Some beach footage of Madelyn enjoying the surf and sand... Buckle down, this is a long one!:)

And a few more Pics!

More Reunion Pics!

Here a few more pics...as soon as we get the whole family pic we will post that as I believe Aunt Betty has the best one.

Krasula Family Reunion at the Beach!

We have been in SC visiting lots of family. The bi-annual family reunion on Michael's dad's side all congregated in North Myrtle Beach for week of sun and fun. The trip started off a bit rocky as we missed a flight in Dallas but ended well with Maddie sleeping almost all of both legs when returning to JH yesterday, with lots of fun in between.

As far as the reunion goes their were 25 family members if my counting is correct. Family representing Wyoming, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and South Carolina were present. We were a block from the beach, had a pool and all had a great time. Maddie had a great time hanging' with her grandma and grandpa sula, cousins, aunts, uncles and playing in the sand. See pics and more to come later.

A slow day on the porch....BUT, it's a TUESDAY, and you know what that means - THE LANDSCAPER GUYS COME AND MOW THE GRASS! This is by far Madelyn's favorite neighborhood happening! She plays the harmonica for the guys, stands at the gate and yells "hi" over the hum of the mowers, and today, she was lucky enough to go for a ride with her favorite landscaper!! After her ride, we couldn't pry her away from the gate, she wanted more, more, more!

move over morels!

Move over morels, we've hit the big-time with boletes! We have struck out this year with the morels, but with all of the rain we've been having, there are bolete mushrooms popping up everywhere! Robin and I collected a few while on a hike with Madelyn the other day... we cooked them up for dinner and found them to be the consistency of a slug... tasty, but could hardly put it to my lips!? We later discovered that there are two types of boletes in this area (both edible, don't worry!): slippery jacks (slug-like) and these beautiful orange boletes we've been finding in the aspen stands. The later tastes much better and is far more firm.

Today we headed north of town and met up with Bryan. Combined, we pulled in 30 pounds!?

Yes, that's a picture of Bryan weighing the bags.... We spent the next 2 hours processing the mushrooms - washing, scraping off the spongy gills, and slicing up so that we can freeze or dry them. Had a few for dinner tonight -slightly more flavor than your regular button mushrooms in the grocery store, same texture.






The other pics are from collecting today, boletes are much easier to find than morels that is for sure. Mk with a bag full and Maddie getting in on the action, and finally a picture of some other mushrooms I found - I was hoping they were chanterelles, but when we got back and tried to ID them, it didn't quite match up, so we tossed them. But they sure are beautiful!

What a busy week!?

What a busy (and fun-filled) week!? We saw my dad off, the Haspelas were in town, we went to Mark and Ryland's beautiful wedding, Hazel and Tate's 1st birthday party, bbqs, brunches, ... really, last night was the first night in a long while that Mike and I found ourselves resting on the couch!? Always so great to see Kev, Woolfy and Hazel - we fit in some great play-time. Madelyn and Hazel had some fun naked water playtime on aunty Margot's porch, they had a slumber party at our house while their parents had a good time at Mark and Ry's wedding, and they went swimming together twice!

Here are a few pictures of the last week in no particular order...