When I got back from camp, I was whupped. Cath suggested I nap for a while and I woke up rearing to go. Nate and his buddy Austin thought we should get the potato cannon out. The cannon is about 6 feet long with a chamber about 18 inches of that, the rest being the barrel. You shove a potato down the barrel and you fill the chamber up with hairspray, close it and ignite it. It shoots a potato almost a quarter mile.


On Sunday we woke up and went to a church picnic at Island Lake Recreation area. Being the weekend of the 4th, I figured no one would show. We had a big group there, all ages. Jason and Jess brought their dog Indiana, and Emiliy spent most of her time hanging with them. We had a big game of intergenerational dodge-ball, which was fun. We had everyone from little kids all the way up to some of the older folk playing. Even though a lot of my closest either aren't at the church anymore or didn't make it, it still had this overwhelming feeling of family. It was good to see all of the kids from camp again, even though I'd just gotten done spending a week with them.

You can see the pictures of the Crossroads July 3rd Picnic here.



Right afterwards, we headed over to Brad's cottage for a going away party for Ted and Sheri Haase. Ted took a new role in his company and is moving back out to California. It was a beautiful day and we grilled out and went tubing. Brad got these giant new tubes to go with his giant new boat. Last year when he tried to pull all of the big-boys, the boat wanted nothing to do with it. His new boat did it without hestitating. Brad took the little kids tubing and managed to submerge the tube and the little kids, which went over huge. I dove in and between Eli and I, we had kids strapped to us as brad towed the raft back into shore. As they swam in, my kids declared it was the scarying thing in the world and vowed never to do it again. Another scarring from uncle Brad. When the fellas went out, king of the mountain started right away. We beat the crap out of each other. No-holds-barred - whatever it took to get the guy off the boat. There was one point where I had Ted's head hanging off the raft, pushing it in the water and letting him back up, until I dumped him. Seemed like something out of a mafia movie. One of the last times out, we started talking trash and Brad went all out. I landed in the water, not really being able to feel my left arm from the shoulder down. I thought, "that's bad". I got a message from Brad the next day explaining that the number was 18. 18? 18 unexplained bruises.

You can see the Hasse Going Away Praty pictures here.


We played hard until about 8 and then took off to our next party at the Kohne's. We hung out there for a few hours while the kids played, the adults had a few drinks and then we shot off a bunch of fireworks. I'd stopped in Ohio on the way from camp and picked up some mortars, and the other guys had made a run to Ohio and picked up a bunch of these $100 bricks of rockets that went on forever. It was a pretty impressive display. We headed home and I was beat, pretty much 'peopled' out.