Some of our favorite moments at Little Moss...

Grandma and Lilo made a special mud cake with lots of candles
H dug this hole and it was still there every time we went back to the beach.

Lily's little wedgie buns.
Catching minnows and letting them nibble our toes.
Playing in the sand with cousins.

All three kids loved "wosting mawshmellos."

Grandpa and Papa made an incredible t-bone steak dinner over birch bark coals. It was absolutely perfect.

Grandpa made a loaf of bread shaped like a turtle with Jojo.
The fishing in the nearby lakes was absolutely incredible. All of the kids caught fish practically by the minute. H even caught several with a BARE hook and no bait! Poor starving fish. It was so satisfying. I even enjoyed it. Papa was completely in his element.

One night there was a full moon. One of my favorite moments was taking a midnight walk when the moon was full. It was so peaceful and beautiful. When papa was a little boy, he and Barbara posed for an artist-illustrator for a book called Walk When the Moon is Full.

H's first play

the rehearsal
Lilo working on his part. He was Pikachu. His line was, "pika, pika!"
The actual performance. We were our own audience.

Picachu in costume.

H discovered a Pokemon book at the little local library and she spent the next several days reading and talking about Pokemon. When Aunt Barbara suggested they (she and H) write and produce a family play, H decided it would be all about Pokemon.

Pike's Bay Beach

Jojo found this fish spine on the beach- a nice addition to his mud parfait.
Hathaway on the beach. Barbara did her hair in french braids too. So cute!
Lilo is so happy with sand, water and buckets.
H enjoying a quiet moment in the sand.
Hathaway was taking pictures of Barbara. The camera is one of her favorite toys.


Pike's Bay beach was so beautiful. It looks almost exactly like "our beach" on Trout Lake in Wisconsin where Papa's family has spent summers ever since... a really long time ago. We were happy to find a replacement in Pike's Bay, but sad to find out that it is a hotbed for swimmer's itch, a nasty parasite thingie that scared me half of the time. We still enjoyed ourselves.

More Little Moss Trip

11Direct quote from H: "Grandma is better at doing my hair than my mom." Oh well, I never claimed that as a strength. H loved wearing her hair in french braids.
Jojo (and I) made this parfait cup out of an empty soda bottle so he could make mud parfaits. This activity brought him lots of joy and hours of entertainment.
Lilo was so excited to sleep in a big boy bed for the first time. Luckily it was just a mattress on the floor, because one night, after he had been in bed for a while, we checked on him and found him in this position. We couldn't stop laughing.
No cable television at the lake. Of course that is a good thing, but it was nice to have the occasional electronic babysitter, the video ipod.
Cute Lil and Lilo were helping me clean the porch- such good helpers!
Lily, Hathaway and Tate sporting their cute outfits made by Aunt Laurel. The girls' dresses were a cute cupcake print and Tate's pants had fish on them- too cute. After a nine years of no new cousins in the Thatcher family, these three little loves were added within a year of each other. In other words, my children were the only cousins born in the last nine years until these cherubs came along. Does that make sense?
Could she be any cuter?

Little Moss Lake

We just got back from a vacation in the middle of nowhere Minnesota with papa's family. It was so beautiful. It was so nice to see and spend time with grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. The weather was perfect for a little added bonus.

Lilo insisted on taking his "pack-back" everywhere when our vacation started. It was quite the source of contention between him and Lily- until she got her own- we wouldn't want two two-year olds to have to share! Luckily he lost interest in it when he found other fun distracting things to do so we didn't have to lug it around with us the entire trip.
The first day of the trip papa took all three kids (and no other adults) on a canoe ride out to a floating dock to the deepest part in the middle of the lake. Lilo doesn't know much about balance in a canoe and leaned off the side and tipped and swamped the whole thing. Luckily H and Jojo are pretty good swimmers and they were able to help papa gather all of their soaked stuff and get back to the dock so papa could turn the canoe over and save everyone. The kids were all wearing life jackets, but it was still pretty scary- especially for Lilo. Everyone was safe in the end.
H and cousin Arthur had a great old time together. Arthur is H's closest-in-age cousin on the Thatcher side. They are exactly three years apart. They both have a lot of creative energy, so they are good for each other. H missed him lots when Arthur and his family had to go see their "other" cousins during the second week of our trip.
Arthur, cousin Tate, and Jojo. Jojo loves Tate.


This is cousin Tate (16 months). I could eat this child. He is bursting with new words every day. I love that stage.
Sweet little cousins playing in the canoe. Lily (2 years), Tate (16 months), Hathaway (17 months).
H and Hathaway seeing each other for the first time in almost a year.

monkeys at work

These kiddos love to get messy. Jojo did this activity a few years ago in preschool and I decided to revisit the fun. They loved it. Get a pan or box, put a piece of paper in it, dump some finger paint on a plate, and take a toy and run through the paint and onto the paper. Their favorites were wheels with cool tires and golf balls. Fun, fun!