Back from Boston

For the few of you who still log on to Kosmatka365, I thought I would share a few pictures from this past week. We just returned from a trip to Boston. Calvin participated in a week-long music camp at Berklee College of Music, and we decided to make a family vacation out of it. The above photo was taken at about 7:45am yesterday, his last day of camp (the bump on his head is actually his guitar case he's carrying on his back...weird perspective on the photo, I know). Yes, camp started at 8am every day, and yes, the alarm for mom did go off at 6:30am every day. Some vacation!
While Calvin went to camp during the day, the rest of us enjoyed our time exploring Boston. One of the highlights was this boat trip out to the Harbor Islands. I never realized how many islands are off the coast, but sure enough, take a look at a map and there they are!
We visited George's Island for a couple of hours. The smell of the salty air was incredible, and the water was so blue I felt like I was in the Bahamas! Above is one of my favorite shots of Mason, soaking up the sun on the dock while we waited for the boat to bring us back to the mainland.
Here is a shot of Calvin, on stage during the final performance Friday. Cal had a fabulous time, and met lots of people from all over the world. Other campers were from Italy, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, and even New Jersey! (ha ha)

I'll post a few more photos from the trip later in the week (tomorrow?). In the meantime, thanks to all my friends and family who remembered my birthday this past week! Yes, I did have some cake, thank you!

Happy 4th of July!

He's 10 Today!

Birthday boy Mason had bacon with every meal, and pie for tonight's dessert. What could be better than that? He's hoping the cast comes off at tomorrow's clinic appointment. THAT would be a terrific present!

Busy Weekend

Mason played in three soccer games yesterday (1 win, 2 tied games). The fields were sopping wet, muddy and very slippery, but for the first time all season, the spectators remained dry. We've had to hold umbrellas during every game but these!
Meanwhile, Calvin had his UMD band camp performance. He plays percussion in the band, and electric guitar in the jazz band (THAT performance was Friday night).

It's been a busy week, lots of running back and forth between the soccer fields and the performance hall. But it's also been great having the boys doing things they enjoy.

This coming week will be a test. No camps scheduled. Wish me luck!

Liftoff

Mason finished his science camp this week with a soda bottle rocket launch.

Hands

We were in Michigan this past weekend celebrating my Uncle's 80th birthday. This is Uncle Ben's hand holding the hand of the youngest family member, his great-grandson, 8-month old Hunter, as Hunter tries to walk.

Welcome, Carol Hunter!

Remember my old "What is it?" blog posts? This might have been a good photo for that.

It's a yellow pond lily flower, shot at the cabin this weekend. These are a few of my favorite photos from our holiday weekend. I was prompted to post a few by my good friend Carol, who says she feels like a loser because she keeps checking back and I haven't updated the blog. (Does she know I check her non-updated blog, too? Does that make ME a loser?)

Anyway, the weather in the U-P was August-like. 90-degrees on both Saturday and Sunday. Our lake temperature was 76-degrees! Paul made his annual Memorial Day jump in the lake (I watched), and he said it felt like bath water! In May!
I was happy to find a few more ladyslippers near the dock this year. I'm hoping they'll stick around and continue to spread out each year.
And I found a few of these tiny orchids near the shore. One of my plant identifier books says it's called a Dragon's Tongue orchid. I've never noticed them on our bog before, but hope we get more next year! I lucked out and caught some sort of grasshopper in the shot, too! Can you see it?

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend! I'll post again (probably with soccer shots...tournament season is coming soon!).

May Snowfall

We went the entire month of April without snow, a first for the area. But yesterday afternoon, one last blast of winter blew through (I hope it's the last blast), leaving about 3 inches of heavy wet snow on the ground this morning. I saw bent and broken tree branches all over town, along with lots of frozen flowers.
Mason had a soccer "jamboree" today. He was supposed to play two short "exhibition" games. He played the first (many of the kids were wearing shorts!), but the coaches called the second one shortly after they started trying to shovel the field.