Ok, so I guess I'm just going to have to accept the fact that I just don't have the time and energy to post blog entries lately. Ironically, when I do finally get around to it, the posts are quite long with lots of pictures and actually probably take longer to post than they would if I would keep up.
We've done a lot in the last few weeks and had several visitors starting right before Memorial Day. Eleanor stopped by for a sleep over and some breakfast with King Anders on her way to see Grandpa Bill and Grandma Kathie in Wisconsin. She also brought her parents along, but they managed to stay out of the picture.
That Friday, we headed up to Grand Marais where Will and I were taking a timber framing class, in which we starting building a larger cabin for ourselves, at
North House Folk School. I highly recommend North House for a variety of classes and activities from bird festivals to knitting to baking to jewelry to building. Another person who somehow did not get in any pictures was Will's mom Jean, who was generous enough to take care of Anders for us for the 9 days we were the class. Grammie took Anders to his first Memorial Day celebration.
Here I am using the mortising machine.
Anders enjoyed this little table of Cindy's quite a bit. I bet you didn't know it was so nice to sit on for a good read, did you Cindy!?
Trying on some boots.
This is one of the largest pieces we will need for our cabin. It is called the top plate and will be the top of a wall. We had to join two very large timbers with this scarf joint that had to be cut and measured very precisely.
This is how Will fit them together once all the measuring, cutting, and chiseling were done.
Will and I were able to walk to class every morning. It was super nice.
Anders had his eye on the forklift the whole time we were in the class, asking to sit on it, on the last day one of our instructors, Peter, took him for a ride.
Here is our pile of timbers that we completed after 9 days of class.
We got home Sunday night and headed to work and school on Monday, while Jean stuck around and caught up on laundry, making cookies and some general cleaning for us - thanks!
Then Anders stayed home with Grammie on Tuesday for some fun in the rain.
On Friday, my parents and my sister and 3 of my 4 nephews (from my side of the family) arrived for the weekend. Sadie started out the visit rolling in a dead fish that Will had put outside for later disposal...good times.
We had pizza for dinner that night (peepa as Anders calls it) - everyone enjoyed it. This picture was taken not long before Anders started pestering his cousin Drew with a glass of milk in the face, which then became a glass of milk poured all over Drew (we think by accident). This reminds me of the highlight of the weekend, in which Anders chased Drew across the living room and to the front door, which wasn't latched and which Drew proceeded to fall through onto the front steps, all while his mom, his aunt and his grandpa were cracking up over the scene unfolding before them. It was very funny - the deal was that Drew had one of Anders toys and I don't think Anders wanted to take it from Drew, but more wanted to play with Drew who just freaked out and ran. I guess Anders' animal instinct to chase a fleeing thing must of kicked in. Unfortunately, we have no recording of the incident.
The weekend was kind of rainy the whole time, so we packed all the boys in Sarah's car to go to
Edinborough Park to burn off some energy. Cam is back there beside Anders.
The indoor park has real trees and plants growing in it, a gym for the kids to play in and this huge climbing thing. I think this is something like 3 storeys tall and full of slides and various ways to get to places. It was kind of crazy, but the boys loved it. Here is Cam on his way up and probably asking us if we knew where Zach was.
After spending about an hour dodging some of the crazy-acting big kids while accompanying Drew and Anders in the big climbing area, we discovered the empty toddler area.
I think we spent about 2 hours running around and going down slides - I haven't gone down a slide in a long time - and then it was time for lunch and a quick drive home that consisted of lots of songs to keep Anders awake. I've never seen him so tired!
That night Zach opened his birthday presents and Cam got to Skype with his Mom and Dad, who he was away from for almost 2 weeks! Zach is showing Aunt Becky and Uncle Tom his headlamp here.
The next day we headed over to the parkway to check out the heavy machinery and the big holes they are digging. Surprisingly, none of the boys crawled through this pipe!
I'm told this is called a track hoe, all I know is that it is huge and there are three of them working over there.
This next series of pictures is kind of long, but I had to put them on the blog. When we got home from the heavy machinery excursion, we discovered these two ducks in our neighbor's yard. Anders loves ducks and he and Drew were pretty excited about them.
It was a fun couple of weeks and now we are enjoying some down time before the next round of visits starts next weekend.
