This week in July we were busy getting ready to go on vacation. Scott finished up his house and dog sitting job when the neighbors returned on Tuesday night from their trip to Wisconsin. On Weds night we dropped Cookie off to our friends after the Boy Scout meeting for our upcoming trip.

Now it was our turn to get ready to head to Wisconsin with the Seitz Family. I had gone in to work on Sunday to get a jump on packing. We were loading up our bikes and the double kayak on the mini van, so I knew I had my work cut out for me to get the car packed before Tom and Scott loaded on all the toys. Besides clothes, I also had to pack up some snack goodies and lake toys. I had a busy week at work, but enjoyed having all day Thursday to do laundry and pack.

Tom was happy that he had completed his recent online course and had the rest of the summer free. He had taken an accelerated course, which meant a lot more paper writing and research in a short period of time. And it included a few group projects which makes it a bit tougher since you have to chase down the rest of the people in your group and make sure they are getting their work done on time. But he liked getting it done in a shorter time period. He plans on looking into more classes like that one.

He also finished up a project that he was working on outside. I have wanted to put in a few pathways through our outdoor flower beds by laying down a few slate stepping stones. Unfortunately, the stones are usually very expensive and very heavy. I can't just run up to Home Depot and drop a few in my cart. I looked into ordering online with delivery and you usually have to get a large amount. I am not building a patio. Then I looked into ordering pea stone-just something to lay down for a small pathway. Tom was not crazy about that idea. One of our neighbors gave up and filled their beds with stone rather than mulch and I guess Tom did not like the look. Plus I wanted brown and he wanted black so it would blend with the mulch. So instead he bought a make your own cobblestone path mold, mixed up cement and formed gray slabs of cobblestone pathway. Then he filled in the cracks with brown sand. Exactly what he did not want. So I encouraged him to search out gray colored sand which he found, replaced the brown and it really looks nice. He experimented on the side of the house, in case it did not come out, but we both like it and he plans on making a path for the front of the house. (Now if  I can only  get him to put a bit of a curve in the path!).  I just need to stay away from yardwork because I always manage to get poison ivy! At least now I know how to treat it. And it cleared up pretty fast this time. At least that is all I had problems with-I almost picked up a snake when I was cleaning up a pile of leaves on the driveway. When will I learn!

                                                                                                  Tom's cobblestone pathway

Congratulations also goes out to Allison who officially received her Green Belt rank in Management from Northrop Grumman. Her project was approved and she received her certificate and Green Belt pin! Awesome job Allison!

Her summer seemed to be going well working as a Unit Leader at Girl Scout camp, except for her occassional stomach flare ups. She had spent the week before vacation traveling to Amusement Parks. They visited Six Flags which is south of our house near DC. Even ran into the Obama's daughter, Melia. No photos allowed, but the Girl Scouts had a quick chance to speak to her. They finished off the week with a trip to Hershey Park. It was incredibly hot that week. Allison was having a great time, but she started to feel very strange/ill and took herself to the nurses station at the Hershey campground. There they took her to a Patient First clinic, did some bloodwork and then sent her to the Hershey Milton Penn State Hospital because it appeared she was anemic. They ran lots of tests on Allison and decided she was still just anemic, probably from poor diet. Not enough red meat and iron in her diet. Meanwhile, this was Thursday and we were hoping to get on the road after she got off work. She was released from the hospital, released from work, drove home after stopping to pick up some iron pills and transferred to our van with her dirty clothes to hit the road again Thursday night.

                                                                   Loaded van

                                                                                                     
                                                                                                             Green Lake House

We made it about 5 hours down the road and stopped for the night in Ohio. The next morning we were back on the road, traveling across Ohio, Indiana, around Chicago, Illinois and finally we stopped outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We needed some provisions for our trip, including iron laden treats for Allison. Finally we had dinner at one of our favorite Midwest fast food restaurants, Culvers. They have great fried chicken dinners, fish and chips and patty melts. But most importantly, they have frozen custard! Sadly, we were too full from our dinner to make room for dessert.

We arrived in Green Lake late Friday night and quickly unpacked the van.