I tried reasoning with Megan for 5 minutes the other day explaining that those little oranges are ‘Clementines’ and not ‘Lemontines’ – she wasn’t hearing any of that. They are small and sometimes sour and she’s convinced they are part lemon. So there!
The kids survived the first week or two of school. I think our kids are getting smarter because Christopher is still claiming his teacher hasn’t sent any homework home yet this year…and Colleen’s homework has been minimal too. So much for not being as naive as my parents 🙂
Colleen and Christopher started a day earlier than Megan started. (Dad- check out that cool Air Force t-shirt he chose for his first day of school)
Here’s Megan’s first day of Kindergarten.
And here all three of them are waiting for the bus (Megan’s first official bus ride to school).
We went to a pancake breakfast two weekends ago. It was to raise money for a co-worker of mine whose wife was killed in plane crash at Eden Prairie’s airport about a year ago. The guy running the griddle would toss the pancakes to all of the kids. It was a riot. Christopher caught 3 in a row (but I thought he was going to drop the ones on his plate every time he went to catch another one). Colleen caught 2 in a row, and Megan caught one and dropped one. What fun!
Beth and I were sitting by the pond last week and for the first time this year we saw a gold fish swim by. It looked to be over 4 or 5 inches long. Where that one has been hiding who knows and I wonder how many more are hiding in there. Amazing they have been hidden this long all year. Speaking of the pond, I’ve been finding more dead birds on the ground around the bird feeder – maybe 3 or 4 in total but I don’t think I’ve ever found dead birds like that. So…I think this may explain things…here is a picture of our new friend sitting just outside our window overlooking the pond…doesn’t look too old but it’s cool to see him up close.
Christopher and I went camping this weekend. It was just for one night and it was actually a lot of fun. We ate and played and smore’d and ate and hiked and ate and ate and watched the flag go up and down and up and down and then ate some more. We saw some Trumpeter Swans which was cool. They were heading towards extinction but now have more than 3000 in Minnesota. I brought my noisemaker on the camping trip. People were snoring all around our tent so about 3:30 a.m. I cranked up my noisemaker (and had it on the ‘bubbling brook’ setting). The next morning people were talking about hearing snoring and then people started talking about hearing running water all night long. People across the field were talking about hearing this water…and about having to go to the bathroom all night long and wondering where the running water came from. Too funny. Teaches them right for all that snoring!!!
And of course we went to the state fair again this year. Kristin and her family came up this year again. We missed the Milk Run (5K) that we’ve done several years in a row (because we were up in Grand Marais) so it was way cool that Kristin still came up for the fair. The night of the day we were there Kiss was in concert so people were walking around in costume all day. Here is a group of guys and girls dressed up like Kiss. It was a riot – they had folded tinfoil on their sleeves and cuffs – too funny. I can only hope I will ever be close to that cool some day.
Here’s our proud future scientist experimenting with bubbles.
Arboretum…
It’s hard to believe summer is over and school has started once again. Hard to believe that Colleen is 10 years old!!! Sorry we called in the midst of her party last night – they must have all had a fun time. Doesn’t Colleen carry a backpack this year? Are girls her age carrying a larger bag over their shoulder? Glad you and Christopher had such a good time camping. Is that your cool tent? It’s nice that just the guys can get away and bond. He’ll remember those fun times with Dad. What kind of bird is in the tree? Is it a hawk? I never have understood Kiss and never really liked the group – but I loved the Mamas and Papas – never realized until years later they were into so many drugs – dad always said i was naive!!! Happy Fall!
Isn’t it obvious that’s a juvenile Buteo Platypterus (broad-winged hawk) perched in our tree looking for some prey to scurry by. We borrowed the tent – some of the people had massive, multi-room tents – I didn’t realize it could be like buying another home. I missed the Kiss phase too – sometimes I wear shoes like theirs on weekends but I’ll save those photos for another blog post. All I have to say about dad calling you naive is that it takes one to know one! The party last night was great…I’ll post about it soon enough…but right now I’m off to another soccer game today…wheeee.