Dave, our son-in-law, preaches each Sunday at a little country church right outside of Sioux Falls--I think this is part of his seminary training. This morning everyone was up on time and we headed off for Sunday service to hear Dave speak.

It was a real scorcher today, so after church we spent most of the afternoon in the AC. Following lunch, Isaiah opened his birthday presents and then we sang Happy Birthday while he blew out the candles on his cupcakes.

Our gift to Isaiah

Isaiah blowing out the candles on his cupcakes
while Noah helps from the sidelines

The rest of the afternoon was spent playing games on the Wii--I beat John on the golf game. Probably the only kind of golf I can win against him. Isaiah chose a birthday dinner of hotdogs and macaroni and cheese and after everything ate their fill, we headed off to one of the many pools in town to cool off with an evening of swimming. We've had a great visit with the kids and will head back up north tomorrow.

Happy Birthday to JD, too--he and Isaiah share their special day.

It was so warm and humid today that we all spent most of the day inside in the AC. The boys have a Wii, so I did bowling with Caleb--so far he is up two games to one. I tried playing the basketball and sword fighting games with Noah, but I'm just not coordinated enough to catch on to those games. Noah, whose five, beat me soundly every game.

In between Wii games, the boys opened some new Legos and immediately put them together. Rather than heat up the kitchen, John and I treated everyone to supper at Culver's. Our evening was spent playing more Wii games before the boys headed off to bed and the adults relaxed.

Isaiah, Noah, and Caleb playing with their new Legos

Isaiah showing how old he'll be tomorrow

Spent the majority of our day on the road to Sioux Falls. The weather is much warmer and more humid here is South Dakota. We arrived a little after 4 and spent some time visiting with everyone. The boys were eager to show us their latest Lego creations and share about what they have been doing over the summer.

Following a nice supper of chicken and homemade potato salad, we piled in the van and headed off to one of the many parks here in town. This one had beautiful gardens and a swimming pool. The boys cooled off in the water while the adults wandered throughout the park.

One of many beautiful lilies in the park

After the kids went to bed, we spent the rest of our evening visiting and catching up on what everyone has been doing since we were together over the July 4th holiday.

We were up and out for our walk before sunrise--John had a busy morning planned and wanted to get an early start on the day. One good thing about walking so early, the deer flies were still asleep--even the cows in the pasture were just beginning to stir. I took a walk around the garden when we got back to the house, and was pleased to see the tomatoes coming on--just need a stretch of hot weather to ripen them up.


John had made plans with Matt yesterday to cut firewood this morning and then haul a load back to our place. They wanted to get most of it done before the day started to warm up, but it was still hot work. We are planning to travel to Sioux Falls, SD for a long weekend--our grandson, Isaiah, will be celebrating his 10th birthday on Sunday. My day was spent doing laundry, getting packed, and doing a little straightening up around the house before we take off tomorrow morning.

John worked out in the garage this afternoon building the base for his workbench. Matt and Sam stopped over to see the new mower and give it a try. They both approved of John's new toy.

Matt trying out the new mower

We had strong thunderstorms with high winds and heavy rains overnight. The humidity and clouds continued to hang around until things cleared off by the afternoon. The warmer weather is returning, but not at the high temps of before. We skipped our walk this morning as it looked like rain and we didn't want to get caught in a storm.

I had a 9 a.m. doctor's appointment in Bemidji, so we had to get on the road pretty early. John dropped me off at the clinic, gassed up the Honda, and then went to Home Depot and LM Fleet to check out lawn mowers. When he met me back at the clinic, he said he had pretty much made up his mind about the one he wanted. Since I hadn't eaten anything because of a fasting blood test, we went to Country Kitchen for breakfast and to discuss mowers. Before heading back to Bagley, we stopped at Home Depot to pick up more paint for the living-room and then made a quick stop at Wal Mart for a few grocery items.

John liked the Club Cadet mowers he looked at, and since they were priced the same everywhere he looked, he decided to buy the mower locally. After stopping at the post office to pick up some stamps and mail birthday cards, we went to the local dealership and purchased a new mower. They delivered it this afternoon and John gave it a trial run--it's great!!

John's new toy

In the mail today was a letter we had been looking for over several days. We needed to forward it to another party, so I made a trip back Bemidji and the Fed Ex depot. It was getting late in the day and I needed something for supper--Subway seemed like a good idea--so we ate subs and chips for our evening meal.

Since it was such a beautiful night, I grabbed the camera and took a few photos of our garden and John's progress in the garage.

