Crafty

I have always wanted to make my own cushions for our outdoor furniture and, voila, here they are finally. Now that these are finished, I can begin working on my other summer sewing projects. I hope to finish them all before little Lanza arrives because I don't foresee having much spare time for sewing then.

2 guys, 1 canoe

Ian and Colin drove up to northern Minnesota to spend a week in the Boundary Waters Wilderness. Ian went last year with Dave and had a blast (see blog post from a year ago). The basic concept is canoe camping with small portages between lakes. It is over a million acres of untouched wilderness with such an abundance of lakes, rivers, and streams that one can cover a large distance in a canoe with some hiking between.

Here they are posing with their awesome, lightweight, kevlar, high-performance canoe that they rented from an outfitter. It weighs only 42 pounds, making it a pleasure to carry overhead on portages.

It weights a bit more than that in the water with 2 people and gear / food for a week. The gunwales ride a bit low, but it is still easy to paddle.

Day 1: Homer Lake

They hit the road early and arrived at the ranger station by mid afternoon. Then on to the outfitter to get the canoe. Amanda's sweet Honda Pilot was really comfortable on the 30 miles of gravel road that we drove to get to the entry point on Homer Lake (thanks Amanda!). They paddled across Homer Lake and made camp early enough to do some fishing and skinny dipping.

Day 2: Trekking from Homer Lake to Middle Cone Lake

Colin slept late (a theme of the trip), but Ian woke up early to get some pics of the mist on the water.

Colin threw in his line on Juno Lake and pulled in some impressive fish. Here he is holding up a nice Walleye. He also wrangled a few Northern Pike.

The campsite on Middle Cone Lake. A quick dipper in the lake was followed by a nice campfire with a view. Ian really likes the island campsites because it is less likely that a bear will get into the food. Just in case, the food went up in a tree.

Day 3: Middle Cone Lake to Long Island Lake

Colin demonstrates perfect portaging technique as we head into a marshy area connecting to Long Island Lake. A big portion of this area is still recovering from a windstorm and fire that left the landscape looking like armageddon.

Day 4: Long Island Lake to Cherokee Lake

Colin making the morning cup of coffee..."Sweet nectar of the gods!" In the other picture he is tying on a lure. There were quite a few fishing lures lost on this trip.

Ian takes a few casts into a deep pool in a stream.

Days 4 and 5: Brule Lake

Brule was the only big lake that we hit. We camped on an island (as usual) and got tossed around a bit by some stormy weather

Wildlife:

Veggies!

We are finally getting some veggies from our garden- lettuce, spinach, zucchini, summer squash, and peas! It's amazing how quickly things grow in just a few days. I was over there on Thursday and this zucchini and squash were not close to being ready. Today they were monstrous!

I brought the clippers today to take control of the weeds. They are doing just as well (if not better) than the things we planted. As you can see, they are not even close to being tackled.

Baby Lanza Showers

During the month of June I had two wonderful baby showers. We received so many nice gifts for our little Lanza. And, yes, I am wearing the same dress at both showers. It's the only dressy thing I have these days.

My friend, Jill, threw me a baby shower here in MN.

The guests were some of my friends from work and book club. My friend, Dee Dee, (with whom I did the triathlon last summer) is not pictured since she was behind the camera.

Courtney, Andrea and I were the wicked good second grade team (along with Tony) this year.

Guess the baby food in the diaper. It was harder than I thought it would be.

My mom and Aunt Donna had a shower for me while I was on the east coast.

Ian's Aunt Linda made this beautiful diaper cake.

My Aunt Donna created this adorable blanket cake.

Everyone cut a length of string that they thought was my belly circumference.

Three of my friends- Kirsten, Mia, and Roselee (who is due a couple of weeks before me-yay!)


Ian's Aunt Linda, cousin Lauren, and his cousin Chris' wife, Cait.


My friend, Jen's, twin girls, Avery and Zoe, were great helpers opening and showing the gifts to everyone.

CIndy away, Ian lonely

CIndy has been in MA and ME for a week now. I will post a few pictures of me and a cat.