what a crazy, crazy summer it's been. the last two weeks were spent in indiana, and they FLEW. i'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that school starts in three weeks. henry ended third grade, then BAM! we were busy and june was over. then summer camps filled july, and BAM! it was over. and two more weeks of crazy later, BAM! less than a month until fourth grade.
insanity.
but indiana was the good kind of insanity.
we started out in indy with marc's family, who luckily live in a neighborhood with a fabulous pool. we were down there several times playing and sunning. henry even decided to ... very cautiously ... try the diving board.

... but only after daddy showed him there was nothing to fear.

and speaking of no fear, there's this girl:

all summer long, while hanging out at our gym's pool, she has been perfecting the Underwater Eyes Open Dog Paddle. at grandma and grandpa's pool, however, the water was too deep for her to swim without floaties.
there was a zero-depth pool where she played ... very briefly ... with her cousin kayla.

then harper's little brain forgot about the depth of the big pool where everyone else was having fun,
and

lucky for her and us that she's been working on that underwater dog paddle, because it came in handy. she popped up twice, then started in on her third sink when daddy got to her and pulled her out. she was nonplussed, but did have to have a chat with dad about pool safety and waiting for someone to swim with her.
stinker.
on saturday, we drove an hour to muncie, indiana to watch my brother-in-law play in a softball tournament. four games, two kids, no shade, 85 degrees.

it was more fun that it sounds, but that pool was sounding mighty good to us as we drove home.
sunday, we dropped off marc at the airport so he could spend the next five days in dallas with the other red hat solutions architects, and the kids and i drove north to my parents'. more busyness ensued.
day one of the visit, my dad went out to water the flowers and harper joined him, which soon turned into my dad spraying and harper dancing around to avoid the water.

then dad made the mistake of actually spraying harper. not good.

harper has this skulk that she does when she's mad or annoyed, that soon turns into what we affectionately call her "kate face" (heather, you'll be the only person to get that! lol) ...

this skulk/face thing has overstayed its welcome, and she now gets trouble for pulling it.
bygones.
luckily, there were non-irritating activities for her:
baking cookies ...

taking a gander at hibiscuses (hibiscusi?) as big as her head and using them as an umbrella ...

and where was henry all this time, you might ask?
hiding. from me, from harper, from the world. my parents' house has a room in the basement that is my dad's office and has its own bathroom. that's where henry sleeps, so he just grabs his gameboy and some books and disappears. i let him ... it's good to have your own space now and then.
i did pull him out long enough to spend a day with us at the warren dunes in michigan, though.
now, floridians and gulf coastians and californians, you can keep your oceans. i love love LOVE lake michigan and its beaches.
this was henry's second visit to lake michigan, but the last time he went he was three. no memory of it remains in his head. and this was harper's first visit. all she talked about for a week, when she heard we were going to the beach, was finding seashells and sand dollars.
umm ... uh oh.
but then they saw the sand and the water and all they could think was,
"YEEEEAAAHHHHWWWAAAAAHHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!"



as henry swam, harper started to dig a hole in the beach. between digs, she would run to the water with her bucket, fill it up, then dump the water in the hole before digging again.
on her fifth trip back to the water, grandma hid a special surprise under the sand in the hole.
as harper dumped the bucket of water in the hole, she noticed something ... what is that? ... wait! it can't be!! ... it IS!!

a sand dollar!!! her day was made, completely.
(and she didn't let go of the shell for two days. honest truth.)

as the afternoon wound down, we dried off, packed up, and headed back to the car. but before we could go, the kids just HAD to try to conquer the ginormous sand dune beckoning from across the parking lot. grandpa bet them a dollar each they couldn't reach the top.
ha. he has no idea what the promise of a dollar can get my kids to do.

roughly fifteen minutes later, including a few pit stops along the way, the kids had reached the top, run back to the bottom, and were scampering toward grandpa with triumphant smiles and outstretched hands.
good day.
the next day, my grandma came to spend the day with us. i haven't seen her for nearly three years, so it was great to spend the day with her.
we drove to a&w for some coney dogs, then ate them picnic-style at the huntington reservoir, near the dam that was built because of my grandpa roush's efforts in congress to protect his district from flooding, the dam that now bears his name.

after quesadillas with grandma for dinner, she headed home and the kids headed to bed. the next day would be our return trip to indy to meet daddy, and saturday morning was the start of our trek back to minnesota.
crossing that bridge from wisconsin over the st croix river is always our favorite sight ... regardless of how much fun we had during our visit to indiana. and this was a pretty darn good visit. even so, home never sounded so good.
sunday we went through a house that is at the top of our list, tied with another, as possible plans to build. we've seen this house in various stages of construction, but now it's done and the sales agent thought we'd want to see the final product. i'll talk about that tomorrow.