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Up North – #2

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Our first full day in Grand Marais was great. A few hikes, outstanding weather, great company, and more awesome food.

Started the day with the World’s Best Donuts (duh – how else would we start the day up here) and a quick walk out to Artist’s Point (just a block or so from our condo). The kid’s love playing tag as they run on the jagged rocks with steep drop offs into the water!!! What’s great about the condo is that we can sit on our patio or balcony and watch the kids run along the water and throw rocks and chase seagulls while we just chill and read or sip a little somethin’.

Here’s Beth on the balcony as we came back from our quick morning hike. These condos are perfect – very glad we came here instead of the dumpy hotel across the street again 🙂

Then we headed to Judge C.R. Magney state park to see the infamous Devil’s Kettle! The water was very low so we got to climb on rocks up and down the river that normally are underwater. I need to figure out how I can get paid to run on rocks – I swear I could do that all day every day – wheeee! With the water so low I climbed almost to the edge of the Devil’s Kettle but we still can’t figure out where the water goes once it enters the Devil’s Kettle – or maybe I know now and I’m not telling. They say they’ve dropped dye in the water and other things and still don’t have a clue where the water goes once it drops into this deep hole.

After hiking we ate Sunday brunch at Nanny-nanny-boo-boo, stared at their funky ceiling a lot, and then played in the rocks. They’ve got a great spread on Sunday’s and we sampled everything! Mommy took a little nap on the beach…not a good idea with our kids nearby…

The day ended at the Angry Trout…lake Trout chowder, fish sandwiches, Oatmeal stout, super fresh local fruits and veggies…this place does everything right from saving the environment to supporting local everything to making delicious food. We should have stopped the perfect day right there…instead we went home, put the kids to bed, and started to watch Black Dynamite…don’t add that one to your movie list 🙁

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Up North

Saturday, August 28th, 2010

Before I get to “Up North” let me say that the pink fire trucks stopped in Eden Prairie last week to raise money for cancer and they were pretty (and I mean “pretty”) cool. They helped the Eden Prairie Fire Department raise about $7,000 that night which makes EPFD the #1 fund raising team for the Relay for Life for the 2nd year in a row. Take that cancer! I manned the bean bag toss most of the night and Colleen, Christopher, Megan & Beth helped me quite a bit which made it fun. All the cool guys got green mohawks + smilies painted on the back of their heads. Ok, it was one crazy chick with the green spray paint and she got every firefighter that she could find with that green paint. It was all for a good time.

Ok…this morning we headed “up north” from Eden Prairie to Grand Marais. I’m sure you’re all familiar with that saying about the journey being the destination…we lived that today. First stop = Duluth. We had Bob Dylan blaring and stopped to see the lift bridge and to refill daddy’s jug’o beer. Fitger’s Brewhouse has some yummy beer that hits the spot every year. It was 85 and sunny (and windy!) in Duluth – a great start to our trip.

From Fitgers we got less than 10 miles before stopping at the New Scenic Cafe. This is a great little stop on the North Shore Scenic Drive that has great local artwork displayed, great landscaping, great beer menu (seeing a theme?), great atmosphere, and awesome, fresh, local food. Plus their prices are unbelievably low for what you’re getting (shhh – don’t tell them). We had an awesome lunch and then drove probably less than 10 miles to stop at Russ Kendall’s Smoke House to pick up some smoked trout, salmon, etc for daddy & Megan. Got back in the car and drove a bit further before we stopped at Betty’s Pies and bought a few pies. Did I mention we start the trip with a huge empty cooler but somehow it is full by the time we get to Grand Marais?!?!?! Ok…got back in the car again and drove a bit further to Gooseberry Falls. This is a great area that is so close to Duluth that it is usually packed with people – today was no exception. The water was low so you could climb across the river in many spots. Christopher fell twice on flat ground in the parking lot of this place so I was a bit worried that he insisted that he and I climb on this gravel, sloped path high above bolders…but we made it 🙂

We ran into people we knew from Eden Prairie at Gooseberry Falls…climbed around a lot…got a little wet…threw some rocks…and then headed north again. Next stop was one of my favorites…this was a new point of interest for us…and I think we all agree that we can check this one off the list and keep on driving next time…we stopped at the statue of Rocky Taconite. Pretty cool dude…we had to force the kids to leave this statue he was so cool.

