Family: one of God's masterpieces

It's true that we do not have access to a wide variety of restaurants and stores out here in rural MN. And some would say there's "nothing to do" around here; although I'd say that's debatable. There is very little that Seth and I did living in the cities that we can't do here...plus, with 2 kids we wouldn't have time to do anything else anyway. Not to mention, the savings we make on the cost of living make it easily possible to take a weekend and go to the Cities whenever we do decide we want to do something different. Add up all the driving time we used to waste in traffic on a daily basis and we've stored up several 3-hour trips to and from the metro area.

When it comes down to it, there are pluses and minuses wherever one choses to live. But we've got one major advantage here that makes any minuses more than worth the minuscule sacrifice of living in a small town: we are surrounded by family who loves us. At the end of my life, I'm not going to care about where I ate or what I wore (I guess I hardly care about that now) but who I was with.

Boy, talking about family trees, I sound like I'm turning into the sap. Enough of that - here are some pictures.

Elena and cousin, Austin, at the lake home

Sam and Great-Grandma Corky listening to music at the Summer Sizzler.

Seth with his dad and brothers during the alumni baseball game - Seth hit a home run that night!

Sam swimming with cousin, Alex, at Grandma and Papi's house.

Sam and cousin, Ian. They had a blast throwing rocks on this bush.

Elena, acting goofy with her 2nd cousins at the DeCock annual camping trip.