New shelving in the garage. Old kitchen
counter top to be installed in the corner
as a work bench


Grape vines will soon be producing
grapes for juice and jelly

Volunteer sunflower in our garden

Not to much new or exciting happened around here today. Our weather continues to be nice and sunny--it was actually on the cool side when we walked this morning. We wore long sleeves more for warmth than protection from the deer flies.

John was pretty busy this morning. He hauled a load construction trash to the landfill for Matt first thing and then worked in the shop. JD is getting product ready to take to a wholesale market to be held in a couple of weeks. Following lunch, he did more sorting and organizing out in the garage and then hit the garden to pick some raspberries and green beans. We will have to get the beans ready for the freezer tomorrow.

Being so busy with doing the flooring in the kitchen, wall paper removal, and painting, I let things pile up in our home office. You couldn't see the top of the desk, there were piles of papers and receipts everywhere. I spent today getting the desk cleared off and papers filed away in their proper place. You can now see the top of the desk--at least for a day or two. I also took some time to put name labels on the back of my fair photos and got them boxed up. It feels good to have that job completely done. Here are some of the photos I'll be showing--

Pink Day Lily


A few more of the photos for the fair

Sunset as strong thunderstorm began
to move into our area. Took this
from our back steps

Our beautiful weather continued today--sunny skies with somewhat lower humidity. After breakfast John worked in the shop making parts. I did several loads of laundry and some cleaning up around the house. The photo enlargements I ordered from Shutterfly came in the mail today so the remainder of my day was spent matting and framing them. I now have everything ready for the fair.

This afternoon John worked out in the garage putting up shelving and storing things in crates to keep out the dirt and mice. He is slowly getting everything in the garage organized and cleaned out. Our evening was spent watching some TV and catching up on emails and blogs.

Our weather really cooled off today--it was in the mid 50's when we left the house this morning for our walk. The higher humidity has gone--hopefully this weather will continue to move eastward and cool off the rest of the country. Since it was so nice out this morning, I took a walk around our "estate" and took a few photos of John's fruit trees and woodshed.

Stove door is open because John was going
to put in some wood


First cherries ever on our tree



Apples on the trees we planted this spring

We followed our normal Sunday morning routine--breakfast and then off to church. Our church is on its summer schedule, so we were back home by 11:30 a.m. After eating lunch, John removed the trim from the next wall to be painted and I got everything set up to do it. While I got the wall painted, John mowed more grass. The heavy rains and heat of the past few days have caused the grass to grow pretty fast.

Our kitchen project is now on hold until the new counter tops are installed. Once that's done, we'll be able to put up the new back splash. Next job is to paint the three remaining walls in the living room, but first we need to decide on the color and get the paint. We started to restore order to the kitchen and plan to get that job done tomorrow. I'll post a couple of photos once things are picked up and put away.

Thunderstorms with heavy rains hit around 3 a.m. this morning, so our walk was once again canceled. The rains brought much cooler temps, but the humidity was still a little on the high side throughout the day.

Since nothing could be done outside, John wanted to go to Bemidji to pick up some shelving materials for the garage and, as I ran out of paint, I needed to go back to Home Depot to get another gallon. While we were in Bemidji, we stopped to look at some bigger ride-on lawn mowers. John is thinking of getting one that turns much sharper for cutting around our trees and also has a bigger mowing base so it won't take so long to do the lawn. Now is a good time to be looking to buy as many mowers are on end of summer sales. We also spent some time visiting a couple furniture stores looking at sofas--didn't see anything that struck our fancy, but we're in no hurry to buy anything. We stopped at Burger King for a quick lunch before heading back home.

Sam had a mini basketball tournament this afternoon, so we met at Matt's place to follow them to Red Lake Falls where the games were being held. Sorry to report that the guys lost both of their games.

Sam, #5, taking a shot


Sam backing in with the ball so
he can try for a shot

Since we were gone all day, nothing got cleaned up in the kitchen, so that job got put off for another day. Our evening was pretty quiet--reading and watching some TV before heading off to bed.

John and I got up nice and early for our walk--this was our first one in quite a while. The temps and humidity were just too high for walking to be enjoyable.

We were both very busy today. John worked down in the shop for a few hours this morning and then worked on the lawn mower, changing the blades and oil, and then mowing lawn. I finished stripping off the last of the wallpaper (thank goodness that's done!) and then taped around the cabinets in preparation for painting.

John and I just sat to eat lunch on the porch when the guy arrived to measure the kitchen counters for new counter tops. The way they take the measurements today is quite different from years ago. Ted placed strips of paper with dots all over the counters and walls. He then took many photographs of the strips. He said the photos are fed into a computer and somehow it measures the counter tops, figures for any crooked walls, and makes all sorts of adjustments. Then it prints out a template and the counter tops are made. Our delivery date is August 15th.