Ok…it’s hard to top Rocky Taconite…so at that point we decided to drive straight to Grand Marais…and of course once we got there we were soon at Sven and Ole’s for pizza. The condo is great, the weather is great (although a storm or two may hit in a few days), the pies are great, the beer is great, the pizza was great…looking forward to a great week up here.

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Where did July go?

Sunday, August 15th, 2010

Wow! It’s been a long time. Since I last wrote:

(1) Beth found a new job
(2) with mixed emotions Beth quit a job
(3) we’ve all been to St. Louis
(4) I flew home for a week while they stayed longer in St. Louis
(5) Anne and her four kids + Earl came to MN for 4-5 days
(6) had a scout rocket launch
(7) celebrated National Night to Unite by driving a fire truck around to many block parties
(8) had 10 yards of mulch and 8 tons of crushed granite delivered
(9) and I’ve been proposed to (yep – and not by Beth)
(10) In writing this list I came up with another OCD type of thing…I hate the number 9. 7 is good. 9 is as bad as it gets.
(11) went to Friday Night Destruction
(12) finished celebrating Megan’s birthday

So where to begin? Hmmmm….I guess in the order above…

(1) & (2)
Beth’s new job is with Beckman Coulter. The best part is that it is exactly 5 miles away from home. The commute was really wearing Beth down so this is perfect. She starts the 2nd week of September – the same week the kids go back to school. I’ll have to get a picture of her getting on a bus her first day too!

(3) & (4)
We went to St. Louis for Beth’s high school reunion. I think we would both say the reunion was 10x better than we expected it to be. It was at a bar near SLU (St. Louis University) close to downtown St. Louis. They only served appetizers so it was great to not have assigned seating or tables and you could bounce around all night talking to everybody. It was a really fun time and Beth got a chance to hook up with many old friends that night and also later on in the week. The kids had a blast with their cousins all week. One of the highlights in St. Louis is going to the City Museum. I know I’ve written about this place before – it is truly an amazingly awesome place – so cool – makes you want to be a kid again.

(5) Anne and Earl, and Anne’s four kids drove up to MN and stayed for several days. It was great to hang out more, and I know Beth and the kids had a lot of fun each day playing and talking and seeing the sights. Having the pool in our backyard has been great for the kids – they are in it every night and any kids that come over are always out there too – great, cheap fun. The Mill City Museum and Mall of America were the highlights (Patrick celebrated his birthday while he was up here and he wanted to go to the Mall of America on his birthday).

Not my fire – I take no responsibility for all that smoke 🙂

(6) Next year I am running the cub scout rocket launch for Christopher’s pack/den/whatever it’s called. This year I paid close attention as there are tons of little details such as alien masks, inflatable aliens, space suit for me (ok, despite what the last guy did I’m not doing this), etc. Because Christopher was going to be in St. Louis and would miss the scout rocket launch we went the weekend before and tried out all of his rockets. Wheeee.

(7) Guess what we handed out to the kids on National Night to Unite??? Give up? There were 112 block parties this night in Eden Prairie and the fire department ended up hitting most of them. I got to drive the big red truck around this year which made it extra fun. There has been a lot of bad weather the past few weeks so I’ve been on a lot of weather related calls. Last night a page went out saying a deck collapsed that was holding 20 people. We ended up sending a ton of rescue squads, fire engines, ambulances, and police cars. There were people everywhere – like a scene out of a movie. Luckily (as far as I know) there were no serious injuries – but this will be a party that those people talk about for a while. The pink fire truck will be in Eden Prairie next week to help raise money for cancer – I’m sure it will be quite a sight.

(8) I’m not as young as I used to be. As Beth says, who works harder than me in the yard? No one. I had two helpers from a landscaping company yesterday – their job was to move the 8-tons of granite to the backyard. My little hill in the backyard was too much for them – couldn’t handle it – said they would be there all day if they had to bring it up the hill. So I told them just to pile the granite around the fire pit at the bottom of the hill and I’d take care of it. A day later and it’s all up the hill and on the paths. Big babies 🙂 I let Christopher help me mow a bit tonight for the first time. He pushed the mower through the middle of the yard, then turned it and curved back up towards the garden – and then I had him turn off the mower. I asked him if he ever remembered me making lots of straight lines and going back and forth – we laughed as we looked at the massive, random “U” he made from one side of the yard to the other.

