Some of the younger folks walked a few blocks from Mom and Dad's to see the Blaine 4th of July Parade. The "Southern Dakes" went on to visit Carolyn's side of the family Saturday night and Sunday afternoon the "Northern Dakes" returned home to northern Minnesota.

Sarah and Mike [Steinhauer] moved to their new place near Wannaska on Monday and Tuesday.

Editors' Note: We requested a few words to go with the photo of this family reunion, in honor of the parents' 80th birthday and their 60th wedding anniversary next month. Our hearty congratulations to LeRoy and Vonnie Dake ... and our thanks to LTD for answering our last minute request. We hope to hear more details in another Bulletin.

Photos © Melanie Lehtola
Brandon's blues, left, from Brian's birthday & retirement cake, right.

I'm not quite as busy as I was about two months ago! I graduated from the Practical Nursing Program from St. Cloud Technical College on May 16th (very proud of my 4.0 GPA) and passed my state boards on June 2nd. I can now follow my signature with a "LPN"! I'm planning on working to become a RN, but probably not for another year or so.

I was offered a full-time LPN position at the Veterans Administration in St. Cloud but turned it down to work for REM, a home health care business based in St. Cloud. My client is a 2-year-old boy in Cokato who has kidney disease, is currently on a ventilator and requires 24/7 nursing care. We are waiting for his discharge from the University of Minnesota, so for now I'm taking a much needed "breather."

Beau and Stephanie's wedding music CD introduced me to a song by Mark Harris that is titled "Find Your Wings"; the following is the chorus:

I pray that God will fill your heart with dreams
And that faith gives you the courage
To dare to do great things.
I'm here for you whatever this life brings
So let my love give you roots
And help you find your wings.

It is only by the grace of God, and the incredible help and encouragement from my family, that I've made it this far. God gave me the dream and my family helped me to accomplish it.

The picture is of Larry and Joanne Mack and their son Lyle.

That looks like the Larry Mack family ... Larry, Joanne and son. I can’t remember their son’s name but his Grandpa would love to take him fishing in Minnesota.

There was a creek that ran through there and a beaver dam on the end of the meadow. Walt Miller said he'd go over on the other side there, so Dad and I went down on the side towards the meadow. We sat there and sat there and sat there and didn't see anything and finally Dad said, "We better be getting back, because it will be dark and we won't find our way through that swamp. We won't be able to see the path."

We had to go through that real spruce swamp. You couldn't find it after dark. We had to go through about half a mile of that and then we got into the more brushy area. We didn't have a flashlight. That's what the trouble was. We wouldn't be able to see the path. We were hustling along there. We had just left the hay meadow. You couldn't find the trail in the dark because there wasn't enough brush; it looked all pretty much the same.

Pretty soon we heard a whistle. Walt Miller and Dad used to whistle to each other on their thumbs. They could call loons and all that kind of a thing. You could hear that for a long ways. My dad could cup his hands and whistle and he could and make it sound like a loon even. So we heard this whistle. It sounded just like old Walt Miller whistling on his thumbs.

We heard this and Dad said, "Well, that's Walt. I wonder what he's whistling for." We never thought too much of it because we were walking, so Dad stopped a second and gave a short whistle back and kept right on going. He said, "If we don't get out of here, we won't find our way."

Pretty soon it answered, so we kept going and he did it again and my dad answered and he did it again and my dad answered, but all the time we were hustling right along. So this went on for a little bit.

Pretty soon he give a little longer blast. Finally my dad said, "Hey, that's not Walt, that's a wolf, a big, old timber wolf." At least he sounded big. Well, when you’re out in the middle of a swamp, they sound big. It was a timber wolf because of the way he howled. It wasn't a long howl. The whistle sound was just really deep or bass. It wasn't a sharp whistle. I had heard all kinds of wolves, but I had never heard anything like that. It was a big, old timber wolf and he was just giving a little whistle. It sounded exactly like Walt Miller whistling on his thumbs.

The first few times it was almost identical to the way Dad was whistling. We kept going and the old wolf kept following along beside of us, not too far away. We were walking kind of parallel to a crick, about a quarter mile from it. He was between the crick and us. He was really close. We finally got out there to where we could get into the brushy part of the path and we made it out to the shack and Walt was sitting there and Dad asked him, "Did you howl?"

