Willow and Seda: August

August was a fun month. I think. It's November now and I don't remember a whole lot. Hey, just trying to be honest. At least I am making an effort, however lame it may be, to document this year!

We didn't do a ton of hikes this summer. But this one that we did - it was up in Keweenaw County and ended up at the mouth of the Gratiot River, on the other side of the river from where you can get to by driving and where we have camped before - was a new one we hadn't done before. It wasn't one from the book so we couldn't check any off that new-decade resolution we made, but it was a good one anyway. I read about it in a letter to the editor someone had written to the paper. I think it was because they were trying to get people to donate to a fund to buy this land to preserve it or something. I am not sure if they succeeded or not; we hiked a ways down a sandy trail only to find it was blocked off and had "no trespassing" signs up. We hiked back a ways and took the other fork, and that one was OK too. The trail was longer than we expected. Willow got whiny and we had to carry her too. It ended, as I said, at the mouth of the Gratiot River, where it meets the Lake. We hung out on the beach awhile and Willow went swimming. We had to sort of rush to get back though, because we wanted to go to the Co-op member picnic at McLain's. All in all, it was a trail we would do again. We'll just be more prepared next time with a lunch, swimming stuff, and more time! Here we are on the trail.

Here's a random shot I thought turned out nice. Seda in the Vinka. We took similar ones of Willow when she was a baby.

A big event of every August is the county fair. This year, by chance we met up with Scott, Sharon, Aspen, Garrison and Jari there, which was fun. Willow did all the rides as enthusiastically as usual, and a bonus was that this year, she was tall enough to ride the dragon "roller coaster". But the highlight was riding a real pony. She is still very into horses, ponies, unicorns, pegasuses (pegasi?)...anything equine. We bought her a cowgirl hat at the fair too. This isn't the best photo, but it was the best one we got of her on the pony.

We made a quick weekend trip to Duluth in August too. Josh's cousin had a wedding reception there. Mark, Amy and Ava happened to be camping in Bayfield that same weekend, at the same campground we went to in June. So we met up with them and camped there Friday night on the way to the reception, which was Saturday. It was a blast, and went too quickly. I wish we could've camped with them for a week. Willow and Ava had a great time playing on the beach, and even went out on Mark and Amy's boat with Josh and Mark. Here is an especially cute picture of the two of them. Ava is exactly 2 years younger than Willow.