(9) I took Megan to her first soccer practice yesterday. I’m not coaching this season which I have mixed emotions about but I think it’s the right decision given everything that is going on. As we were leaving and walking to our car in the parking lot I heard a sweet little voice yelling “coach Dave, coach Dave”. I turned around and one of the little girls from last year’s team was yelling to me. She was the one that I wrote about before that I made big strides with. She wanted to say hello and then said something that I didn’t quite understand so I asked her to say it again and she said “I want to marry you”. So sweet. Her parents were laughing – I don’t think she told them what she had planned to say to me. I said maybe she would want to marry her new coach but she said no. Makes me want to coach again – maybe in the spring.

(11) Ok, so this isn’t Beth’s favorite thing to do but she was a great sport this year. I love watching the figure 8 and flag pole races and we got to see school buses race (at one point they were 4-wide going around a curve on this tiny track). As we were driving to the race track Megan was asking if she could be in the race – I think she changed her mind once we got there. The kids had fun picking cars – amazingly Megan picked every car right all night – it helps when you can change your pick at any time to the car in the lead! They even had a pick-up unexpectedly drive out the back of the “short bus” as it was driving around the track. The night ended with the Green Mamba jet car burning two cars stacked on top of each other. This thing has a jet engine and puts out incredible heat. Fun!

(12) Remember that birthday a few years ago when I didn’t tell Beth what I wanted and I got the stone pig for the yard? I guess Megan wasn’t clear to mommy what she wanted this year and ended up with a big inflatable rolly thing that kids aren’t ever going to master. The funniest part about this is that I inflated it indoors and then we couldn’t find a door that it would fit through to get it outside!!!

Posted in Children, OCD, Pool | 2 Comments »

#1

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

I spy with my little eye…a strawberry pie!

For the first time ever we truly played a board game as a family. And I loved it. A lot of fun – for all of us. Yes, we’ve played some of my favorites for years but those games either have no strategy (e.g., Pretty, Pretty Princess) or they are stacked in favor of the parents (e.g., Blokus). But this time we played monopoly (the Chicago edition). It took us about a week, but we finished the game. Colleen and Christopher played – and Megan was the banker and official dice grabber/distributor. Christopher started the game off by just going around the board – I don’t think he bought a single property after the first one or two times around the board. He would pause to consider properties but then decided he liked his money too much to spend any of it. Needless to say, I was the first one out, followed shortly by Beth, and then Christopher had no problem trouncing Colleen too. He raked it in. Somehow everything seemed to go his way. He had both get-of-jail cards. He had a hotel on the Sears Tower (now called the Willis Tower) which was the most expensive property on the board. On each of our final turns we thought we were safe because we ended up stopping just before his properties…but then I rolled a 3 to land on the Sears tower, Beth rolled a 4 to do the same, and Colleen (several turns later) also rolled a 4 to do the same. Stinker. And…he could have cleaned up a day or two ago but he didn’t want to spend much money on houses and hotels. That’s the last time we play with him!!!

Let me ask everyone who lives in Nashua this question? Is being ranked #1 in the country by CNN’s Money magazine a blessing or a curse? Is it the kiss of death? Eden Prairie is #1. We’re #1. We’re #1. We’re #1.

We watched a deer eat whole heads of flowers off of plants in our yard in single chomps…and then we sent Orca after it. Lucky for her it ran off – I’m not sure what she would have done if it had just stayed there.

