That’s the Way It Goes

There’s been no swimming here all weekend. Winds are gusting to 40mph, making temps in the low 70’s feel even colder. The warm weather is supposed to return soon…the day after we leave, in fact. *sigh*

Back At It

For those who have been wondering–I am (we are) giving blogging another try. No guarantees, but this time i’ve recruited help in the form of my husband and my son.

We’re at James’ parents’ cabin in Minnesota for a long weekend. James has been here all week working for his dad and will stay for most of next week. The kids and I managed to arrange our schedules to be here with him for awhile. Thankfully, because we’re all getting tired of the single parent thing. T and A are bedded down, and E is curled up reading in a corner. Unfortunately, James got called into the hospital about ten minutes before we arrived, so we haven’t seen him yet. Medical careers and bad timing go hand-in-hand.

Weekly Catch-Up

The first day of summer actually ended up summery here.  With highs near 80, I took the kids out to find pool noodles and miscellaneous floating things, beach towels, etc. for a summer living on the lake.  Today was the first time this year the kids had been in the lake, and their fun was cut short by a fast-moving thunderstorm.  However, we have (hopefully) many warm days ahead to look forward to swimming.

Speaking of swimming, today was the last day of lessons.  Junior and Baba both passed their levels; Margie will be redoing Level 2 (most kids do).  The highlight of the morning was watching Junior jump from the diving board, or rather, being dangled and dropped from the diving board by his swimming instructor.  I also met a mom who lives a few blocks from us–her oldest son is Baba’s age, and the two of them became fast friends the past two weeks.  We look forward to getting to know this family better in the coming months.

Most exciting of all, I have a new nephew today!  My brother and his wife welcomed their first child into the world, and does that kid ever have hair!!!  Take a look.

You probably won’t be hearing from me much in the next week or so.  James and the kids will be in MN at his parents’ cabin all week.  He’s helping his dad provide anesthesia at a nearby hospital, and Grandma & Grandpa K (along with a couple of the older cousins) will be sharing childcare duties while James is at work.  I’m leaving on Monday with a friend to fly to Pensacola for a few days to visit another friend.  This has all come together in the last week and a half, so I don’t think I’ve put it in my Reality File yet.  Hopefully I’ll have some beach pictures when I return.

I Must Protest

I pulled our mail out of the mailbox this morning and noticed a catalog from Land’s End at the bottom of the stack. Nothing unusual. But reading the front cover of this particular piece of advertisement has me scratching my head wondering if went Rip-Van-Winkle for a few months. It says, “Summer’s End Savings Event.”

Huh?

Did I miss something? Did any of the rest of you living up here notice summer? The Weather Channel tells me it’s 57 degrees outside right now and we can’t hope to expect anything above 70 for a week or so. I suppose this could be September. Somebody straighten me out here.

At any rate, I really don’t feel like buying summer clothing from Land’s End right now.

Anika!

I have a new niece, and she has a very interesting birth story.

Baba on Ice

One of the stinky drawbacks of this new blog is that I can’t embed Picasa slideshows here (although I’ve heard there’s a way to work around that–haven’t figure it out yet).  For the time being, I’m just going to drop a couple of my favorite photos here and let you look here for the rest of them if you’re interested.

The ice on our small lake has broken into shards, making paddling much easier and also interesting.  James took the kids out in turns today–I would have been out myself except I injured my wrist pitching baseballs to Baba yesterday afternoon and decided to let it have a rest.  While he had Margie and Baba out I ran a few errands with Junior, and the youngster had a lady in the checkout at Farm & Fleet laughing because he insisted, “I want to go kayaking!” at the top of his lungs.  Uncle Johnny K. is gonna have a disciple, I think.

I like the determination on the face of the boy in this photo:

And you can’t beat this for timing.  Check out the flying ducks in the upper left:

Little Chef

This is what paper plates, scratch paper, plastic knives, masking tape and a little imagination will do for you. Oh, and it also helps if your children have seen “Rat Tooting” a few dozen times . . .

Internet Filter Recommendations Needed

We’re about to be in the position of giving Baba little bit of online access here in our home, and up to this point he’s had zero experience with the Internet.  Of course we’ll sit down and have a talk with him and set up rules and guidelines; however, we’d also like to have an Internet filter in place on the computer which he is using.  Anyone have recommendations?

Thanks in advance for any help or advice.

Bonfire at Papa and Mimi’s

My parents had a semi-impromptu bonfire on Saturday night. The cousins enjoyed the 80+ degree weather by tooling around on the new kid-sized four-wheeler (Papa set it up to stay at low speed). Later in the evening we enjoyed a picnic with lots of great food and S’mores to wrap up the festivities. We don’t experience such warm weather in October very often, but when it comes along we know how to take advantage of it!

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Timeline

We finally have a timeline!  Thanks to Jules for the inspiration and to my husband for measuring the tape and affixing it to the wall in a straight manner.

Timeline figures from Homeschool in the Woods.

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