Summer Glory

Summer is always sweet in Minnesota. We try to fill these beautiful sunny days with picnics, hikes, road trips, fruit-picking, barbeques, camping, food preservation, and productivity. The goal of a Minnesotan is to have as much fun as possible before Labor Day. Memories of summer give us reason for reflection in long dark November, and reason for anticipation as February light leads to April snowmelt.

And this summer was glorious. Nick and I filled the light with:

• 5 grad/law classes: Intro to Financial Analysis, Grantwriting, Comparative Law of US-Norway, Negotiation, Intro to the EU and International Business Transactions
• 2 full-time jobs: N is still at Thompson-Reuters, and I'm still at the University of Minnesota
• travel in 4 foreign countries: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland
• dancing around a Midsommar pole on Summer Solstice in Sweden
• homestays: Dalarna Sweden, Madison Wisconsin and Golden Valley Minnesota
• fruit picking: strawberries, blueberries, currants, gooseberries, apples
• boating: canoe, motorboat, kayak
• hikes: Itasca State Park (the headwaters of the Mississippi River!) and Afton State Park (along the St. Croix River)
• festivals: Highland Fest and the Minnesota State Fair
• home improvement: re-seeding the lawn and replacing 11 windows
• harvesting from the garden, in order of production: cucumbers, tomatoes, basil, zucchini, peppers, green beans, rhubarb, cilantro (with much more to come)

How was your summer?