Another firefighter gave us his old 15′ pool for free. So I found a somewhat level spot in the yard and set it up real quick when Beth’s parents were out here last month. The instructions just say find a “level” spot -they don’t say how level is level. After a few days it became apparent that my definition of level and their definition of level were a bit different. To further complicate my leaning pool situation the side that was downhill is of course where I had positioned the drain plug which ended up being about 1′ underneath the pool and impossible to get to due to the weight of the water. We tried this pool out to see if we would use it but it also had a leak in the air ring that kind of supports the pool…so here’s the picture of me draining the pool. I don’t know why they give you a drain valve – my method seemed to work just fine and was a lot more exciting. Just like watching the huge bucket dump tons of water at the Great Wolf Lodge! We then went out and bought a brand new 15′ pool, I moved just a bit of dirt to give a pool a better chance of surviving the summer, and the kids have loved it ever since. Every night they go out there. And during the day with sitters they are in it all the time. Fun fun fun. I love Christopher’s happy dance – he just needs some country music and a cowboy hat and he’d be all set.

Posted in Animals, Children, Games, Pool | 1 Comment »

OCD randomness

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

This past year I’ve definitely started knocking more things down. For example, I’ll reach for something in the medicine cabinet and knock over something small like chapstick. But what is super cool is that my reflexes and reaction time this past year have become amazing. I catch 90% of the things that I knock over. So as that chapstick is falling to the ground my hand has already shot out and caught it. I guess if I’m going to get more clutsy as I get older then I might as well improve in other areas.

Who else in the family taps the back of their finger nails on walls, rails, doors as they walk down halls or stairways? Common – don’t hold back. I’ve been doing this forever. Sometimes I have to tap in groups of 3 or some other number – or I have to tap a few times to get that perfect tap (just enough contact with the nail only, but not too much contact). Or how about this one, whenever I pair up my shoes it drives me nuts if they aren’t facing each other properly. The left shoe on the right side just won’t do. Hey, it’s not like I can’t stand the sound of metal utensils scraping against someone else’s teeth? Heh heh. And maybe I do still play with imaginary friends, but if they weren’t so darn competitive then I’d be able to stop – they just won’t quit or let me win – grrrrrr.

I remember as a kid I used to try to double-back on all of my paths (e.g., if I came in a building a certain way then I would want to leave by retracing my steps). I think that was a big thing for me in New Jersey. I also still try to keep my sock drawer as neat as possible. But this one isn’t because I’m obsessive, it’s because I read in a magazine a while ago that guys with neater sock drawers get more action. Every little bit helps 🙂

Ok, enough with all that craziness. Am I alone with that – or am I the normal one?

We had a fun 4th of July weekend. Spent a lot of time at Round Lake for the festivities – bike parade, music, games, you name it…

Colleen and a friend used a big slingshot to launch 9 water balloons at Christopher and a friend (who had 9 of their own to shoot back). Here they are waiting for a balloon to splash over them.

Colleen won the hula hoop contest for her age group at the 4th of July contest. Here she is wearing the grand prize…

Beth wrapped the kids in toilet paper for another event. Hee hee hee.

Buzz buzz buzz.

Posted in Children, OCD | 3 Comments »

Weeping willow

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

I’m a lumberjack and I’m ok,
I sleep all night and I work all day;
I cut down trees, I eat my lunch,
I go to the lavat’ry
On Wednesdays I go shopping,
And have buttered scones for tea.

Here’s the rest of it…always good for a laugh: lumberjack

Yes, I now own a chainsaw. I’ve learned a lot this past week. And so much fun. Slicing through anything in my way. The branch that fell was filled in the middle with ants and ant eggs and yuck…I’m thinking the rest of the tree will soon be gone…either on purpose…or by nature (which will likely end up on the shed).

The branch was still stuck to the tree where it snapped and was supported on the ground. I worked my way closer to the tree and thought the huge branch would eventually snap off. But…instead it swung vertical and didn’t fall off. I cut up as high as I could but was stuck. So…my neighbor got a long rope, tied it around the tree, I brought it back over the top of the hill and down the other side, he drove his truck on the sidewalk (and put an orange safety cone out to make it official), and then we ended up pulling the branch off the tree. That branch easily weighed several hundred pounds and he had it completely horizontal and we weren’t sure if it was going to snap off or not…but it finally gave in and fell.

Lot of work cutting that thing up but after a week with the chainsaw my voice is lower and my chest is even hairier.

The kids love the hammock – so does Beth – but they consider it theirs!!!

Smile.