Notice the strips of dots on the front of the counter
and along the top of the blacksplash

I had to wait for Ted to finish before I could get on with my painting. I managed to get both a first and second coat on, ending up late this evening. At first I thought I would do one coat today and finish it up tomorrow, but I decided to just get it done tonight so I could clean the cabinets and get the kitchen put back into operating mode tomorrow. Ripping off the old wallpaper raised quite a bit of dust and the inside of the cabinets are pretty dirty, so I know what I'll be doing tomorrow.

The heat wave finally broke here in northern Minnesota. Today's temps reached the upper 70's to low 80's and the humidity was much lower. It was one beautiful day today.

John worked in the shop this morning while I removed the rest of the wallpaper from the kitchen. Now I have to get the walls cleaned so I can get started on more painting. John's sister invited us for supper this evening. She and her husband live about 90 miles northeast of us--way more rural than we are. They served a delicious meal of fresh caught bass along with salads and dessert. We has a fun time visiting and catching up on what they have been doing.

We just got home and it's pretty late, so that's all for today.

Our heat wave continued through today with thunderstorms and downpours interspersed with sunshine. We are suppose to get some relief from the heat this weekend--highs in the 80's rather than 90's.

John and I were up and out bright and early to head up to Sara's for haircuts. When we were done, Hanna came back to the house with us so I could help her get her photos ready for the fair. I have quite a collection of frames, mats, and glass, so she was able to get all her pics framed and ready to show. While she was working on her photos, I matted and framed the ones that I had printed out yesterday. I ordered some enlargements of my favorites and will have to wait for them to get done before I can get them matted and framed. Then I will have everything ready for the fair.

John putting backing on one of the frames


Hanna labeling her pictures



Hanna with her photography

We boxed up Hanna's pictures and then I drove her home where I waited until she changed into her bathing suit and dropped her off at the town pool where Sara had taken Sam and Rachel for an afternoon of swimming. There was still a little time before supper, so I removed more of the wallpaper between the counter and cabinets. Just a little paper left above the cabinets to get down, and then that part of the project will be done.

This morning John helped Matt cut up a pine tree that had blown over in our pastor's yard. He then hauled that wood home and stacked it in his new woodshed. Even though it was hot outside, John did a little weeding in the garden and installed the new battery he bought yesterday for the four wheeler. In between jobs he came in the house to cool off before heading outside again. This evening we relaxed inside watching several TV shows and doing some work on the computer.

Weather is still very hot and humid so we continue to spend most of our time inside in the cool comfort of the AC.

Today was my turn to go for my annual physical, so after lunch John and I headed off to Bemidji and the clinic. When I was finished we ran a couple of errands. First on the list was to pick up a new battery for our four wheeler. Then it was on to Home Depot to return a faucet set--we had found the exact same one in Menards for $56 less. When we told the clerk why we were returning it, she said that Home Depot would give us an additional 10% off the Menards price. John told her we had already purchased the one at Menards, but it was good to know their policy on such matters. We thought it would be a quick stop at Home Depot, but a heavy rain hit while we were in the store and we had to wait for it to pass over before we could leave. A bathroom project might be on the horizon so we killed time looking at floor and wall tiles.

Our final stop of the afternoon was the drug store in Bagley where I made prints of some of the photos for the fair. We spent another quiet evening in the AC--John watched a couple of his favorite shows while I worked on framing some of the photos that I printed today.

Today was hot, hot, and hot. We haven't seem temps this high--in the 90's--in several years. All outdoor activity has come to a halt as we tend to stay inside in the air conditioning. John worked in the shop this morning and then stained the window trim in the garage and got the electricity re-connected. He kept all the windows and doors closed and it stayed fairly cool in there while he was working.

I did several loads of laundry this morning and cleaned some of the house. The rest of my time was spent working on pictures for the fair. I have made my final decisions and now have to get them printed and framed. Our evening was spent watching some baseball and several of our favorite TV shows. The warm weather is suppose to continue throughout the week with each day getting warmer.

We had another very hot, humid day. After breakfast we got cleaned up and went to church. Just walking from the car into the church one worked up a sweat.

The afternoon brought thunder storms with some heavy rains, so we stayed inside and watched the women's world cup soccer final. John also put the trim back up in the kitchen while I got everything back into the pantry cabinet. We are slowly getting things straightened up and put away. I also spent some time on the computer sorting through photos to enter into the fair in August.
That's only about three weeks away, so I have to get moving on this project next. We spent a quiet evening watching the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

The heat that has been plaguing the rest of the country has finally hit northern Minnesota. We don't have triple digits where we are, but we were very warm and humid today. It was a good one to stay inside and paint in the cool AC.