"No."

You know, it really made your hair stand up a little bit. So this old fellow came pretty near up to the camp before he made one last howl and took off. He was just curious. Naturally, you feel kind of uneasy. That was the first time I really heard a timber wolf real close. He was probably having fun with us. Then he really let off some real blasts.

I'll tell you, there's a lot of difference between a wolf howling and yapping and one of those old timber wolves when he sounds off. He starts really way down low and comes all the way through the whole thing. It was kind of good.

"Paul and Fayne Doering arrived from Rochester early next day.

"'Ready for a day off?' asked Fayne as we traded hugs and handshakes all around.

"'You bet,' Jerri said.

"'I figured you'd want to retain the spirit of things,' Paul said, in his usual straight-faced way, 'so I reserved campground space for us all. There will be plenty of room for your tent.'

"'We also brought twenty boxes of your slides to look at,' added Fayne.

"'Wow,' Kyra said. 'Home movies.'

"We piled our belongings into their van and headed for town. Somewhere, miles from Little Gap and the Appalachian Trail, we ate a huge restaurant lunch, then checked into a campground for the day." --from Walking North, by Mic Lowther.

This Week's Birthdays
July 13---Zach Bratten
July 13---Ginny Adair
July 15---Tom Morgan
July 15---William Earl Dake
July 15---Sherry Dake
July 18---Callie Printz (7 years)
July 19---Patricia Dake Meyer
July 19---Marlee Morgan Freesemann
July 19---Devon S. Stewart
Happy Birthday!

This Week's Anniversaries
July 19---Dan and Nancy Mellon (39 years)
Congratulations!

More July Birthdays
' 
July 1---Suzanne McCorkell
July 1---Jim Smith
July 1---Zachary Elliot Smith (4 years)
July 3---Vonnie Dake
July 4---Brian Lehtola
July 5---LeRoy Dake
July 5---Jennifer Dake Horne
July 6---James Miller
July 7---Kimberly Johnson
July 8---Trenton Loredo Roberson (5 years)

July 20---Michael Miller
July 20---Susie Miller Smith
July 24---Donna Jacobson Anderson
July 24---Jeni Larson
July 26---Tytus Joshua Myron
July 27---Wyatt Timothy Mellon (11 years)
July 29---Heather Henderson
July 29---Colleen Mellon Scott
July 30---Justin Printz
July 31---Tim Myron

More July Anniversaries
Z
July 1---Ken and Amy Dake Harrison (1 year)
July 8---Shawn and Lori Chap Ostendorf (2 years)

July 21---Capt. Jack and Ginny Adair (46 years)
July 27---Larry and Sherry Dake (30 years)
July 29---Charles and Ardis Sigman Quick (36 years)

July Special Days
O
July 4---Independence Day

I spent some time working on the 4th, which should be illegal, but unfortunately could not be avoided. I made up for it that evening by watching the Twins beat Cleveland. The game got over just in time to make it over to the Mississippi River bank to watch fireworks over the Stone Arch Bridge. I had never been to the fireworks show on the river. It was an impressive show, and the setting was spectacular. The weather cooperated too, so it was a great evening.

I attended a friend's wedding on Saturday evening, then went back to the Metrodome on Sunday to watch another Twins win! So the weekend ended up being just the right mix of relaxing downtime and fun activities. It was nice to have the opportunity to recharge the batteries, as the rest of the month will be fairly crazy with work and travel.

Anyway, thanks again for the e-card. Have a great week!

Weston Johnson
Maple Grove, MN

Tom Miller
Madera, CA

I talked to Colette. She has taken a few days off work and was happily out weeding in her wild blueberry patch so the plants would have a little less competition. She had done a bit of weeding there last year and thought the blueberries benefited from it.

Kathlyn Johnson Anderson
Anchorage, AK

I was entranced by the matching colors of Kira's dress and the horse's nose and mouth. Very special for a first picture to have a darling picture like that of little Kira, who seems to be growing up all too fast.