Ok, Katherine. We’ve got to talk. No more disgusting-anything presents. Complete nastiness. Yuck. Definitely disgusting. It’s hard to read the labels in this one but here the kids are with mold-filled dishes a week after they took samples of the following: Christopher’s door knob, Megan’s nose, Megan’s toes, and Colleen’s shoe. As you can see, it’s far safer to eat something out of Megan’s nose or toes than it is to eat out of Colleen’s shoes or off of Christopher’s door knob. Yep – go figure.

This past weekend was the fire department’s second annual car wash and family event to raise money to extinguish cancer. We raised 2K last year at this event (over 11K total for the relay) and did a little bit less than that this year. I helped organize it and spent 8 hours in this parking lot on Saturday. A ton of people from the department pitch in and it’s a fun day but a lot of work. The relay for life is in a few weeks – that’s when I walk around a track for the good part of 12 hours to raise more money. It’s quite an event – powerful and a huge turnout. We had someone else on the department come down with cancer this year so it continues to hit too close to home.

The 4th of July will be here soon…we’ve started doing sparklers or small fireworks every night in anticipation. Wheeee. I think everybody else is going to the neighbors for most of the 4th but I’ll be working at the fire station from 5:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. There never seems to be much excitement (e.g., no blown off fingers or kids catching on fire) but we still have a lot of people staffed that night just in case. I’m just hoping for no rain at this point. Yesterday and today have been absolutely beautiful days – 70’s – perfect.

Posted in Children | 3 Comments »

Happy Anniversary

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

Happy Anniversary everybody. Hope you went out and had the times of your lives. Things are still out of control here and I’m losing ground. Had a great trip and got to see Grandma T. She was still quite with it – but the hearing thing makes it hard. She had a sense of humor and I’m glad the kids got a quick chance to see her. It’s hard to do such a quick visit – glad we did it but am left wondering if we should have stayed longer even though I know that wasn’t very realistic.

Surprised the kids with a trip to the Wisconsin Dells after Rochester – went to a new place this time – Wilderness Territory. It was huge but not necessarily better. We got to play outside this time though. Wheee.

Christopher has been in this phase where he wants me to take two pictures. And then smiles differently in both of them. He never asks to see the pictures afterwards – but he always wants two taken as he experiments with which look will get the ladies. Hey ladies – which one drives you crazy, the one above or this one?

Keeping gaining weight. We have to go out for ice cream every time Colleen scores a goal and she’s on a roll now – 1 or 2 goals each the last 3 or 4 games. Plus Beth bought herself a cake for her birthday – at Costco. The thing barely fit on our counter. Supersize me.

Kids are getting richer. Colleen lost two molars in the past few weeks. Christopher keeps losing teeth too – I think he pulls them on purpose just to make a quick buck. Not sure he understands his supply will run out soon at this rate.

Go Celtics. Common KG. Get your act together.

Tomorrow is the last day of school. Woohoo. Raa raa.

Couldn’t fit plates or bowls in our cupboard so I paused a minute and carefully analyzed the situation. I think the problem is that we have enough gum scattered throughout the cupboard to fill an entire freezer bag. Stay with me here…[me] Alex, I’ll take compulsive shopping for $400. [Alex] The answer is “Zero”. [me] What is how many of those packets I’ve bought? [Alex] Correct.

Went to Schooner Days again (or Scooter Days as Megan keeps calling it). Megan loved every ride and went or more than anyone. I just ate cheese turds by the fistful.

I forced Christopher to ride with Megan – he was very glad to do this and couldn’t contain his excitement (hey buddy, keep that attitude and I bet that other guy in the picture can tell you where you’ll be in 15 years).

How about this one -my camera takes amazingly fast pictures – not a blur at all. Or maybe it’s because the kids came to a complete stop on the slide. Lamest slide I’ve ever seen. The dude even let them go again – he sprayed Pledge all over the hilly parts before they went – didn’t help Megan at all. Boooooo.

