there are also bathrooms, hot showers, water spigots, and wood that's already been chopped.   Our kids loved camping.  Even now, three months later, they still talk about going back to "our" campsite (which they even remember the campsite number of) and how they saw a waterfall.  

There is just something so relaxing about sitting on the shore of Lake Superior, watching the waves, looking for agates, and feeling the sun on your face.  It calls me back, year after year.

The birthdays of our two June babies are another highlight.  Oli had some friends over for a "fairy house making" party.  NT and Oli built some little houses out of wood and then the girls decorated them with moss, rocks, silk flowers, twigs, and little wooden objects we found at the craft store.  It was so fun to see how the girls built their houses.  

Here's Mr. One-der-ful on his birthday.  We had chocolate banana cake and lots of hugs and kisses.

I wrote about it before but Olivia learned to ride her bike without training wheels which made for some fun late summer trips around town with the boys on the bike trailer.  Just the other day, I was biking to the library with the boys in the trailer (Oli was already back at school) when I passed the carriage house we lived in the first year we lived here.  There were many winter days when I stood with baby Oli looking out those carriage house windows (probably forlornly or maybe just bored) and as I rode my bike past the other day, I thought how funny it would be if I could have seen myself biking past five years later.  I'm definitely not bored now!

And of course the garden.  The garden is something that is dreamed about as soon as Christmas is over.  The garden in Wisconsin went through an excellent period this summer (about two days long) when it was beautifully weeded. I'm definitely storing that memory up for the winter.  There was some really good sweating, hoeing, and weed pulling done in high heat.  Another warm memory.  There was some good family togetherness with Jacob driving his trucks between rows, Oli asking a million questions, and Henry toddling around eating dirt and rocks.  

Picking strawberries in the backyard garden.

More warm memories of Farm Island Lake and spending time with extended family who range in age from one to eighty-seven.  We also spent a weekend in Pine City where the children swam to their heart's content.

 We played at parks, ran around the backyard, swam, had at least three days where we stayed inside and read books with the air-conditioning going full blast, went on kiddie rides at the county fair, and ate all the strawberries, raspberries, and blackcaps that we possibly could.  It was a good summer.