Lisa Abercrombie's wedding

tomatoes

peppers and tomatoes

perennial garden

Potatoes with sweet potatoes in the back

The pesty squirrel found a way to get into our window feeder, up the screen and over!

The Abercrombie family

the bride Lisa, brother Todd and his 2 children, Mary Ellen, Mark the brother who did all the flowers for inside the church and for the reception, and dad, Willie Graydon Abercrombie, aka Gray

One of the reception tents taken in the morning before the wedding

At the wedding of Lisa Abercrombie and Leslie Byler

Antique get away car

Sign at the gate to the reception

coming up the driveway

the bride and groom with her parents

(parents rode in an airconditioned car)

picture of the living room in home where we stayed

Our hosts, Jim and Jeanna Worst, and their son

Heather's 4th of July celebrations

Happy 4th of JulyOn the 3rd we went to Eveleth for fireworks...

Gary and Tristan joined us...
On the 4th ~ I brought Tristan to the parade in Eveleth. He and his friend Cody were dancing wildly in the street!!! Laughing and having a good time....
Then Shawn and I headed to Cokato for services. There were A LOT of people...

Here's how you find your family... text them to see where they are....
In all that crowd, I was able to find this little darling... Miss Abigail Rose!
Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July weekend!

Warning: This is a sales pitch

Warning: This is a sales pitch. If you are weak in the receiving end of the persuasion department, and are not looking for a trip to Alaska, do not continue viewing and reading this blog entry. If you are the least bit interested in a vacation .... come on up and we'll take you to this fabulous place that it is about half an hour away from our home. It is absolutely heavenly.

Lilacs. Picture taken out of my 2nd story dining room window. They are blooming!!

This is the spot where we dropped kids off in the winter time to sled down the mountain. A whole different view this time of year!

Hiking up to the top of the mountain.

Tia waits for Mom. I had a whopping headache ... a bit too much elevation change in a short period of time. Probably a bit dehydrated as well from all my coffee drinkin'.

View of the lower lake. It still had some ice on it.

We have 3 Finnish teens here with us for 5 weeks. Mika, Riku and Sami hiking. I've never been to Ireland ... hope to someday go. This so much seems like what it would must look like there.

God's beautiful creation.

The upper lake after hiking to the top.

Jari showing Mika how to get down the mountain the quick way!

Are we acclimated? Tanks ....

and flip flops. So maybe the flip flops weren't such a good idea. Was a bit rocky in places, but the moss was foot delicious on the way down. Tia and I came down most of the way barefoot. Where else can you walk down a mountain side barefoot and have it feel awesome on your feet?!

A beaver dam we spied. I wish I had some way to show you how big it really was. We saw another even larger one and wondered how many years it took those buggers to build it!

On the way out of Hatcher Pass Recreation area is a river (don't know what it's called) full of snow runoff. Winter time photos here would be awesome. We never stopped there during the winter. Will have to next season.

Tia did some water testing and found it to be a bit chilly!

Our 4th of July was spent at an evening bbq and bonfire at Jay & Joanne Laulainens. Then we headed to fireworks ... which don't start until 11:30 pm for a very good reason. They were better than expected. It probably helped that the clouds rolled right on in and made things a bit darker ... the temp was a wonderful 68 degrees ... and it even rained a bit. We were back and forth between being in the car and out of the car ... forgot the umbrellas. The Finns were wondering why we were going and what we were going to see. In Finland they shoot them off on New Years. I said "here too", but we went just to experience it ... and had fun!

Tomorrow we are going to Whittier and to a glacier that you can touch. Don't know how long Jari will have weekends home to run with us and I'm not sure how much running I'll be doing when he's gone .... may as well enjoy it while we can!

P.S. Mom ... the road isn't that bad up the mountain. No steep drop offs anywhere. You'd survive it just fine!

Happy 4th of July!!