Posted in Children, Life | 1 Comment »

Recharging

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Life has just been too busy lately and I can’t catch up and work is a lot of work and I get zero sympathy at home and I could go on and on…and I really, really needed my spirits recharged. It’s amazing how sometimes things just happen to fall right into place exactly when you need them…and this time it was a string of little, tiny things just to remind me to keep at it and that in some way I am making a difference. For instance, little thing #1. I’ve been working harder with one of the 4 year olds on Megan’s soccer team…she has been shy and reluctant to come onto the field and didn’t want to play…so I keep gently nudging her to join us. This past week she started warming up to me bit by bit and when it came time to choose teams for a scrimmage she came over to me and asked if she could be on my team, I said sure, and she was very happy about that and said “I love you”. It was sweet. The next day was her birthday and she came over to kind of tell me about it. It was funny when the other coach chimed in and she wouldn’t say a word to him or even really acknowledge him.

Little thing #2 – the next day at practice I stayed late to answer questions that one of the mothers had. They are from Somalia and she wanted her son to improve his skills. We talked and ended up being the last two cars in the parking lot. Sure enough…she went to start her car and it wouldn’t start. So Christopher and I gave her a jump. By the time we were finishing up other cars had started to pull into the lot for the next round of soccer games. I was wearing a coaching shirt and one of the moms came over and said there ought to be a special award for coaches that go above and beyond.

Little thing #3 came tonight at cub scouts for Christopher. The fire department brought their ladder truck for the egg drop. I wore my EPFD t-shirt but didn’t ride on the truck. I went over to talk to the guys on the truck and they said I should go up in the bucket to drop the egg contraptions. That’s always a fun job (even with storm clouds approaching in the distance – yikes) so of course I did it. Not sure if we went 90′ up or not but we were pretty high and had fun watching bags, boxes, cans, turtles (cardboard), etc go splat. We came back down and the truck left and we’re walking into the meeting when one of the scout masters walks up to me and asks if I want to do a talk on fire safety. I said – yeah, I could do that sometime – and he said “how about now?”. Gulp. So I walked in front of all the kids and parents in the troop and talked for 10 minutes about this and that and had the kids practice a fire drill and stop/drop/roll. It ended up being fun and I got huge thank you’s afterwards. Another reminder to keep doing the small things and be spontaneous – things will turn out ok.

Ok, enough blah, blah, blah. Here are some pictures. Christopher and Colleen debate who has to sit through more boring performances that the other puts on (Kung Fu versus dance performances). Not that I would ever take sides, but don’t listen to a word that your sister says about kung fu Christopher. 2 years and counting for the father-daughter dance recital. Buy your plane tickets in advance for that one!!!

We head to Rochester on Friday at noon (and head back Saturday at noon – don’t ask). Keep us in your thoughs as we drive on those busy roads. There was a bizarre accident in Minnesota yesterday. Two cars got smashed between two semi trucks – nasty, two people died. The crazy part is that the truck in front was carrying 17 million bees. Luckily only 6 million escaped during the accident!!! Fire fighters had to stay on scene for hours spraying water to keep the bees either away or calm. Glad that one wasn’t in Eden Prairie.

Posted in Children, Life | 2 Comments »

Breakfast in bed

Sunday, May 9th, 2010

Nothing beats having your kids bring you breakfast in bed. The kids and I got up early today and decided to make waffles, pancakes and crepes – so we measured and poured and cracked and mixed and got everything ready. While we were doing that I plugged in the waffle iron and turned on the skillet. The waffle iron starts heating up and we got a few wiffs of waffles cooking – smelled so good and we hadn’t done anything yet. So we keep measuring and pouring and stirring, and the smell from the waffle iron starts to smell more burnt that good – but we haven’t even opened it up yet – haven’t even poured anything on to it. A few minutes pass…and the smell is getting worse…so I decide to open the waffle iron (sometimes it overheats – that could be it, right?). But no…it wasn’t just overheating…it was completely burning a waffle that was in there (yes, we stored the waffle iron for probably 3 or 4 weeks with a waffle in it – oh sure, like you’ve never done that???). It took a while but someone (not me) now remembers cooking that last waffle (doesn’t remember what happened to it after that, but remembers cooking it)…and I’m sure I saw the closed, cooled-down waffle iron on the counter and figured it was ready to be put away…so that’s what I did…a month ago 🙂

Makes my mouth water just watching the steam rise off of it:

Other than the sacrificial waffle we had a pretty good mother’s day. Church was amazing today (Mozart’s Requiem with guest soloists and 19-piece orchestra to accompany our chancel choir and organ), followed by burgers and shakes at Convention Grill, planting a ton of stuff in our yard (which may be a bit risky since we had FROST this morning), and some Vietnamese take-out for dinner (whatever mommy wants, mommy gets). The best news of the day though was reading the sports section and seeing that E’Twaun Moore and JaJuan Johnson withdrew their names from the NBA draft and will both return to Purdue for the senior seasons!!! Boiler up!

