Summer Honors Orchestra

Nate was again selected to participate in the Summer Honors Orchestra for our school district.   He made 1st chair for 2nd violin and is the 3rd from the left in the first row in this picture.  The orchestra practices daily for a couple of weeks and then puts on a concert to showcase what they've accomplished.  It's amazing what they can pull together in that short amount of time!  Good job Nate!

Camping at Interstate Park

This summer we went on our first family camping trip since we lived in Michigan.  We sold our pop-up camper before we came to MN so a few years ago Steve bought a family sized tent.  He's been using it when he goes hunting up north, but this was the first time our whole family camped in it together.  I was surprised by how big it was!  We had plenty of room for all our sleeping gear.  Of course, no Dufon camping trip would be complete without a rain shower or two, but I'm happy to say that the tent kept us and our stuff nice and dry!
We set up camp on Friday night and then on Saturday we spent the day in Taylor's Falls at Wild Mountain adventure park.   We had gotten a gift certificate at Christmas that we could use there and the kids were very excited because it's not just a waterpark, but has go carts and alpine slides too.   The water was nice, but we spent the most time on the alpine slide and go carts.  The kids wanted to go over & over & over again!
On Sunday we spent the morning hiking through Interstate State Park and checking out all the glacial potholes.   Nate and Sarah especially like climbing all the rock formations.   Natalie of course couldn't be left out so she followed along as much as we would let her!
We had so much fun that we've already decided to go back next summer.

Happy 4th of July!

Natalie's first experience with sparklers......

Minneman Triathlon

Steve completed his first triathlon on July 3rd!  He placed 1st in his division.  Hopefully I can convince him to sit down and write a little about it......the kids and I had a great time cheering him on.  It was exciting to see him do so well after training all year.