John worked in the shop for a few hours making parts that JD needed for orders. Before he went to the shop, he helped me get the kitchen ready for painting. I got the walls done that I wanted to do today and also removed more of the wallpaper. The walls above the kitchen cabinets still need to have paper removed and then painted. When I get that done, we will have a lull in our project until the new counter tops are installed which should be in about four weeks. The final phase will be installing some new stone back splash.

Following supper, John and I managed to move the panty cabinet back into the kitchen. I plan to put everything back inside it sometime tomorrow and hopefully that will restore some order out of our chaos.

Thunderstorms overnight and into this morning canceled our morning walk. When the storms passed through, the humidity and temps were on the rise. We are forecast to have a heat wave over the next several days with temps in the high 90's with high humidity--summer has finally arrived in northern Minnesota. I'm sure everyone will soon be complaining about the heat even though they were complaining about the cold a few weeks ago.

Our plan was to head to Bemidji nice and early to pick out paint and to make the final choice of counter top for the kitchen. We got delayed as Matt and Hanna dropped by and after they left, JD and Joanne stopped in to see the completed floor. They're thinking about redoing their kitchen floor, too. After they left, we headed off on our errands.

First stop was the local bank to pick up a couple of premium books for this year's fair and then across the street to the post office to mail birthday cards. When we reached Bemidji it was time for lunch, so we made a stop at our usual place--Burger King. From there it was on to Home Depot where it seems we spent hours getting the counter top ordered and picking out a new faucet. We also bought paint and a few painting supplies. Wal Mart was our final stop before heading home.

This evening John hauled all the old carpeting to the dump and I got the wall partially ready for painting. We then watched a little TV and decided to head to bed as we have a busy day tomorrow.

Today was kitchen floor day. We were up early so we could get our walk out of the way before Matt and Sam arrived to start on the floor. Last night I had emptied out the pantry cabinet and got that ready to be moved out of kitchen. This morning John removed the baseboards while I emptied the coat closet--we decided to put the new flooring in there, too.

As soon as Matt and Sam arrived they started pulling up the carpeting in the kitchen. I thought it would take a lot of time, but it came up very easily and didn't leave much glue on the sub-flooring.

Sam and John removing the carpeting

Next, Matt figured out how to start laying the new flooring and the guys got started putting it down.

Matt making sure the first boards are
laid straight

Once the first boards were in place, the guys were able to keep moving right along with the job. The whole floor was down by late afternoon. We still have to replace the baseboards and a few other pieces of trim, but I want to paint a couple of walls first.

Half way done by lunch time.

Figuring out the last part of the floor



All done--I just love my new floor

We still have quite a bit of wall paper to tear down and some painting to get done. I want to get at least the pantry wall done so we can put that back in the kitchen. Right now it laying in the middle of the living room and all its contents are on the dining room table and floor. In other words, our house is in a little turmoil right now, but hopefully it will return to some normalcy over the weekend.

Our beautiful weather continued today--sunny skies and pleasant temps. It was a perfect day to work outside building a woodshed.

We didn't take our walk this morning because John had an early morning doctor's appointment in Bemidji. It was time once again for his annual physical. While he was at the clinic, I went to the bank and then stopped at Menards to look at some tile for the kitchen. John called when he was done with his appointment and after I picked him up, we headed to Home Depot to check out their wall tiles and counter tops. After much discussion, I think we have finally settled on the wall tile, and are about 75% sure of our choice for counter top. Matt called before we left town and asked us to pick us some lunch, so we made a quick stop at Subway

Matt and Sam arrived at our place while we were gone and started working on our next project--the wood shed. John helped out when we got home and the guys got it finished up in one day--now it just needs to get filled with wood for the winter.

Our great work crew

As usually happens when Pop Pop and Sam get together around a basketball hoop, a game of PIG or one on one is going to be played. Pop Pop is still the champ, but Sam is catching up real fast.


Tomorrow we start on the kitchen floor.

Our weather seems to be in a holding pattern right now--pleasant days with cool evenings--which makes it very enjoyable for walking in the mornings and working outside.

It felt good to be able to stay home today and get caught up around the house. Matt and Sam came early this morning to work with John to finish up our garage project. It took the entire day, but all the new windows are in and the chip board is up on all the walls. Now we have to get shelving up and decide what we want to store in here.




