Catching up in pictures

I've been really slow at posting here lately, so I have quite the backlog of pictures. I guess it was maybe too many pictures for blogger to handle because after moving most of them I couldn't get these last two moved (which are the first two)... so a little out of order, but I guess it will have to do.
So what's been going on lately? Well, an EF5 tornado blasted through towns in Iowa that are just about 20 minutes north of us. Strange that a few days before this one, an EF4 hit Colorado a mere 20 minutes north of Josh & Anne. I'm sure we're all feeling a little on the lucky side.
Aside from that kind of obnoxious weather, the minor temperature weather has been really sucking too - we spent the day Monday putting a window air conditioner in - I think it was probably around 85 outside, and a little hotter inside... then the next day we just about had to break down and turn the heat back on. It was maybe 45-50 degrees...

Anyway... here's a small sampling of the hundreds of pictures I've taken since my last post ;)

Last week we spent the week in our house up north while Mike was at a training meeting in Ashland. We got to spend some time at Lake Superior on the day we picked him up. It was a little on the chilly side, but it's just so beautiful up there! Duncan and Maria had a blast running around the playground.

And Beatrice had a blast trying to eat grass :)

On Sunday, before we left to go up north I was sitting outside when this guy pulls up with smoke rolling out of his car. He opened the hood and flames started shooting out. He asked if anyone had a bucket of water... we called the fire department. Luckily they are only a block away so it was a really quick response.

Here is the owner walking away with all kinds of expletives... I really wanted to photoshop this with a bubble of him swearing and asking for a bucket of water, but haven't yet unpacked the box with my photo program in it and it hadn't yet made it to my laptop before we moved... so we'll just have to do without ;)

Now back to the lighter side of life... Beatrice has been pulling herself up on everything lately! (mostly with the motivation of chewing on it)

And she's been full of attitude! Just try to tell her she can't chew on something!
With a few warm days (which have been very sporadic) we've been spending some time outdoors :) Maria and Duncan have really been enjoying their time outside.

Maria wheels down the sidewalk with her heeley's and Duncan just has a blast running.

Or riding his trike

And Beatrice just loves hanging out and watching Maria and Duncan travel up and down the sidewalk.
I really wanted to move the other pics of Lake Superior down here, but it just wasn't happening... so here's the first one I took there of Maria and Duncan running up the platform with the lake behind them.
After we got back from Lake Superior we all went to Aunt Renee's for a cookout! :) It was lots of fun. Beatrice had her first taste of corn and there was no getting that corn cob out of her hands!

So that's the short version of the past couple of weeks ;) I'll try not to go so long between posts!