The Holiday Weekend

Hello lovely readers.  I have been pretty busy the last couple of weeks even though I am not officially working  right now I am have been going to meetings planning curriculum both for my self and my school district so I haven't had as much free time as I always think I will have.  I also have my children and while I love them they are little attention vampires and they keep me pretty busy.  This weekend of course was a big American Holiday our Independence day.  My In-Laws are lovely people and have a fabulous cabin up in the woods of Wisconsin so we made plans to go up there but first some lovely friends of ours got married on Saturday so we waited to go up so we could celebrate with them.  Here is a picture us at the photo booth our friends had rented for the wedding.  I have to say that it was very fun to look through the strips at everyone's pictures.  I think I would have gotten one of these for our wedding reception if I had know how fun they might be and if you are getting married in the near future look into it the pictures are a hoot to look at later.

Well that was probably the best part of the weekend but there were some down sides too.  On Friday a really big storm hit the area of my in laws cabin and lots of damage was done to the entire area.  My in  laws only lost power for the day a a few tree the luckily none fell on the cabin or garage or out buildings.  Unfortunately they did lose an old growth pine that will be sorely missed by us all as it was a lovely large tree but it was by some luck that this tree did not fall on the cabin as it was right by it and enormous.  Many others in the area have lost much more there were 11 deaths including an 11 year girl that was camping in the area.  Lots of property damage including our friends Mr and Mrs H who used to have us up at their cabin before my in laws bought one of their own.  My husband and FIL when and helped them cut a path down their driveway (I always feel bad getting stuck supervising the kids in these situations I would rather pitch in with the labor).  We felt so bad for our friends as they has such a beautiful tree covered lot and there is hardly a tree left standing on their property.  Their dock was lifted out of the water and bent and they had several holes in their cabin roof as well as their new garage.  When you look at the property it looks like it was clear cut.  The H's seemed to be in a state of shock and to tell the truth I could hardly blame then I saw at least 3 trees on their roof and large holes made by said trees.  On our way in there were power lines down right next to the road and while we did see utility companies out working on these there seemed a lot to do.  People in the area had formed cutting parties as their roads were covered in downed trees and no one could get out of the area.  The picture below is taken from the drive and you can see how it is still blocked and the trees down  as well as some of the trees on the roof.

Of course I did do some antiquing in the area when we drove in and just in case you think this is callous in the face of the disaster, I did feel like i was helping the local economy as I talked with the women at the antique store about how she needed to buy a generator for her daughter who was out of town but had lost power to help her out when she comes home.  I will have to post pictures of my finds another day as I forgot my parcel at the cabin.