Hope everyone had a fun day today! We did. We went to my mom and dad's for a pool party and bbq. Then from there we went to watch fireworks in the evening. The day started out to be a real scorcher, it was sooo hot! Then around 6pm the storm rolled in, and it really cooled off. There was actually a severe weather warning, and they were urging everyone to get indoors, as winds were up to 60 mph! We drove away from the storm tho, to the west side of the valley to watch fireworks, and it was still windy over there, but not so nasty. And the temp dropped to the low 90's, we didn't even break a sweat watching fireworks, it was so nice outside! Quite a bit better than last years 114!

Here are a few pics from the day...Will be waiting to see pics from everyone else's day!

Frans, Alanys and Trina swimming.... Trina LOVES the water!Our family....Frans and Trina...The girls...Kierstyn, Toni, Alanys, Lindsey and TrinaTrina just in awe by the fireworks!Toni thought they were too loud!

a day at the shop

I have been snapping some pictures periodically, trying to capture the events that happen here. Hoping that Charlie will be able to use some for his website. Thought I would share a couple on here, too. ~ Cody has been coming to the shop this summer and has been taught how to weld!

~jen~

summer flyin' by

Here are some pictures of Gary's place. Though it has been awhile since I said I would take them, thought I would post them. The first one is the outside of his barn/garage. For those of you who remember where the culvert is/was between the two fields, that's where I was standing looking both up and down the driveway. As you can see, his driveway comes out directly across from Miriam's garage.

I was able to spend three weekends, in a row, up on the Range which was a lot of fun! The first weekend was just chillin out. Heather and I were able to go for a 4-wheeler ride to Velma's and was able to visit her again. We then went to Gary's to snap these pictures, though he wasn't home. That evening though, him and Tristan stopped in at Heather and Shawn's so glad I was able to see him after all. That Sunday, Howard Parks was scheduled up there. Always neat to be able to visit with him and Linda. The second weekend I didn't get up there until late Saturday night, after picking up Heather from the airport. That Sunday morning, I rode with Liz to Wisconsin for Lee & Terry's 40th Anniversary. Though we were unable to stay for the entire thing, was able to be there long enough to give hugs to all and chat with everyone. From there we headed straight to Eveleth for a "Volunteer Appreciation" event for Horizon's. And the third weekend was Land of the Loon where Heather and I were able to walk around and think how neat it would be to make more things if either of us had more time! And, of course, was able to sample way to many types of food! And I was able to attend my first "Bike Rodeo" where the last picture was taken.

Now I plan to stay put for a couple weeks. This past Saturday, was able to get in some garage saling with Riitta and catch up with her since it's been awhile. Then off to St. Cloud to purchase an air conditioner! No more sitting in the apartment, dripping with sweat and silently crying that is only 65 degrees outside! Straight from St. Cloud, I headed out to Litchfield to spend the evening at Tarja's. Was excited that Sonja and Renee were able to come there so I could finally see Renee's new baby. For those of you who may not know or remember: Tarja and Riitta are Jari's sisters and Sonja and Renee are Riitta's daughters (Amber is there sister). Opted against going to the Sunday School Picnic in either Cokato or Elk River and instead enjoyed a day of pure relaxation! This long weekend will be spent at Summer Services. Glad they are in Cokato this year, so I can attend them. Anxiously awaiting to see some people that I haven't seen for awhile! Two of which are Mom and Isa!

Hope you all have a wonderful July 4th weekend!

~j~

Busy

Hey all, just thought I'd take a minute to update y'all about what Missi and I are up to. We've decided on a house in Farmington that was built in 1900, it's about 2,000 sq. ft., it has an oversize three stall detached garage and the lot if I remember right is about 12,000 sq. ft. The house needs a lot of work to be nice and being as some of the work (such as new roof) needs to be done right away we decided to go with a rehab loan through FHA called 203K. So what we're going to do is borrow the money to fix up the house and add it to our mortgage. The house price is around 100k and we're borrowing an additional 24k. The downside is we've got a time limit of six months to get all of the items that we specify done. Extra money can be used for additional approved items or is applied to mortgage balance. I'll update more later, gotta run. #9