The summer I was 10 was spent in the Upper Peninsula with my grandparents. Most of the time it was just them and me and my dog. But for 2 weeks, a bunch of friends from Detroit would come and stay in the campground we lived in for the summer.

Swimming in the morning. Lunch. Swimming in the afternoon. Campfires with Hobo Pies and s'mores and guitar playing and sing alongs and satellite watching.

I am sitting here and I realize that David doesn't even know how glad he is that I don't have a camera phone after all, since I would take 100000 pictures of my cat asleep on my belly.

FYI.

There was always the one- or two-week family vacations, as well. Michigan/Mackinac Island one summer, the drive around Illinois/St. Louis, the week at Bear Island Resort in Ely, MN, a few trips to my grandparents in Arkansas, the trip with those grandparents to visit my Greatgreatuncle Gus near Minneapolis (a very cool elderly man of small stature with a thick Swedish accent who loved to play pinochle until the wee hours and watch pro wrestling on Sunday mornings). We never ventured out of the Midwest until I was 14, when we went to Florida and I first saw the ocean.

jesse, there is always: [link]

( or [link] if that fails)

Man, I love Homer.

Hee! But you know what? I think we've both lost weight since that picture. He isn't that fat anymore, I don't think.

That is an ENORMOUS cat.

I have an urge to go to the east coast to see sarameg and friends.

He also just...spread. He's spready.

And you look awesome in that picture. OK, the flash got you, but still.

Kat! You should! But not the first weekend in August.

Spready! That's totally it.

Pretty cat, and very big!

I'll have to take some pics of Amarna and get them scanned and stored online to show off her tummy, as well. I think she's lost some of it since her checkup in March, when the vet said she had to lose some of the 4 lbs she'd put on in the past year since I adopted her. That cat condo I got her has her exercising a lot more just to get to her favorite sleeping perch up on top (she usually just jumps up the different levels, but lately she's taken to using her claws to go up the back way).

since my dad was one of 9 kids and my mom one of 6, I have a lot of them

Mom was one of 12 and Dad was one of 11. I have 53 first cousins on my mother's side alone.

I totally forgot my mother's cousin and her husband would take us up to Grayling, MI for his National Guard summer camp. They had two boys close in age to me and my twin, so we'd go camping with them for two weeks every year. It was always so much fun.