We have had a very busy summer. In fact, it has been much busier than it should have been. We have had some great times, but we have also had some unexpected complications, and, as you know, those are hardly ever fun. One of the first fun things that we did was a trip to the North Shore of Lake Superior with our family in late June. That has become an annual event and it is one that we all enjoy. Dan and I went up a couple of days early because we were badly in need of a couple of days' rest and the peaceful environment in that area. While we were alone, we did some hiking in the Grand Portage, MN, area. It's as far north as you can go without being in Canada. This river forms part of the US/Canadian border. The rocks in the foreground are in Minnesota. The trees on the other side of the river are in Canada.

The park at Grand Portage is a joint effort between the US park service and the local Chippewa tribe, which is an unusual arrangement. The highest waterfall in the state is along this trail. This picture does not do it justice.

The trail is not very rugged. The native Americans in the area maintain the forest in its natural state and have signs posted with information about how the forest was used by their people in the early days of the area. Walking on the forest floor damages it, so the trail is composed of a boardwalk with steps at the inclines. Most of it is wheelchair accessible, which is very nice. People are encouraged to stay on the boardwalk except in the few places where paths lead down to streams.

There is a lot of wildlife which occasionally comes out to see who is there. There are also lots of wild flowers and berries. We have occasionally eaten wild strawberries or raspberries when hiking these trails, but the animals seemed to have harvested them before we arrived this time.

We met three sisters who were having a family reunion in the area. They were taking pictures of each other near the waterfall, so we offered to take one of the three of them together. In return, they took this picture of Dan and me. They were not used to a digital camera and were a little in awe of the technology, but I think the picture is very good. I hope that the one that I took for them turned out as well.

After the trip to the waterfall, we visited the Grand Portage National Monument. We have been there during pow wow, which is very interesting, but that is in August and we were there in June. There is an historic Native American village set up and there are always people there to explain their early culture.
These two woman discussed gardening and child care. It was fun to talk to them. Neither of them had been in the area for long and they were enjoying their first summer there. The parents of the one on the left made their career in the National Park Service, so she had been all over the world. Her father designed the snorkeling trail at Trunk Bay on the island of St. John's in the Virgin Islands. Our family has enjoyed that trail several times.

Grand Portage was the center of the fur trade in the area and was a major trading post for both the United States and Canada. The fort has been restored and there are people there to re-enact the life of the fur traders, too.

Just outside the fort, we saw this boat. It's the Border Patrol. This was the first Border Patrol boat that I have seen up there. It's a sign of the time, I think, although I am sure that the Border Patrol has always been around.

We love the area around the North Shore and enjoy real hiking, not just walking on boardwalks. However, at the end of the day, we like all the comforts of home. This is the dining area in our "cabin." We enjoyed all the modern amenities with a lovely lake view. This cabin even had a dishwasher! That's a luxury we have not had before at this resort.

We shared this cabin, which is quite large, with our son Andy and his family. Our daughter Betsy's family ate meals there with us and spent family time there.

This is the outside of the cabin as it is seen from the lake. In this area, Lake Superior does not have a sandy shore. The lake is the caldera of an extinct volcano and the shore was formed by lava flow. It's quite rugged. The kids can spend hours just climbing around on the rocks. They need adult supervision, though, because the water is deep and very cold. Lake superior does not get above 40 degrees Fahrenheit in that area, even in the summer. If you fall into the lake, you do not survive long.

Here are Jake, Ryan, and Dan down on the rocks. Jake, formerly known as Jake the Giant Baby, is now Jake the Giant Three-Year-Old and is our son's child. Ryan is five and is our daughter's son. The boys play very well together and enjoy being out with Grandpa. No toys are needed; the rocks are enough to entertain them.

Jake's brother William, on the other hand, enjoyed this hassock in the TV room in the cabin. In recent years, the cabins at this resort have all added satellite TV. I think that is rather sad. I actually preferred not having TV when we came to the North Shore. This cabin also had a phone, another amenity that I could live without. I think I may be one of the last surviving people who likes to be really away when I am away.

