Happy Canada Day!

Being here on the border we walked over and watched the Canada Day parade in Fort Frances and then Rachel rode with a friend to Emo and was playing with the community band in their celebration. Stephen is working out at city beach this afternoon. We hadn't had a chance to see their parade yet as since we have been here we have had to work or been involved in other activities. It was very similar to our small town parades.

We have all had a very busy week. Stephen worked at the pool teaching swimming in the morning and then four days worked out at city beach lifeguarding.

Rachel had band practice four days and spent part of the day on Tuesday with a group of Swedish teens in the country singing and were hosted by our church on Monday and Tuesday. She went to open swim and spent some time swimming laps on Wednesday - Friday to see how out of shape she was before participating in a fun swim meet on Saturday morning. This weekend the third All-Class reunion at Falls High school took place. In honor of the retirement of the only swim coach Falls high school has ever known, a swim meet was held for any former swimmers as well as any current swimmers. It was a lot of fun. Friday and Saturday she also spent time in the park helping man the Espresso Lane smoothie booth. Espresso Lane was also selling IBRT discs and playing a sampling of the shows available for sale.

Jeff helped out with the Swedish concert on Monday night and had rehearsal for the Old Koochiching play in which he had a part and had two performances on Saturday. He prepared discs for the booth at the park during the all-class reunion and during the fourth of July. He worked at the Christian radio station four days this week and kept the family running.

Diane was missing her main desk employee this week. Summer reading is in full swing and had stories in the park and a program on Thursday. Friday the library had a book sale and open house for people returning to town for the reunion. Then Friday morning the library lost Internet connectivity for almost two hours. That created some additional stress as we had lots of extra people looking to check email and deal with Internet business. But by 11:30 we were back on Internet and the open house was a success with almost 1,000 people coming through the library in four hours. She attended the swim meet with Rachel and then helped at the smoothie booth during and after the parade Saturday afternoon.

This next week will be busy as we celebrate Independence day with community celebrations and then prepare to vacation in the cities for a science fiction convention and send the kids to the west coast for three weeks with relatives. We hope your summer has been good and you are busy and healthy.