Back from vacation.

We just returned from a massive 3-week 3,500-mile road trip vacation. Extremely unpleasant and pleasant at times. It was fun being places, just not getting there. Felt like putting the kids back in the van was a low level torture. All that said, we had some really wonderful times, the kids especially. I’m working my way through a bunch of photos I’ll eventually have time to share, but for now, here’s my father with Netta and Bailey on the beach in South Carolina.

Sailing with Hercules

Josh has been sailing more than 20 times already this summer and it’s barely half over. He just really loves being on the water. It’s pretty great. Today Art and I joined him, and he had upgraded the fun quotient with little surfboard type thing he had tied to the back of the boat. It was real windy, we broke 5 knots, and the board actually got on the plane. Enough to even stand on as seen here.

Here’s Hercules:

A tree fell on our house.

Last week a real big storm swept through Minneapolis knocking over hundreds and hundreds of trees across town. Including two super tall pine trees in our front yard. we didn’t really care for the pines trees anyway so not a huge loss for us, but there was some spectacular huge old trees that went down in other neighborhoods, it was pretty shocking. Jessica sister Emily and her husband Mike had a huge branch totally squish their garage and new car in side. Anyway, one of the pine trees fell on our porch and cause some minor damage which our insurance is mostly taking care of. Here are some photos from event, including when a massive crane showed up to pluck the trees off our roof.

We had no lights for a couple days.

My mother was in town for the spectacle. 

Bailey with Uncle Josh