Cameras

I am hoping you can help me! We are wanting a new camera and should get it soon, but I can't quite decide on what I want.
I don't want a big detailed camera that is more than I would understand.
I want one that takes great pictures of people and can also do nice scenery photos.
I want one that is sturdy.
It needs to have a long battery life.
For fun I would like one that takes short videos. That is pretty standard, it seems, though.
I want one that is all in one piece, currently mine isn't. It still works though.
That can take pictures in pretty quick succession. 
 

What is important to you in a camera?
Do you have one you recommend?

Do, Please tell.

~Anna

My Memories of Jackpine 2010

As fall comes into view each year we take a journey to

Northern Minnesota

Near the little town of 

 To enjoy times in God's amazing world.

We pass through quaint towns

 We go under beautiful skies,

 Pass by neat art work we only get to see once a year.

 Get water at an artisan well

 And wait patiently in the chilling breeze for our jugs to fill.

 We won the prettiest campsite "award".

 Bundled under lots of layers to sing around the camp fires with 

 some of our dearest friends and family members.

 Some visited the afternoon away,

 While others built cities and conquered villages in the sand.

 At night we sang and listened to more great sermons in the waning hours of the night. 

Some fell to sleep in awkward shapes.

But woke refreshed to see another morning to sing around the campfire!

Some of my favorite memories are of camping! Do you have good memories as well?
~Anna

Flowers

It is time to deplant and remove a lot of the browning plants around my house.

Some of the flowers still are keeping going even though it is getting quite cool.

The other evening I walked around and took pictures of different flowers that I have been enjoying this summer. I planted lots of marigolds this year because we took off to a very buggy start. They seemed to do their job some. At least they added lots of color!

The echinacea and rhubarb are my exciting ones for the year.
 We have learned what parts to use of the ecchinacea and had a lot of tea with it while some were sick around here. It is virtually a weed so I am happy it is being useful now too. It was nice as just a flower too because where it is growing nothing else was, except for lots of peppermint.
 Then the rhubarb is very exciting because we all love deserts made with rhubarb and don't get it very much because we don't have any growing near here, but now we do! I do hope it makes it through the winter okay. I don't know if I transplanted it at the right time or not, we shall see. If winter holds off for awhile I am going to be tempted to harvest some. It is growing so nicely.

Lee, A Life Of Virtue

This is a book review for the book, Lee A Life of Virtue.  
I found this to be an excellent book. Both enjoyable to read and full of educational facts. If you are studying the Civil War, great leaders or other random American histories this would be a good book to choose. Mr. Perry gives you background into the Lee family as well as showing you the beginning of Robert E. Lee's life and married years before the war. Since I was raised and have spent all my years in the north I have felt like the civil war had merit. In reading this book you realize there are two sides to every tale. I had known that Lincoln's reason for the war was not slavery but unification of our nation and this book lends more evidence to that. During the war years in this book it also lets you see just how horrible war is and how hard we should try to avoid it. That may not have been intended by the author, but it is certainly brought out in the statistics of the battles you read of. After reading this book I continue to feel great respect for the man, General Robert E. Lee! 
I received this book through Booksneeze, an excellent way to get free books!

Adventures at Willow River State Park

We packed a picnic lunch and after church we headed over to Willow River State Park. I had heard it was neat and there are cool water falls you can play in. 

Turns out they are cold water falls 

and they are fun to play in.

At the falls there is a path and an 173 (if our counting is correct, one lady said 176 and DJ said193) step staircase you can climb, and see amazing views out over the river, falls, a lake and where the dam should be.

Looking down on the falls from the look out area

Crossing a footbridge to get higher up the falls

Looking out from behind a waterfall

While we were walking to the falls we walked through a camping area, it smelled so good with all the campfires smoldering in the fire rings. We came home smelling like we were camping just being by all the fires and smokers. Since it was a holiday weekend and the last of the summer it was a pretty busy place but still you were able to enjoy nature and see neat things. 

There is also a dam further south on the river a little so we looked that over, too. There were a lot of people fishing off of it and around it.
Swimmingly good,
~Anna


Had quite and adventure in  getting this post up. For some reason the program is sure it knows more than me what I want for fonts and spaces between items.

The Weekly Review XIIII

I should warn you, this is a ridiculously long post. Better go get something to sustain you while you read it :)
Sunday!
Travis left early and drove trains, the rest of us went to church and learned about God. When we left for church we left poor Henry in his kennel because I wasn't planning on coming back home after church. After church I got to feeling bad for Henry and we ran home and let him run for a little bit and the girls changed their clothes. Then we headed south for Rochester to hang out with the Blanshans for Linda's Birthday party. We had a really good time visiting with everyone and staying way longer than we were intended to stay. It was really nice to get to see all of them and a few other people that aren't on our regular visiting rounds. Beatrice and Catelynn had a lot of fun playing imaginary games in the office while Gregory and Joel played every board game there. Margaret and Harrison rode bikes with Benjamin and held Shep. We got home about 9pm, just a little after Travis got home from work.

Monday!
Travis replaced some of the towel dispensers at the church building and then went and picked up Hans and Garrett to spend the night at our house. While Travis was out running he stopped and got his Anniversary present, new speakers for the downstairs computer. They are awesome, just ask anyone but me. We are enjoying a couple fresh tomatoes each day now, they are quite yummy!

Tuesday!
Tammy came and got the boys mid morning. Margaret and Harrison each had their music lessons. I jarred up my dried herbs.