I spent my day doing some laundry, getting the July birthday cards made and ready to mail, and made a start on cleaning our home office. There were still a few things sitting around from our trip that needed to get put away. After a busy day working in the garage, John spent his evening relaxing and watching the All Star Baseball Game while I started reading a new mystery on my Kindle.

We had another beautiful morning for walking. The temps were even a little cooler than yesterday--almost felt like fall in the air. When we returned to the house, we didn't waste any time eating breakfast and getting cleaned up. We had to leave no later than 8:30 p.m. in order to make it to Grand Forks, ND in time to attend the funeral of our son-in-law's mother. Following the service, we went to Culver's for lunch and then shopped for several gifts that we needed. Susie called to tell us she and Mike were finished at the church and we made plans to meet them at Mike's old home. We got to spend several hours visiting with Susie, Mike, and his family. Since the kids are heading back to California tomorrow afternoon, it was a real special blessing to be able to spend some time with them.

As we headed back across the river into Minnesota, John decided to stop at Cabela's and look for a trolling motor for his little fishing boat. He found just what he wanted and was able to use his Cabela's rewards points to buy it. It's rather nice when you can spend the same money twice. By now it was way past supper time, so we stopped across the street at the Blue Moose for a quick meal before heading home. By the time we reached our house, we had been gone for over 12 hours. It was a long day and we're ready to head to bed real soon.

We had another beautiful morning for our walk--the temps were a little cooler so there were very few deer flies to bother us as we walked through the wooded section of our route.

Our day was pretty quiet. After breakfast, we headed up to Clearbrook and the Sunday morning church service. Following lunch, I got Julie's birthday gift ready to take to her party this afternoon while John mowed a little grass and watched some of the PGA tournament on TV.

John and I got to JD's house a little after 5 p.m. for Julie's birthday party. Matt's family was out of town, so the only other guests were Joanne's mom and dad, Al and Carol Russell. Jo served a delicious meal of hotdogs, brats, salads, fruit, and chips. When everyone was finished eating, Julie opened her gifts and then blew out the candles on her cake while we all sang Happy Birthday.

The birthday girl with her cake

Jules modeling her new outfit
in her favorite color

The party continued with everyone playing several games of UNO and then 31. The hour was growing late, so we all called it a night and headed back home.

One little side note to our day. JD has a family of foxes living in his woodshed. There are a Dad, Mom, and 3 little pups. Joanne is able to get fairly close to them and entices them out of their den with some scrapes of food. We were able to see the pups and get a photo of two of them. Jo said two of the pups are pretty brave and come out to see her--the third one is a little more timid and doesn't come out as often.

Fox pups

We had a few thunderstorms overnight which left us with some pretty high humidity today; however, we managed to get our walk in nice and early before it got too hot and sticky.

After breakfast John worked in the shop sanding and lacquering the Adirondack chair he had bought at Menards. It was pretty rough and needed a treatment. This afternoon he cleaned the porch screens and filled our little artificial pond with water and got the fish fountain working. In between jobs he came in the house to cool off and watch some of the PGA on TV.

I changed the bedding in the guest room and gave it a light cleaning so now it's ready for company again. This afternoon I started removing some of the kitchen wallpaper--I wanted to see how hard it would be to get off and what the walls would need before painting. The paper comes off easily, so it shouldn't take too long to get that job done. I'll just do a little bit each day as I have time. Hopefully we'll be able to pick up the paint next week. I would like to get the walls painted before the new flooring goes in the kitchen.

We spent a pretty quiet evening watching a couple of movies on the TV before calling it a night.

John and I were up nice and early and found we had a beautiful morning for our walk. Susie got up after we returned to the house and the three of us ate breakfast out on the screened porch. We never left the porch after eating, and were still sitting there when JD and Joanne joined us. Susie had to leave by 1 p.m. to pick up Mike at the Grand Forks airport, so that finally go us moving to get showered and make lunch. John gave Susie a quick tour of his garden and showed off his new chair before she got on the road.

Grape vines on the left next to

tomato plants


John and Susie checking out the yard

Julie's birthday party is this Sunday evening, and since we didn't get a chance to get the birthday shopping done yesterday, we headed off to Bemidji to find a gift. We also decided to pick up the flooring for the kitchen, so our first stop was Home Depot. The flooring was in stock and it didn't take any time at all to pick it up and get it loaded into the Honda. From there we stopped at Sherwin Williams to look at some paint samples and get a few pointers on removing wallpaper. Finally, we made it to the mall and found a cute outfit for Julie. One more stop at Wal Mart finished up her birthday shopping.

We had some very special news today. John's brother and sister-in-law became grandparents for the first time. A new baby girl, Emiline, has joined our family.