The Heat of the Summer 2020

The Heat of the Summer 2020

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for July 12, 2020

Avery made a visit to the Mayo Clinic this week for a check-up with the cardiologist.  We're pleased that everything looks A-OK and he doesn't need to have a check-up again for another 3 years.  Those are the kind of doctor visits we really love.

In our quest to continue to discover activities that keep us entertained without involving crowds of people, our journey brought us to Cleary Lake park this week.  We thought it would be fun to rent a canoe.  I was thrilled when Avery decided to join us because it downgraded my role from paddler to passenger.  

I suppose I could have stepped up and requested Miss Sheri to be the passenger and I could be the paddler, but she really wanted to paddle and I just can never say no to my wife.

We only paddled around for an hour or so, but it was a beautiful, quiet ride and had it not been so dang hot, we probably would have stayed out there for the 2nd hour we rented.

A park building was burned down this week about a block away from our house.  The police don't know if it was caused by fireworks or arson or whatever, but it's sad people won't be able to enjoy these picnic tables anymore because of someone's shenanigans.

We've never been big on guns in our house, but 2020 has caused us to re-think that mindset.  There's been a couple of times this year already where I had to wonder "What if I called the police and they weren't able to come to my house?"  We thought taking a class called "Intro to Handguns" would be a good place to start.

The class primarily consists of learning all the rules about gun safety and then trying out a variety of handguns to learn which ones you prefer.  We didn't really care for the orange one.

Miss Sheri has always been gifted when it comes to stuff like this and once again, she didn't disappoint.  

Avery was the most accurate shooter which probably isn't very surprising.  I guess all those hours playing video games were good for something.

Luke is also a gamer, so he did pretty good as well.  Although he mentioned something that the real gun has a bit more of a kick than the game controller, so I think that took some getting used to.

This is Hans.  He was the one we coordinated with to take the class and is quite the guru when it comes to firearms.  It was a very interesting experience.

To continue on the theme of alleviating boredom, we thought it might be fun to drag the old tube out of storage.  Despite some serious efforts at patching up old leaks, it still works pretty well.  It's fun to be able to whip my kids around the lake for awhile.

Our desire to keep hiking brought us back to Cleary Lake Park to walk around the lake.

The best part of the day was when this little guy bounded out of the woods to see us.  He seemed very curious about Blue, but then was startled by a biker who came along from the other direction and ran back into the woods.

When we walked forward to see him again, we saw that his mother was nearby keeping an eye on the little rascal.  Moms have a tendency to do that.