It looks like we spilled something on William. I wonder what it was? Guess that's what he gets for lying around like that!

We do like to spend most of our time outside, though. Here is Betsy on a day that Dan and I went hiking with her family at the Temperance River. This is much more rugged hiking than we had at Grand Portage. There is no boardwalk. If the trail climbs, the hikers climb. This trail does climb, too. The Temperance River is a series of rapids and waterfalls. It's really quite gorgeous. We were watching Dan and our son-in-law Matt (Betsy's husband) hiking around on some rocks above one of the waterfalls with the kids.

I know that they had rocks to climb on right in front of the cabin, but these are different rocks. That makes them more exciting. Besides, there is a waterfall here and you have to climb steep areas to get up here. You get to look down into caverns with roaring rapids. There is a possibility of bodily harm from the climb. These are better rocks!

This is one of the waterfalls along the Temperance River. It happens to be the one directly below us in the picture above. Going over this falls would definitely be bad for your health, so it is very important to watch children carefully. You don't quite get the effect of how steep the falls is, but the water is traveling at high speed and the river bed is made of huge rocks. It's beautiful to see.

The area where the Temperance River empties into Lake Superior is quite different from the rocky path the river takes to reach that point. Here, the rocks have been worn down to pebble size and there is some stuff that resembles sand. I have never thought thought that it felt particularly good on bare feet, but our granddaughter Madison (Betsy and Matt's daughter, Ryan's sister) seemed to think it was a good place to kick her shoes off. I thought this little balancing act she was doing made a nice picture.

You can swim where the Temperance River empties into the Lake. It's really very nice swimming, so on another day, we returned to enjoy the water. Left to right, here are Ryan, Andy, Jake, and a boy we did not know building rock sculptures at the edge of the water. The unknown boy is blonde, so he fit in rather well with our family, didn't he?

Notice the brownish cast to the water. That is tannin from all the leaves that fall into the river along its course. They color the water like tea and because of all the waterfalls and rapids, most of the river has a foamy appearance, so it looks a little like beer. Thus, the name Temperance River. The water is really very clean, though, and is safe to drink.

In the evenings, we often enjoy a bonfire on the rocks in front of the cabins. We make s'mores and the kids crawl around on the rocks until it is too dark for them to be safe. Then they either sit by the fire or go to bed. You can see our daughter-in-law Jess in the picture carrying William, who is still pretty easy to supervise. That's the cabin where Betsy's family stayed in the background. Each of the cabins at this resort is different from the rest.

Well, those are some of the highlights from North Shore 2006. It was a great family time!

On the surface, that looks like a pretty simple question.  Do you favor adding an amendment to the Constitution of the United States defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman, or don't you?  It's far from that simple though.

To me, this is a religious and moral question and not really an appropriate issue to be addressed with a Constitutional amendment.  At some level, the question is bound to the issue of whether or not being gay is morally wrong.  That, in turn, is bound to the question of whether or not gay people choose to be gay.

I do not believe that gay people choose to be gay.  I believe that they are born gay and that they cannot do anything about it.  I do not believe that being gay is wrong because I do not believe that it is a choice.  I do not see how something that a person does not choose and cannot change can be considered morally wrong.  Many people would disagree with that view, and that is their right.

I do not pretend to know what it is to be gay.  I am not gay.  I have been married for nearly 37 years to a member of the opposite sex.  To me, that is what marriage is.  However, gay people don't see it that way.  They are not interested in sexual relationships with the opposite sex.  Many gay people have monogamous relationships that last much longer than most heterosexual relationships.  Those gays are just as committed to those relationships as I am to my marriage.  They would like to have the relationships recognized.  There are many choices for recognizing those relationships, but gay people would like that recognition to come in the form of marriage.

The question that I have to ask myself is whether it affects me in any way if gay people are allowed to be married.  The answer that I have to give myself is no.  I am not gay.  I do not intend to ever marry a person of my same sex.  It does not, however, affect me if others choose to do that.  I am still free to live my life the way that I think best.

