We managed to round up our Bowers 5 long enough in one spot to pose for a picture. You'd think being a photographer we'd have a ton of family pics - not the case. I suppose it's sort of like how the plumber's family always has a leaky faucet. It's crazy how much the kids change from one year to the next. This was taken on the 4th of July on the front porch of our vacation house.
This is the view of Boyne Highlands from the back deck of our house. This is a view we never get tired of. Too bad the weather was mostly horrible the entire time. 2 days we were there the temperatures were in the 50's. It felt like we could have been on a skiing trip.
This is the back yard of the house. At the bottom of the photograph you'll notice a blob that's circled. This is a pile of animal waste that appeared one morning that wasn't there the day before. Although from this vantage point it doesn't look very impressive, in actuality it was quite large. Which, given my keen knowledge of nature means that it probably came from a large animal. Various guesses as to what made this included the following: a deer, a huge raccoon, fox, and several squirrels playing "follow the leader". My fear was that it was some sort of sick joke played on us by the burly, hairy maintenance man working at the house next door.
Our vacation almost turned deadly when we had a near tragic encounter with this threatening creature...
Somehow it managed to get into our garage, undoubtedly stalking us as prey. For anybody who does not know me, I vehemently despise snakes. That is why I react the following way when confronted with a snake: Step 1: scream like a little girl, Step 2: push down my wife and/or small children in order to run past them and away from said snake 3:scream like a little girl once again.
To compound matters even worse, the burly hairy maintenance man working next door decided to come over to see what all the fuss was about. "Is one of your young daughters in danger? he asked.
"Ughhh, that was just me. Sorry," I replied.
He looked the snake over and stated that he never had seen one like that around there before. In his estimation it might quite possibly be a Copperhead he postulated.
Woooonderful.
The first opportunity I had I got my Google on and researched the various species of that particular area. I discovered it was a non-venomous Eastern Garter snake. However, it was still pure evil in my opinion. Just in case, I would not go near it, or least of all try to catch it. That's insanity.
However, my brother's in law girlfriend didn't think it was too big of a deal to grab it.
Show off.
Near our house were 2 ponds like this one. The kids spent hours fishing for trout and using butterfly nets to catch frogs. These ponds occupy most of their time every year. The best part of the pond/frog catching/fishing is that the fact that it's free. Being active like that tires them out which also means they go to sleep at night fairly easily - always a good thing.
And of course there were plenty of opportunities to snap pics of the girls...
Above is an obviously posed photograph. After snapping this one, I instructed my children to "be themselves and act naturally" and to "not be so stiff this time." The following is what they gave me...
I suppose in a sense they were acting normally - which is goofy as usual.
More on our vacation tomorrow.
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