Me, pretending to be the captain of the Coast Guard ice breaker Mackinaw

And a busy summer it was…  As you can see, I even tried my hand at captaining the ice breaker Mackinaw for the Coast Guard!  Just kidding.  Ice breakers are BIG, and I certainly wouldn’t want to try to drive one.  But it was fun to sit in the captain’s chair and pretend.  Here’s the view from the top:

The view from the captain's seat -- 65 feet up! You get a good view from up there!

 

My kitchen remodel STILL didn’t get done.  Sigh.  But we did manage to transform a double window into a set of French doors.  We absolutely love them.  It made it so easy to eat outside all summer long.  I still may get some painting done yet, but I’m running out of summer.  Next year?  I can only hope!

The tall ships the Pride of Baltimore II and the Lynx came to Marquette, too.  We got to tour both of them.  Here’s a shot of the Pride of Baltimore shooting her cannons in the Lower Harbor, with the Lynx in the background:

The Pride of Baltimore II with the Lynx in the background in the Lower Harbor in Marquette, MI

My biggest news, though, is that my daughter Sarah, and her husband Jared, along with my four grandsons, moved to California this month!  A great job opened up out there, and Jared couldn’t turn it down.  They had planned to move out of their tiny house in MN since it was pretty crowded with four boys in there.  But nobody expected their new home to be in California!

They’re in the Bay area, south of San Francisco.  I’ve never been to CA, but now I guess I’ll be going one of these days.  They’re in a little town that’s pretty close to the ocean, so maybe it’ll be a little like Marquette (riiiiight!).

Yesterday was really hot, but today is in the 60′s, and they’re calling for frost Thursday night.  Tomorrow I need to get out and pick what I want from our little garden, and decide what I want to cover up on Thursday night.

Fall is nearly upon us, and winter’s not far off.  Maybe then I’ll have some time to do some quilting and get my Union loom, warped up!

What’s been going on with you all this summer?  Leave a comment, and let’s all get caught up.