More pics.

It's been so rainy here the past couple of days! Unusual for this time of year, but really nice.

Some more vacation pics:

My in-laws live in a mobile home at a small lake/state park. They've tricked out the trailer beautifully with a screened in porch and multi-level deck. When the whole family gets together for the Fourth of July, which is our annual "get-together" holiday, sleeping space is at a premium. Todd and I, or sometimes just I, sleep at my parents' house. Todd's sisters and their families sleep in two pop-up campers. It's quite a nice little arrangement:

That's my sister-in-law Lisa and my mother-in-law relaxing in front, and my brother-in-law Tony is the blurry guy passing through. Todd took this at dusk without the flash.

Some nights we have a campfire and roast marshmallows:

In the daytime the kids mill around and sometimes we have chats:

The girls and I did a lot of drawing and coloring at the kitchen table:

On the Fourth, I went in swimming with the kids and we lasted about ten minutes. It was coooooold!

My nephew has about 2% body fat and had to get out pretty quickly and wrap up and sit with his mom!

Off we go to sit on the pontoon boat and watch the annual Fourth of July boat parade.


You wave at the boats as they go by, and this year my niece found four old American flags at the flea market, so we had flags to wave, too.

My father-in-law has this little boat that all the womenfolk of the family secretly shake their heads about...it looks barely seaworthy and a little ridiculous as well. Here he and Todd and Tony try it out. I think it looks like something out of a Popeye cartoon.

Apparently the Midwest is being swept by a new yard game called "cornhole," where you toss beanbags at boards with holes in them. This is a word that has a different and unsavory connotation to me, but I managed to keep my giggles quiet as we held a cornhole tournament for the adults on the Fourth.

My father-in-law made the boards and my mother-in-law made the beanbags...then we saw the boards selling for $95 at the flea market, while a set of beanbags was going for $25. I think my in-laws could become cornhole tycoons!

A communal meal on the porch. The kids get set up on the deck when it's clear, or in the kitchen, when it's not, so the grown-ups can have a semi-quiet meal.

When we're not out on the pontoon boat, kayaks are in use:


Believe it or not, I have a family, too, and I did spend quite a lot of time with them this weekend, but you'd never know it apart from the fishing pictures I shared the other day. I'm going home again in September, and I promise to do better by them all then!