Camp and since...

 Below are some photos from the second half of our week at camp. The week was split in two by Sam's being ill with a stomach bug--ill enough to go into urgent care, here they prescribed anti-nausea meds so he could get re-hydrated. (Though by then he was on the mend, thankfully.) Despite that, Sam and Susan both report this being an excellent week. 

Here are two pics from when Sam was sick and I took Josh to the state park to run around. I used the trolling motor on the canoe, and we visited the park as well as the Black Lagoon. 

In the Black Lagoon we saw this large turtle sunning himself.

After Sam was better we took a morning hike at the state park. Saw this little guy:

And had a picnic lunch, the boys sitting on the big boulder you encounter on the top of the first hill on the Beaver Pond trail:

  

Below is the rocky top of the highest point on the Beaver Pond trail. That trail (which usually makes use, for us, of a return trip on the Pine trail, as I recall) is about 45 minutes. Not at all strenuous, but enough to stretch one's legs because of the hills. However, we missed a turn partway through and turned it into a 2 hour hike in which we explored the extensive and poorly labeled trails in the interior. And while Susan and I were getting increasingly grouchier, and Josh lost it and wept for a good 10-15 minutes because he dropped a leaf and I wouldn't go back for it (ugh), SAM was the one who kept a good and cheerful attitude and even helped distract Josh. What a blessing!

At the end of the week Susan, who has been doing amazing crafts with the boys all summer, had them do something she'd tried a VBS, where one puts down strips of masking tape on a stretched canvas, and then paints over it. (In VBS the masking was in the shape of a cross.)

Below is a shot from the obligatory Sergi's dinner out. Sergi's can be a little tough cause the characteristic wait time is slightly longer than Josh's sitting-still time. For some reason this time it worked out well and we all had a delightful time. Here you can see Sam laughing his head off at something

I am not sure, but country gas stations in the summer, when it's warm at night and the bugs are loud, are very evocative places for me. Hard to really capture the feeling of being at one. 

The final morning we took another family canoe ride to the Black Lagoon. They are still decorating it nicely:

 And we paused at the sand bar/beach we used to, as kids, refer to as the "private beach" back when we camped here as a family:

Suffice it to say, the boys slept well:

Now we've been home at week. The Zinkand-Dills had us over for dinner last Sunday, and aside from breaking a wine glass with a frisbee we had a great time. Here's Sam reading Harry Potter after dinner:

I think we read over 2,000 pages of HP this summer. 

Hope you are all well!