Sunday Morning, Late Summer

Coffee and comics,

pancakes by Merrill, bluebonnets by Rachel.

Workin' the Farm, Part 2

Have I Mentioned.....

Corn, horses, girls, water, garden......

Have I mentioned that I love summer?

Texas August

Down here, they landscape their yards with prickly pear.

Can you blame them?

                                                                                                                            Active Advisory: Heat Advisory 

Workin' the Farm

Garden Melon

Have I mentioned that I love summer?

Good Times

We loved skiing, even though there is definitely a learning curve.

There is a learning curve on fishing, too, but Ruth and Vic are good teachers.

We love summer fun.  Thank you, friends.

These are the good old days.

Bike Ride Across Nebraska

Last week I rode my bicycle 440 miles across Nebraska alongside four daughters, one daughter's boyfriend, and six hundred other bikers.

Sixty-five miles a day, on average.  Sometimes, if it was supposed to get hot or the wind was due to strengthen, we rode out of camp at the first hint of daylight.  Which means our cell phones started chirping at about four or four-thirty a.m.  That gave us time to pack our stuff, strike the tents and be finished with breakfast before the sun got up.

After you rise early and spend half a day pushing yourself across the plains, through tiny towns, and up and down sandhills, sleep becomes very precious.

The local librarians encouraged us to make ourselves at home.

One of them said, "You look like you need a little nap.  I know a quiet place....."  She hauled beanbag chairs out to the bookmobile for me.

















Maybe she knew that six hundred hungry cyclists give a nice little boost to the town's economy.  The locals want us to be happy, and they want us to come back another year.

When we weren't riding or sleeping, we ate a lot

and played games.

We celebrated Merrill's birthday by sleeping until 6 a.m. and eating ice cream cake.

There was lots to smile about

and sometimes we made other faces,

especially after the rain soaked us and hail bounced off of our helmets and bare legs.

But wet cycling shorts, hail and headwinds didn't dampen our spirits for long.

Ride with me next year!

(Thanks to all my favorite photographers who contributed their work to this post,

 and to John who held things together at home while we played.)

Summer's Last Fling

Four families gathered last weekend for a final stab at summer.

We've gone round the seasons with these particular friends for nearly twenty years.

Fall's coming again. Don't blink.

Every summer

Every summer, Merrill grows sunflowers.

I love summer.

Camp

Camp was loud and rowdy

(why is the expression on Erica's face so different from Moriah's???)

and fun and funny,

and sticky

and quiet and thoughtful

full of God and full of love.

That's why we came.

(This boy is helping his grandma raise her arms in praise to the Lord)