Saturday, July 09, 2011

Feels like ...tube socks.

It makes sense really. Well at least in my head. You see, tube socks were a staple of my wardrobe when I was a kid, yes even in the middle of the summer. Nothing goes with short-shorts quite like a nice pair of tube socks with blue and red strips at the top. Wait, what was my point again? Oh, tube socks equals me as a kid in Minnesota in the summer. No obligations aside from the daily exploration of the backyard and the lake, looking for the elusive lake gator (which Avery found), swimming at the lake(except the water was flippin cold and we didn't "swim"), fishing for a few pan fish for dinner, and (now that I am a grown-up of sorts) relaxing on the porch with a cup of coffee.

I have a hard time believing that the water is really still 42 degrees in late June so I am convinced that some cold water just happened to blow up from the bottom the day we were there. It was lake superior cold. Still a nice day at the beach and Avery made a few fast friends. She is a skilled friend maker, that is for sure.

Fishing round one. A little too windy for any real luck but it was still fun. She is a natural with the fishing pole. AND, her bobber even matched her life jacket.

I ventured back out to catch us some dinner later. (Thanks Ginny for the use of your fruitful dock!) There are a few more fishies hiding behind the others, including a real nice sunny. Even tried my hand at filleting that Bass. Let's just say we had bass nuggets for dinner. Never filleted before + Not a fillet knife = really hard to do. But once they had a little corn flake breading on them and were fried up in the pan, they were very tasty.

We had a few calm days to do a little canoeing. On this day a loon landed right out in front of us as we were pulling out. We decided to see how close we could get and it let us get nearly 10 feet from it before he dove and swam away. Quite a sight.
The little man likes the piano.

And a few pictures of the countless hours spent running around grandmas back yard.



There were even a few of these guys there. Even though this isn't a mosquito, it's at least one of his ugly cousins.

And there was also one of these there. I mean, we were all glad to see Erin when she arrived. :)

I think this was from one of our many attempts to scare away the lake gator that Avery found under the dock.

It was a wonderful trip to minnesota. The weather was perfect for a guy that cries about the stinkin hot weather in Kansas in the summer. 70 and NO humidity. I am realizing every day that I have something back in my life that I have been dearly missing for the last 17 years. I am so thankful to have summer vacations again.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

dance recital



After a great deal of practice avery and her classmates were ready to show off their skills

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

A little downtime...

This time of year is a little crazy for us as it is with most people! We had an opportunity to relax over the weekend though and here are some pics.

Parents of young children out there- if you are not aware, moon sand is evil. It's messy and just awful. We had to take this stuff out to the garage (we tried to throw it away and she busted us). I think the pictures do a good job of showing what I'm talking about. Imagine doing this inside...


Un(fortunately) we had to sweep the garage and we lost about half of it because it mixed with the dirt on the floor.



Avery loves to hold Griffin and sing to him. I have no idea what she is saying here, but he seems to be ok with it. By the way, my kids actually do wear pants most of the time.



"Must...get...tail..."



Here is a good display of G's spikey hair. No, it's not from the static.



Have a nice day!

Monday, May 16, 2011

7 Months Old!!!

Griffin turned 7 months old over the weekend. Boy, has time flown by.


He is really on the verge of crawling and is still just a happy little kid with spikey hair.


He thinks it's pretty cool to stand up. Avery better watch out!

And of course, I had to throw in some pics of my favorite girl. And one of her playing with my favorite toy growing up (little people!)!


Sunday, May 01, 2011

Easter and Things

Yes, Easter was a week ago. But it took us this long to recover.

We went to an Easter Egg Hunt at a place where I went when I was a kid. I'm not saying where because it was lame and Avery got jipped. Here is Avery attempting to run and get some eggs before a deluge of kids engulfed her and she wasn't able to bend down and pick up ANY eggs. That's right, she got nothing.



Luckily there was a playground nearby...



What Easter Egg Hunt?



Griffin is getting a little anxious to play on the playground as well.


"Oh, well. Maybe when I'm older."


And then the piece de resistance...Easter. The Easter Bunny came to our house and came to Grandma Elley's too. He left a lot more eggs at Grandma Elley's house for some reason.






And then a bunch of relaxing and releasing of one's energy to round out the day.








Stay tuned...crawling will be happening any day now.