Santa Claus is coming to town!

Our third annual kids' party was a hit as usual.  Ten kids and their parents gathered for a little festivities with food, drink, treats and of course Santa, who brought a small gift for each kid.

Near the end of the evening, Ida, Henrik, Jackson & Kaiti gathered all of the stuffed animinals they could find for a group shot like the picture we got of all of the kids earlier in the evening.  Of course I bet you can guess who had to put all of those stuffed animals away!

Random fun

The kids went to a birthday party at the UP Children's Museum and had lots of fun!

 

Then a quick trip to the park before winter arrived.  There is something so fun about playing at the park on a late (mid-November) day knowing that you won't have the chance again for months.

 

Ida's bedroom make-over was finally completed.  She was thrilled with the pink walls, flowers and big bed!

 

Henrik and Suzanne got to go to Ida's ballet open house to watch the kids dance.

Happy Birthday Ida!

We had a birthday weekend celebration, starting with dinner and ice cream with some family and friends on Ida's actual birthday. 

 

 Ida's birthday party had a "Tangled"/Repunzel theme.  We started by making Ida a Rapunzel braid to wear.

 

 Made some pretty crowns.



 Signature "royal" flags.

 

Kids and pizza,

 presents,

 

and of course cake and ice cream!



Fall Fun

 A quick trip to Appleton to run a 1/2 Marathon (it was COLD, but fun).

 

 Suzanne's first trip to Mickey-Lu's on the way home.  Great burger and diner atmosphere!

 

 We've spent some time at camp--enjoying the beautiful fall colors.
 

We climbed the "mountain" for a beautiful view of Marquette!

 

 Back to camp for some target practice.

 Getting ready for Halloween.  After making a mess, flinging pumpkin guts everywhere, Ida told Chad "this is what it's all about!"

 Halloween finally arrived, with our beautiful "Belle" and

Henrik's creative idea of being a window.  he was a fine window, complete with yellow dinosaur curtains and a view of a colorful fall tree outside the window.  Let's just say that almost everyone we saw that day commented that they had never seen a window costume before!

Kindergarten

Suzanne forgot to snap a picture of the kids at home before leaving for Ida's first day of kindergarten so she snapped one before dropping Henrik off at preschool instead.

Ida in front of her new school.  As far as we could tell, this smile never left her face all day!

 

 Her first assignment, with Jackson at her table (he's already been moved to a new table--they must have been having too much fun sitting across from each other).

Her first day of school wouldn't be complete without her first ballet class of the year.  I'm not kidding when I say that the smile never left her face all day!

Last few days of freedom (before summer ended) . . .

Yes, that is Henrik swimming with the noodle and no other assistance.

 

And FINALLY getting to go down the slide (over and over and over again until the instructors politely moved him to the shallow end of the pool).

Ida's last day of adventure camp, complete with face painting and many temporary tattoos.

Then off to the "running race"--Ida's second and Henrik's first.  This was at the start.  The race was .8 mile and Henrik's short legs ran almost the entire distance.  Ida did a great run/walk and everyone was thrilled with the effort and fun!

 

Coming in to the finish.  Suzanne couldn't get better pictures than this because the kids were running so fast and swooped in for quick hugs before heading toward the finish line.

The next day Suzanne, Ida and Henrik got out on the half marathon course to cheer Chad on.

Grand Marais to Munising Falls (45 miles--3 days)

For Suzanne's 40th birthday, she asked for a backpacking trip.  After months of planning, it was finally time.  The trip consisted of a thru-hike along the Lakeshore Trail (a part of the North Country Trail) through Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.  The start point was Grand Marais and the end--Munising Falls, Munising.  We spent  her actual birthday hanging out in Grand Marais and eating two fine meals (and some good local beer) and the Lake Superior Brewing Company.

 The light at the end of the Grand Marais breakwall.

Supposedly, there was a seasonal road somewhere near here that wasn't plowed, but for the life of us we couldn't find anything that even came close to looking like a road (even by UP standards).

The first half hour of hiking was a little tense.  It was raining off and on and the trail was not marked.  We ended up hiking down a steep hill of beach sand (basically an overgrown dune) and found ourselves on the beach not sure if we would be able to get back up to the trail.  Thankfully we ran into a woman on the beach who thought there was a staircase going up next to the waterfall a mile or so down the beach.  Turns out the trail was located on the beach (with no signage along the way).

Meanwhile, back in Marquette the kids were having a blast with grandpa C and Sandy, who treated them to a trip to Frosty Treats.

It was very windy our first day of hiking, with some pretty impressive waves on Lake Superior.  We decided to forego filtering water that night in hopes that the waves would calm down by morning.  This decision was made easier after watching a guy lose the pot he was washing in the crashing waves.  It was much calmer the next morning and we were able to get and filter plenty of water to get back on the trail.

Somewhere along the way (literally in the middle of nowhere) we stumbled upon this car.  Grandpa C thought (when we showed him the picture) that it was probably from the 40s.

We found a nice creek to take a break and "ice" the feet.  Beautiful scenery and it was great to get the boots off for awhile.

Very cool log bridge, we crossed a few minutes after taking this picture.

After another long day of hiking, we made it to Chapel Rock, our campground for night two.  We got camp set up and had dinner on Chapel Beach before calling it a night.

Our final day started with blue skies and fabulous scenery.  

And 45 miles later, we popped out into the parking lot at Munising Falls, jumped in the car and headed to Munising for dinner before heading home.  It was a great trip, with some long hiking days (14.5-16.3 miles each day), but very rewarding with some wonderful views.