Wednesday!
Travis mowed all of our neighborhood it seemed like this morning before he went to work. He did around the pond, the empty house and the houses that don't have a lawnmower and he weed eated all along the alley. I prepared my lesson for class this evening and got groceries. Harrison went home with the Verhoeven's from church so he could go to Wild Mountain with them in the morning.

Thursday!
I had a dentist appointment to get my teeth cleaned. Beatrice went along to keep me company. When we got home it was already about time for Travis to go to work again. So I made lunch and he got ready to leave. The trains are really moving right now it seems. I went on a baking spree and made  bread (since we were out), Mary L.'s zucchini bread (since I had one more zucchini to use up) and Chocolate Chip cookies. They were all so yummy! I hadn't had zucchini bread in quite awhile, every one but Harrison thought it was good. Harrison said he could still taste the zucchini! Harrison got home exhausted from a busy day riding lots of rides. They have an alpine slide there that I think would be fun to try.

Friday!
Today was Nati and Heidi's birthday. The kids made Nati a couple of presents and took him a plate full of cookies. He is a big fan of chocolate chip cookies so I thought that would be a good gift for him. Margaret made a rainbow jello for the church picnic tomorrow. It turned out quite beautiful. I did some sewing. I remodeled a dress for me, a skirt for Margaret and a little mending. We took a picnic to Battle Creek park and hiked awhile around there and had our supper there. It was a pretty evening to be outside. It was really hot out but there was a nice breeze and in the trees where we had plenty of shade it was pleasant. The mosquitoes came out pretty heavy at the end of our walk. We went off the paved trail and followed mountain bike trails that are pretty exciting. I would be walking most of them even if I had my bike along. Way to up and down, around and around.

Saturday!
We went to help a couple move from their house to an apartment. The husband, Roger, is in the hospital and when he comes home he won't be able to maneuver stairs so they had to move. Their house had been decorated very cutely. It would have been hard to move. They are a part of the deaf ministry at church, so although I recognize them, I didn't know them. The kids had wondered what they would do but there were plenty of things their size to haul out and we were a valuable asset to the moving team. It was a fun morning of hard work. Travis got home from work about noon and then Hans and Garrett got to our house about 12:30 and we got home about 1pm. Then I made tacos real quick for lunch. After we had lunch I took a quick nap while the house fell down from wild kids. Once I got up I got together the rest of the food for the church picnic. The picnic was fun, at first it seemed there weren't to many coming but by the time it was over there were quite a few and we had a good time. I just visited,

Travis and Harrison, Hans and Garrett, Margaret and  Deborah all played volley ball with others.

Gregory pretty much just stayed in the jumping house the whole evening.

Beatrice kind of flitted from here to there.

BONUS!

Sunday!
We loaded up in the van and went to church. After church we headed over to Robert Street for Hannos' baptism. We had a little time so we ran in to Walmart. Travis wanted to get me a watch and he needed socks. When we got to the Ethiopian Orthodox church building Solomon was outside telling people goodbye. He told Travis we were to late and we could come over to their house to visit later. So we said that is what we would do and were going to go back to the van when one of Saba's sisters came and said we ought to come inside. We felt kind of awkward so we said we could see Saba and Hannos later and we got back in the van. Then another guy came out of the church building after we were in the van and talked Travis into coming into the church building. So we all got out and followed this person, I think their preacher, into the basement of the church where they were cleaning up from the meal after the baptism. Saba had invited us to come for the dinner and not actually for the baptism. She was quite excited that so many people had come and she said "it is like a party, people can come whenever!" A couple more Ethiopian families came after us so I felt better about it. They fed us their enjura, another type of bread that is traditional to them that is very similar to our white bread and then several types of topping for the enjura. It was yummy to us. Hans and Garrett not so much. We have a wider pallet for flavors we like to taste. We also got to try Saba's homemade beer. It was very interesting. Travis doesn't think it actually had any alcohol in it. Mine was called honey water and had a bite like vinegar but was quite sweet, Travis' wasn't sweet (He said it was too sweet) and was a color like ice tea. After we finished eating and it seemed a good time we said thank you and headed home. In the early evening after Travis left for work we all plus Osmond went on a bike ride to a park and hung out there for awhile. When we returned from the ride I made supper of potato wedges, hot dogs and veggies. The kids had a water fight to cool themselves off and wash off all the sand. Although that didn't happen, getting the sand off, my bed had a lot of sand on it where they had been sitting playing the wii. Tammy came and got the boys about 9:30 pm.

Monday!

To continue with our alcohol bent week we did errands today and one was to go to Morelli's to get me some vodka. I have been wanting to get some for several days because I got my order of vanilla in last week and I needed to get the beans soaking so I can have real vanilla again. I have been pricing them all summer and wanting to buy but just not sure if the cost was worth it. Olive Nation had a sale available and I bought. We had fun getting the beans sliced up the middle and pouring the vodka over them. Now they are quietly soaking in the cabinet for the next several months. I can't wait! I also got a bunch of laundry done and all the beds changed. We watched a sweet movie called Dad that Travis checked out from the library. I made my own version of shortbread for supper's desert. It is so yummy. I might need to share the recipe with you all some time. I am sure it will be better when I have my own vanilla to use in it.

Tuesday!

This day marks the day Travis and I have been married for 14 years. It seems impossible that it can be this many years. But I am happy we have had them! He truly is a wonderful guy to spend my life with.

And now I bid the Weekly review good bye. We have had a good summer and now our time is over. I will be writing on an irregular basis again.
~Anna
PS Our Swallow tail just finished metamorphosing and wriggled out of his chrysalis!
PSS On September 1st he flew away and we got to see it!!