We've Been Invaded...

...By little toy soldiers!

Take a look:

Apparently, these are the good guys!

I think Kailey will be surrendering!

The First Day of School

It's a big deal at every age in our house.

Mostly because I forget to take pictures the rest of the year.

So here they are with all their funny faces!

My, they are growing!

What is Portage?

It's defined as the labor of carrying or transporting.

Or if you are a member of our extended family, it is the gathering place for our annual family reunion.

What kind of gathering place?.....I'm still deciding.

You can't really call it a city. No, a city is a relatively large and permanent settlement.

A town would be my next guess, but even that term would be larger than Portage.

That leaves us with a "village" or a "hamlet".

A Hamlet boasts a few hundred to a few thousand residents.

As of the 2010 census, Portage had a whoppin' 245 residents - down from the 2000 census!

THIS MAP DETAILS THE FEW INTERSECTIONS THAT MAKE UP THE TOWN

HERE'S WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN REAL-LIFE!

A place is only as important as the people who occupy its space at any given time.

In that case - Portage is a very important place in August!

We shared an afternoon of eating smoked BBQ tri-tip and chicken,

visiting with new faces, swinging and playing baseball in the park,

digging for treasures in the sawdust, auctioning family heirlooms,

and retelling stories that will be passed on to the younger members

of the family for years to come.

THE ORIGINAL HOMESTEAD- Est. 1873

This is not just a portion of the house - this is the whole house!

A family of seven lived in this house, along with occasional borders.