So what is to be gained or lost by amending the Constitution to define marriage?  Why is the movement to do that taking place?  In my opinion, it is an issue similar to the effort to overturn Roe v. Wade and make abortion illegal.  It is an effort to force the entire country to adopt the religious beliefs of a certain segment of the population.  Is that a good thing?  I don't think so.

In the case of abortion, I believe that abortion is wrong.  I am a practicing Roman Catholic and I accept my church's stance on that issue.  I would not, however, vote to make abortion illegal because the entire population of the country does not belong to a religious group that has similar beliefs to mine.  The United States is based on the principle of religious freedom.  We are all supposed to be free to believe as we choose.  That right is guaranteed to us in the Bill of Rights.  If I want the right to follow my own beliefs, I need to respect the right of others to do that, also.

To me, the marriage amendment issue is the same type of issue.  Marriage can be defined as a civil union or a religious union.  In many cases in the United States, it is both.  That is not true in all countries.  In many places, the civil and religious ceremonies are separate and may be widely separated in time.  The fact remains that, even though religious and civil unions are often created at the same time and in the same ceremony in the US, we are still looking at 2 distinct kinds of unions.  Are there valid reasons why gay couples should not have civil unions?  I am really not sure that there are.  People should be able to form whatever legal partnerships they choose.  Are there valid reasons that gay people should not form religious unions?  That depends on the religion.  Some religions accept it and some don't.  It should be up to each religious denomination to determine whether or not gay unions should be sanctified within a specific faith.  There is no reason why each church cannot set its own policies.  More than anything, in the US it is important to preserve the right to individual freedoms and beliefs.

How should the illegal immigrant situation be handled? Hmmm. That's a tough question and one to which you can find many answers. It all depends on how you see the problem.

The first question that needs to be addressed is why so many illegal immigrants are here, anyway. Most of them come because they are desperately poor in their own countries and they need work so that their families can survive. That fits in nicely with the needs of employers in this country, because they have many jobs that most US citizens will not do for the salary that the companies can afford to pay. We have a large egg producing plant near us. They not only package eggs for sale in grocery stores, they also make egg products for fast food chains, restaurants and the US military. They are one of the major egg producers in the country. The work there is hard and dirty, especially out in the chicken barns. How would you like to scrape chicken manure for 8 or more hours per day? If your reaction is "Not on a bet!" you are not alone. Most of our local citizens feel that way. Most of the company's employees are immigrants. It's best not to think too deeply about how they got here. Let's just say that they came because of all those jobs that were going unfilled and they are glad to have them.

Why don't the illegal immigrants come legally? The answer is that they can't. I heard a very interesting presentation on this issue by a law professor. It seems that the US does not grant work visas for unskilled labor. That policy creates quite a dilemma, because US employers have a worker shortage in unskilled jobs. There is a large body of unskilled workers from neighboring countries, but we cannot tap into it legally because those workers cannot enter the county legally. Our own immigration policies cause the illegal immigrant problem.

Another issue is the widespread belief that illegal immigrants do not pay taxes. If they are working as migrant workers or in other jobs where they can be paid in cash, they don't. In my area, though, they are working for well established companies and they receive paychecks just like everyone else. That means that they have federal, state, and social security taxes deducted from their checks just like everyone else. Because of their income brackets, they would be eligible for tax refunds, but they cannot file for them because they are illegal, so, in reality, many illegal immigrants pay more than their share of taxes. They also will never be eligible for social security even though they are paying into it.

Does our government need to get a handle on illegal immigration? I think so. What do they need to do? First, I think that they need to give amnesty to the people who are here and let them gain legal status. I think that a condition of that should be that they learn our language. Then, I think that our laws need to be revised so that unskilled workers can enter the country to satisfy the needs of employers. I cannot speak for any other area of the country, but in my area, the businesses that employ these workers cannot operate without them. They cannot get local citizens to do the jobs that the illegal immigrants do.

