As we drove across the upper peninsula my friend and I spotted five "dinosaur birds" that I later identified as Sandhill Cranes using the book Birds of Michigan: Field Guide.

The big falls at Tahquanmenon State Park are a must see in the U.P! The beautiful views made all the stairs worth it. We also ate at the brewery next to the falls and had some delicious lake trout.

They eat milkweed leaves.

This Annual Family Picnic was started by my father's siblings over 60 years ago. Each summer, families traveled from both Kalamazoo and Detroit, meeting 1/2 way in between, at the Waterloo Recreation Area in Jackson. When I was a child, this picnic was the highlight of our summer. To this day, even though my father and his siblings have passed away, my generation, and the following 2 generations still meet once a year to catch up, have a pot luck meal, and swim in the lake. Wonderful memories have been created throughout the years!

I went camping in Heritage Park (next to the library) on july 13th. Our family has been going camping there for years. The area of the camp out was changed a little this time. We got there kinda late so I didn't get to play the games and jump around in the inflatable things. We set up our tent by a pond so we were lucky to have a very beautiful scene. My family and I just spent time hanging out and drinking pop. Later, we made s'mores. I put two marshmallows on a stick but one got really gooey and almost fell off. My marshmallows caught on fire but I blew on them and the fire disappeared. The guy who gives you all of your supplies gave me extra chocolate because it took him a while to open the bag of chocolate. He was a funny guy. Anyway, after my mom and two of my brothers left to go home, my dad, little brother and I set up our chairs to see the movie. I ate some popcorn. Yum! The movie we saw was The Smurfs. We missed about half of it so I didn't really follow the story.

These black-eyed Susans are growing behind the library near the pond. I walked back there during my lunch hour to take some pictures.

Sometimes, my little brother and I like to go outside when fireflies come out and we catch a lot of them. They're pretty easy to catch actually. After we gather a lot of fireflies, we squish them so our patio has many little glowing spots on it. It's okay to murder fireflies once in a while... :)

It was so much fun!

We planted hastas last night. My mom's hastas were getting too big so she divided them and gave us some!  Some originally came from a dear friend from church and some others from an Aunt who moved away. And some of them donated their leaves to our wedding centerpieces one month ago.