Thank you mom, dad, Katherine and Sarah for coming out to visit us a few weeks ago. We had a great time. It went so fast but it was great to see everybody, and catch up on things, and to hold and play with Sarah so much. She’s so cute and at a fun age (I kid you not – enjoy it – time goes way too fast). Thanks for letting me win in dominos too. Glad Christopher didn’t share his strep with anyone…

Sarah – here you are at the Children’s Musem. Someday you’ll have to ask mommy to show you how baby possums are made. Your mommy horrified children and parents all around her at the museum by turning an innocent hand puppy into a birthing exhibit. We started out innocently talking about ‘opossum’ versus ‘possum’ (BTW, both are acceptable) and then your mommy got out of control playing teacher for all the kids.

Here’s my bid for National Geographic’s sentimental animal photo of the year…mommy duck staring at the broken egg behind her…no new eggs yet but daddy duck is sure trying to make up for lost ground…easy big guy.

And here’s the graduating class of 2010…I’ve only seen two fish since their deployment several weeks ago…once it warms up I’m sure I’ll see them all again (either that or I’ll find another big snake living in the pond).

Megan has started saying “big ol'” – as in “that’s a big ol’ rock” or “big ol’ weed” or “big ol’ flower”…where does she pick this stuff up? Here she is with a big ol’ rat from preschool.

Posted in Animals, Children | 3 Comments »

Monday, April 19th, 2010

Christopher is 7!!! Beth and I survived his first sleepover party (4 other boys stayed over). None of his friends had ever been to an official sleepover so this was a bit of a test for several of them (and us). They all passed – no issues at all (whew). The theme was Star Wars – which basically means a lot of fighting with sticks and light sabers and anything else you can get your hands on.

Here’s what’s on Christopher’s mind this year…

My favorite food is…pasta for lunch or dinner and crepes for breakfast (sounds familiar)

When I grow up I want to be a…scientist (again). He’s still not sure what kind of scientist (he says he’ll decide what kind when he grows up).

My favorite restaurant is…Noodles & Co (yuck)

My favorite stuffed animal is…Floppy the bunny

My favorite color is…blue, red, and green

My favorite song is…I’ve Got a Feeling (by the Black-Eyed Peas)

My favorite holiday is…Christmas (because he gets tons of presents and because it is the day that Jesus was born – yes he said that – without prompting – but presents come first)

My favorite season is…winter (because it is fun to play in the snow and ice)

My favorite thing to do is…play computer and Nintendo DS

If I could do anything tomorrow I would…go to the Wisconsin Dells (that’s what he said last year – I guess some things never change)

So…my ducks have been slow to come back this year. I’ve only seen momma and poppa a few times in the backyard. Mr. Ducks have come by a few times – and I’ve seen a few daddies on the roof (I think they spend the night there sometimes)…but Orca seems to be scaring them away. Grrrrrr. Bad dog. I have yet to see any fish yet either…keep your fingers crossed (Beth has given up and is ready to buy new ones…I’m giving them another week and keeping my fingers crossed).

Instead of ducks we have monkeys in our trees…not sure which I prefer 🙂

I ran 8 miles Saturday in my annual 50K team event through the dirt and mulched paths of a very hilly park. It went great – beat my time from last year so I haven’t peaked yet. Can’t wait to see everybody in a few days – the weather has been perfect for days and days but now they’re saying rain Friday and Saturday – figures.

Colleen comes home every day now from school and begs for an email address. I still haven’t figured out how to handle that one…but I’m wearing down. She’s fine if I can read everything she sends and receives…that’s a start. Mom and Dad didn’t have a tv until they were over 10, I didn’t have a computer until I was over 10, and Colleen’s sob story is that she didn’t have an email account until she was over 9 – I wonder if her kids will be able to believe that!!!

Posted in Birthday, Children | 1 Comment »

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