Strikers

E & S wrapped up their summer sports season with a soccer league in Corcoran.  The town's population is barely 5,000, but on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, it jumps over 10% with 25 fields of kids aged 5-10 year olds working to be the next Messi or Marta.

Evie cautiously went with the flow, always mindful of where her goal was and tended to hover behind the "scrums" ready to serve as the last line of defense for her Lightning.  For next season, we'll be working on getting aggressive on the offensive end of the field.  

Sawyer, on the other hand, was always at the epicenter, quite comfortable with contact, and slippery and quick enough to create her share of breakaway goals.  For next season, we'll continue to work on sportsmanship (e.g. not shouting "this team is easy" after scoring goals), and making mistakes and losing with grace.

Calhoun

Sunday Funday around Lake Calhoun.

Big Stone

Nana took the girls to Big Stone Mini Golf in Minnetrista, which lived up to its eclectic reputation.  Stained glass caves, chickens and goats on the course, mini (finger) shuffleboard, giant chess... and an opportunistic pig that steals marshmallows from the bonfire supply table.

Northwoods

Linds & I headed up to the Gorman cabin for a weekend of fun (pontooning, hammerschlagen, Kan Jam, beer tastings, bonfires, ping pong, et cetera) with the McNerneys, Furbers, Gormans (x2) and Maggie & Allison on Mantrap Lake... after slugging out a triathlon in Nevis, that is.

Minnehaha Falls

A day later, we returned to Minnehaha Park for a hike with the Jungs, capped off with some live music by Heart of a Tinman, and a cool down (the kids in the creek, and the parents with a beer at Sea Salt).

Girls' Best Friend

E & S spent an afternoon along Mississippi at the Minnehaha Dog Park, G's favorite place in the world, chucking his "frisbee" up and down the shore.

Just look at the big boy's smile...

Rub-a-dub-dub

... five kids in a tub.

Summer of Simone

The fam' got far more into the Summer Olympics in Rio than anticipated, tuning in nightly to see what event was on tap, and to check in on the US medal count.  

Diving, track, and handball were three surprising favorites... well, next to gymnastics, that is.  Simone & Aly were must-see TV that required a reconfiguration of our living room furniture nightly.

(Near) Beer Pong

Only at LaLa's... 

(smh) 

NNO 2016

National Night Out doesn't feel all that different than a typical summer Friday in our cul-de-sac, except when we get a visit from McGruff, the Crime Dog, and get an interior tour of a squad car.

Happy 10th

Happy 10th, LMB. From our first adventure here (honeymoon snorkeling in HI), to our whatever is our next, I can't imagine a better co-pilot.

Chicago Girls

Linds and the girls met her BFF Jaime and her girls (Alex, 3, and Anna, 1) in the Windy City for a weekend to give us hard-working dads a few days off... or something like that.

When asked what their favorite parts of the trip were, E & S unanimously voted the pool at the "cabin" (a 50-floor swanky hotel, actually... but, hey, they're raised Minnesotan) and 7-11 slurpees as tops.  But, from the pictures Linds took, it seems like Navy Pier, the Chicago Children's Museum, Maggie Daley Park (within Millennium Park), and hanging out in the cockpit were hits as well.