Herrs At The Lake Part 2

In the week prior to the Herr's visit, Kathie had been scoping out possible new experiences for the grandkids. One of them was an area attraction called Wilderness Walk. These things can sometimes be rather cheesy, but this one turned out to be lots of fun and will be worth return visits. Eleanor and Anders will need to see it, after all! Anyway, here are Grandma and the grandkids near the entrance to the park.

There were lots of animals to see and to pet. Some careful coaching on how to keep the hand flat while offering food prevented any nibbled fingers.

Check out Clara's sharp new sunglasses.

Henry liked the tortoise.

As did Clara.

"Grandpa Bild, there are chickens in here!" Clara had this new version of my name during this visit.

We heard this guy all over the park. Actually, he was one of many of the proud birds.

Henry figured out how to operate this rocking (in more ways than one) bird.

Everyone liked the dromedaries.

Here's another example of "I'm tired of posing for pictures and am not going to be especially cooperative here."

On the other hand, "Heh, heh, heh. Velcome to the Monster Mash. I vill mesmerize you vith my semi-circular moves." (You need to have played our pinball machine to fully appreciate this.)

Flintstones, meet the Flintstones...Let's ride with the family down the street, through the courtesy of Fred's two feet.

I didn't take all the pictures.

But I did get this one of five of the most precious people in my life.

And another of just our visitors, some of whom were semi-willing to pose.

Betsy or Pete took this one of two very happy grandparents.

Back at home, I took this picture of Kermit and Kathie's new lilies. Kermit was a gift from Henry and Clara last year.

On a different day, we visited our favorite local greenhouse and nursery. They had this fairy village and garden on display.

Henry was fascinated with the paths that meandered through the hosta garden in the nursery's nearby woods.

Henry and Clara both loved seeing the koi in the pond in the flower garden.

On the way back to our cabin, we stopped at the local watering hole. They have acquired a new bear, so pictures were again required.

One of the last things on Grandma's list of activities was to make s'mores. I built a fire and then Betsy and Pete demonstrated the proper techniques for marshmallow roasting.

Henry and Clara, on the other hand, demonstrated how to get most of the s'mores into one's mouth.

You can see why I look forward to each family visit to the lake!

Herrs At The Lake Part 1

Betsy's family spent most of last week with us up at the lake. We did so many things while they were there, and I took so many pictures, that I decided to break the report up into multiple postings. So here is the first.

Naturally, Henry continued to hone his pinball skills. Since his Uncles Will and Rob also have pinball machines, he gets lots of practice. Because his eye/hand coordination is so much better than mine, he regularly beats me!

I delivered a step stool that I made for Clara to her at the beginning of their visit. She used it to climb into bed and to spend lots of minutes playing at the sink, allegedly brushing her teeth or washing her hands. We all thought she just liked being able to operate the faucets herself.

The grandkids wanted to take turns at the wheel when we went out for boat rides or fishing expeditions. Henry actually got pretty good at running the boat. If he doesn't look too happy here, it is only because both he and Clara are becoming increasingly tired of being asked to smile for the camera.

For three consecutive years or more, we have been trying to make sure that Pete had a good fishing experience while he was at the lake. Prior years have not been all that eventful, but this year, I think we succeeded. He and I had fun fishing for bass in the river one morning and caught quite a few, though we released them all. Then we had two consecutive evening outings when crappie were hitting. We anchored near a floating bog both times and fished right at the bog's edge. The first night, we were treated to a rather spectacular sunset. (That is the bog in the foreground.)

We caught a total of 18 the first night, including one nice walleye that Kathie caught. We could have easily kept more, but cleaning 18 fish late at night was enough work. Anyway, Pete seemed to have a great time, as did we. We caught and kept 11 the second night when Betsy and the grandkids were along with us.

This is what it is like fishing at the edge of the bog.

Here are the 18 fish in the live well of the boat after we got back in for the evening.

Also, Henry showed that he had not forgotten how to fish. He caught this bass off the end of our dock.

More tomorrow (or the next day).

Kathie's New Puppy

Today was Acquire Puppy Day. Kathie's chosen new puppy, a sable English Shepherd (Josey is a sable English Shepherd), attained the ripe old age of eight weeks recently and, so, was ready for its new owner. We drove to central Iowa today to pick him up. Named Redstone by his original owner, this little guy was the first-born of the litter and evidently won the hearts of lots of the prospective new owners who saw him. However, Kathie is the lucky one to have him.

Here is Redstone with his mother, who is named Keeva. Keeva is smaller than Josey, and so we hope Redstone (final name to be determined by Kathie) will not exceed about 45 pounds or so. However, "Red" is a soft, fluffy, chunky young boy, and so it will be interesting to see how fast he grows and how big he ends up being.

