travels with toby

Otherwise known as the second annual Bemidji Boyz Music Camp, a clever name for a bunch of old musician-type friends from Bemidji (and other places, but mostly Bemidji) playing music together. We had a similar reunion last year not knowing we’d be doing it again this year though the idea was floated. This year we gathered together the third week of August.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog post for a little information. When I realized I had over 100 photos to post I decided to use slideshows instead of a gallery of photos which would make this post extremely long. Oh but the slideshow wasn’t working? I did a bit of research and learned that I was using a retired WordPress theme. I loved that theme but if I want to include slideshows I had to pick a new theme. So this is my first post with the new theme. I kind of like it! What do you think? Now back to the post at hand then.

It was another fun and relaxing time at Lemonshade, the family cabin in the north woods of Minnesota. Music and food and friendship and art fairs, oh my! We had about the same menu as last year but I forgot to make the rhubarb crisp for dessert. I’ve forgotten which night I planned that for, alas, it was not meant to be. I don’t think anybody noticed it was missing 🤷‍♀️ Regardless, we ate well and a good time was had by all.

This post will combine galleries and slideshows of photos from four or five different cameras. This first gallery is from the first couple of days. We took photos of the truck before unpacking it to ensure we put everything back in its place for the ride home. Larry and Gary were the first to arrive so we hung out in the garage, or the makeshift music studio, chatting, listening to hubby on the bass, Larry on the keyboard and Gary on the saxophone. A good preamble to the rest of the weekend.

Next is a gallery of our friends arriving at the cabin. Sue shared photos of the sign and planter at the end of the driveway as you arrive, then the driveway and a photo of the cabin from the dock. Also included are photos of the boat crew, the guys who brought the row boat down the hill, and installed the motor so that our friends could fish.

Next is a slide show of some of the music we made. For any slideshow you can pause it by clicking on the two vertical bars in the upper right of the slideshow:

Next is another slideshow of many photos of other goings on during the weekend. Bill brought some temporary tattoos and there’s a photo of Paris applying Larry’s tattoo, Steve opening the bottom of a Vikings mug to change the batteries so it would light up (a gift for hubby), making margaritas and just general scenes of eating and other stuff.

A boat ride and some camp fires:

A little gallery of nature-type photos from the north woods taken on my walks. And one of the still lake with reflections:

Some sunset photos:

We took group photos, one serious and one goofy. You can click on either photo to see a larger image:

And then it was time to say goodbye. Everyone gets the “Helena wave” when they leave the cabin. It was started by hubby’s great aunt Helena and we continue this tradition. Extra points for those that wave back! In this group of photos there is one where all the guys made a sign for Jostad, who couldn’t make it, and rearranged the words to be silly. One thing’s for sure, we all missed Jostad.

I only have one video of the music that was played and it’s of La Vie en Rose with Sue and me on flutes and Larry on accordion. I love the little triplets that Larry plays on this. And our curtsies at the end. We did not plan that! Ha!

Since Dan could only come for a couple hours this year I thought I’d post the video he created from a bunch of our photos from last year’s reunion. Thanks Dan!

Thank you to everyone that came! We had us some fun, didn’t we? Our life might be in flux next year so I’m not sure we’ll be able to have our third reunion. But, as with everything, stay tuned because you just never know. Please feel free to leave comments. I love hearing from people!

I leave you with a view of Lemonshade, so lovely and peaceful.