William Edgar
Meet William Edgar. He was born to our son Andy and daughter-in-law Jess on Friday evening. Here's a picture of Dan and me with him.

William is the younger brother of Jake the Giant Baby who is now Jake the Giant Almost-Three-Year Old.

Here's a picture of Jake taken on Mother's Day. It's a bit fuzzy because it is a picture of a moving amusement part ride taken with a cell phone. That's Jake in the cab of the truck. Right now he lives for trucks and motorcycles.

William is not a giant baby. He is only about half an inch shorter than Jake was, but he weighs almost 2 pounds less. That was perfectly fine with Jess. She had a long labor with Jake and thought that she would probably have a long labor with William, so she took her time getting to the hospital. Things went faster than expected, though, so she was only in the hospital about half an hour before William joined the party. One of the nurses walked into the delivery room, looked as Jess, and said, "Aren't you the one who just walked in?"

Everybody is doing fine. Jake is happy to be a big brother, and William seems pretty happy to be a baby.

Now we have 2 more birthdays to celebrate, and then May is over!

May is a very hectic month in our family. My schedule is full anyway, but this month is really hairy. (Does anyone still say hairy? WOW! I am old!)

It all starts off with Dan's birthday at the end of April. Then we have Madison's birthday on May 6, Mother's Day, Andy's birthday on May 22, and Betsy's birthday on May 27. Matt. our son-in-law, has a couple of birthdays in his family during May, and Jess, our daughter-in-law has her brother's birthday. This year, we also had Madison's First Communion and Andy and Jess are having a new baby sometime toward the end of the month. We are trying to figure out what day we can tell Jess that she can give birth. Andy and Jess had the baptism of Jess's brother's baby. Conversations to set up celebrations for all of these events are beginning to sound a bit like "I can squeeze this in for 15 minutes at 4:00 AM on Tuesday. You bring the cake!"

First Communion is over, so we can cross that one off the list. Madison looked lovely and we had a nice family cookout at Betsy and Matt's following the Mass. Here's a picture of Dan and me with Madison at church.

The next event was Madison's birthday. She decided that she would like to go to LibbyLu's at the Mall of America with her best friend Maddie. Yes, Madison't best friend's name is - of all things - MADISON!! Fortunately, the friend Madison is called Maddie, so it is possible to avoid confusion when talking to or about them.

LibbyLu's is a little girl's dream. Staff fix the girls' hair and add sparkles to their faces and other appropriate spots. Then they get to choose costumes to wear while they are there. The staff works with them on dance steps, then holds a dance and limbo party. Parents stand by taking pictures.

Here's Madison with her hair up, her sparkles on, and practicing her rock star attitude.

Here are Madison and Maddie together. Rock on!!!

This Sunday morning, we are all going to brunch to celebrate Mother's Day. The rest of the celebrations are pending, although I did get an email from Matt this morning with a list of gift suggestions for Betsy's birthday. Now I just have to get a list for Andy and think about what to get for the new baby. Yes, May is a hectic month!

Well, OK, it wasn't really a vacation. It was more like a mad dash to Green Bay and back. Dan and I went to see this guy. That's me in the middle and Dan on the right. Care to guess who the mystery man is?

We went to a concert at the beautiful Meyer Theater in Green Bay Saturday evening. It was really a wonderful show. Our friend there was in great voice and also in fine humor. He said that he did not think it was a good show because he spent too much time talking, but we love to hear his stage patter, so that was fine with us. What does he know, anyway?

We were out late last night and then got up early, went to Mass, and headed home so that we could have Easter dinner with our family at our daughter's house. We arrived while our daughter and her family were still at the other grandma's house, so I took advantage of the quiet to take a little nap on her couch. Did you know that sleeping 3 hours and then driving across the State of Wisconsin is very tiring?

We had a lovely Easter meal with both our kids and their families and then enjoyed watching the kids play outside. Now I am going to collapse in my bed for several hours. I wrote this on Easter evening and was so tired that I forgot to make it public!