The truly lovely Madeline Island!!!!!!

Here we are on our way to Madeline Island!  Madeline Island is a pretty little island just off the shore by Bayfield Wisconsin.  We took the ferry ride over along with our friends and two of our vehicles.  I love the ferry ride!!!!  Lake Superior is so beautiful, I grew up south of this area so the shoreline here was a regular summer destination.  I'm so glad that since I didn't get to live near Lake Superior I do get to live right next to Lake Michigan!  lucky me!! 

Ferry picture, I love the ropes. 

One of the beaches on the island.

The post office!  I know it doesn't seem all that fabulous to most people, but my great grandmother was post mistress here when my grandma was a young girl.  Grandma said that she and her brother used to make little sachets filled with balsam to sell to the tourists.  Even back then, Madeline Island drew tourists!

One of the Madeline Island ferries.  

There will be more Madeline pictures later, I love LOVE LOVE Madeline Island.

I'll just leave you with one thought, there was a sign at the gift shop:

MADELINE ISLAND

SUMMER PEOPLE

some are not

Thank you Hodag!

Like all great vacation stops, this one started with the quilt shop here!  What a lovely place to pick up souvenirs!  Fat quarters are so fun, and take up very little space.  Also, when we stopped at a spice shop I opened them up and used them to pad the spice bottles!  The shop owner was very friendly and sweet, so if you ever get to Hodag country, go and see them at "Sew Smart"  and tell them Mare sent you!

Sadly one entire day consisted of..........

sit down please.

the Mall of America

read that with a sort of echo sound at the end okay? 

 Anyone who knows me knows that shopping isn't my all time favorite past time.  But just look at these beautiful floor tiles!!!   I was seeing a quilt here..... Cookie added some human interest with her feet on this one.

Love them all!!!

Luckily I didn't actually trip anyone while I was taking these pictures, or for that matter, I didn't fall off the bench I stood on to get a better shot of this one below.

Yes, I am actually pretty embarrassing to go places with. 

So, the mall to end all malls.  I had not wanted to go because we will be taking Miss V there this coming weekend, but my good friend cookie had never been there and she REALLY wanted to go.  So I told the big guy that if I had to go to the monster of malls twice I had BETTER get lunch out of it.  He let me pick and I chose the Rainforest Cafe.  Here Cookie and I are with our rainforest drinks.  yummy.

Here are the guys with their cokes.  yeah, that's my big guy on the right and Cookies big guy trying to get out of the picture.  Then after I had them take our lovely photo, they saw how it should be done..............

I guess you can see why we married these goof balls can't you?

And a swell time was had by all.



July camping trip-- part one of several!

Did you miss me while I was gone?  The big guy and I went on a camping trip with 2 other couples.  Wow was that different!  We have always had kids along before!  The lovely Miss V got herself a lovely job, so she stayed home to work and take care of the critters.

One of our first stops was in Rhinelander, home of the Hodags!  What is a Hodag?  Well, this entire post is going to show you the Hodags of Rhinelander, so wonder no more!

The big guy was gutsy leaning against this one, it was covered in broken glass! Very pretty, but it looked a bit painful to me!

this guy is a pilot!

This one had portraits o local politicians on him, and you could see people in his eyes, as if he was looking at the ones he was going to EAT!!!  bwaa haaa haa

He was very helpful though.....

And this one was kinda groovy dude!

The camoflage one above was a salute to our service people.

This is the biggest one of all, he tried to GET ME!!!!!! 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

But I convinced him he should be a lover not a fighter.  Nice Hodag.  Good boy.  Now show me where the nearest quilt shop is please?

Getting ready for the 4th of July!

Are you getting ready for the 4th too?  The lovely Miss V baked red an blue cupcakes this morning.  She is experimenting with her baking skills.  These batches were colored with jello. 

Here she is channeling June Cleaver........

Miss V loves vintage style, especially the 50's.

Here she is with some edible sparklers that we made, along with some cake bon bons.

Look at all our sparklers!!! 

Then of course we needed to fuel ourselves and the big guy.........

Mmmmmm  hot dogs hot off the grill!

By this time Miss V had snatched my camera and was taking pictures of everything in sight. 

I may come to regret this one.

The big guy looks more serious than I do!  Hot dog condiments are serious business!

Cupcakes are frosted.  Tomorrow we will put the red and blue sprinkles on them, we know from experience if we do it tonight they will bleed all over and bleeding cupcakes might be perfect for Halloween, but not so much for the 4th of July.

And here are our sparklers ready to be served in our red tin cans filled with red white and blue candies!   How festive are we??

We also felt the need to pause for some root beer floats.   

and yes, that IS a fireworks tote bag.  The bag lady has a bag for EVERY occasion!