I like this shot of Redstone lounging in the grass, while Kathie talked with his original owner about the transfer.

In this one, he looks a little sad at the thought of leaving his comfortable first home, his mother, and his brothers and sisters.

Red took a few moments to say goodbye to Marcia, Keeva's owner and the one who arranged for Red to be brought into the world and who helped give him a delightful first eight weeks of life. I don't know what they said to each other, but I do know that there were a few tears on each side.

While Kathie and Marcia did the paperwork for the transfer, Red spent a little time chewing on Marcia's throw rug for one last time. Then he posed for me for this shot.

Along the way back to our home, we decided to stop briefly at Ledges State Park to stretch our legs and to give Red a chance to walk with us. When we first left his original home, he whimpered for awhile. I know it must have been hard for him to leave his family behind, and he must have wondered where they were. But he found lots of love in Kathie's arms and comfort in being in her lap, so he settled down pretty quickly. Here he is with his proud new owner. He did a good job of walking along with us on leash, although we had to carry him quite a bit. Of course, everyone else walking in the park found him as cute as could be, especially all the little children.

Josey found Red pretty interesting. Red initially found Josey pretty scary and sought shelter in Kathie's friendly presence. Our home has been puppyized for a few weeks of training. Right now, Red is crashed on the kitchen floor, after having a nice supper and a tour of the home and yard. He seems to be settling in nicely.

Extended Family Vacation

About two weeks ago, Jessica, Mike, Travis, Nicole, and Mike's parents, Ron and Jan, came for a visit. Travis had packed along his Wii video game. So even rainy days were action packed.

Mom wasn't terribly impressed with the game, or maybe it was just that she has been busy working on her latest needlepoint project.

One of our guests got in a little solo hot tubbing time.

Ron and Jan prepared an excellent breakfast for all of us.

Can you believe these two have been married for exactly one year?

Josey frequently hung out under the table looking for scraps.

One night, Kathie served up a bunch of the fish we had caught recently.

We played group Pictionary one evening. Here are Nicole and Jessica working on ... Can you guess?

There was an especially interesting turn by Jan, who left us with this signed drawing. (Use your imagination!) We don't usually keep the various drawings, but this one was just too good not to keep.

One day, we rented a pontoon boat so that we could all have an outing on the lake together. There were some fishing attempts, although it was quite cool and rainy that day.

Mike did land a whopper, though.

Ron and Jan, who have a pontoon boat at their cabin back in Maryland, were our navigators and pilots.

Travis and Jessica were being Travis and Jessica.

An even bigger whopper!

Everyone took turns cooking. I was supposed to cook one evening but had contracted a case of Lyme disease and was not up to the task. Nicole and Travis bailed me out and took over for me. Thanks guys!

Later that evening, Travis introduced everyone to the mystery of the Land O Lakes butter carton, which Nicole is displaying here. (If you don't know the mystery, we can show you sometime.)

We thoroughly enjoyed having everyone with us.

First Summer Weekend at the Lake

We are back at the lake for the first of our summer outings. Rob, Carrie and Eleanor were here for the Memorial Day weekend. Earlier, Kathie spotted a painted turtle moseying across our driveway. We thought Eleanor needed to see it, so we retained it in a big cardboard box overnight and then gave her a chance to see it when she arrived. We took it to the lake to be released, and unfortunately, this is the only shot I got of it. I needed to be quicker on the trigger. Maybe Carrie will post her picture of the turtle.

Here are Eleanor and her mom from their turtle watching post.

On Sunday morning, we went to a new favorite breakfast cafe. Eleanor likes to make things out of the little jelly or creamer packets.

But she doesn't like posing for pictures. Her Pop, as she calls him, always tells her to at least look at the camera and make a chipmunk face. She seems to have a good teacher.

The cafe had a bunch of old games for people to play if they want. Kathie spotted one called Stadium Checkers that she has always loved to play. So, she introduced Carrie to the game.

Meanwhile, Eleanor and her Pop continued to study the jelly packet structures.

I bribed our waitperson into taking this shot of all of us.

After a subsequent visit to our favorite local garden nursery, we took a boat ride. Rob grabbed my camera and took some shots along the way.

Eleanor wore Kathie's bandana and liked to say "babushka", which we told her was what such head covering could be called.

Our neighbors were out playing with their log rolling apparatus.

Later, Rob took Eleanor for a walk along the beach near a place we had stopped for a quick lunch.

I told Carrie that shots like the one below are really precious to me for reasons I expect you can see for yourselves.