Sing a SOng of Crazy!

Thursday morning Jon booked a last minute campsite at Split Rock State Park - a BPK (Backpack/kayak in - #3 in fact). Friday afternoon the family, including Eko, packed up and headed north. About 9 pm we arrived at the park to check in... on the brink of sundown... and we still had to backpack to the site! Thankfully there was a little pull off area that we could unload and bike our stuff down to the site. This is leaving the site, but it should give you an idea of what we looked like.

It was definitely an experience, but we had a great time. There was, however, the 30 min. after we got everything to the site that was a little dicey. The 30 min went a little bit like this - We got to the site and Jon set up the tent, then he had to ride his bike back to the car, drive the car into the park parking lot then ride his bike the 1.5-2 miles back to the campsite... in the dark! Like I said, an experience. Here is our view of Lake Superior from the campsite and Eko enjoying himself after playing in the lake (he thought the waves were playing with him).

Saturday morning we biked back to the parking lot where Jon parked the evening before- Jon hauled the Burley and I biked with Eko running beside me. He actually did really well. He's not a long distance runner, but he kept a good pace. He immediately got in the car to lay down!

Since Eko had enough time to recuperate in the car, we made our way to Grand Marais and a little beyond to hike up to the Devil's Kettle. It was labeled as a moderate hike, but didn't end up being that bad. Brianna even did really well in her first time in the backpack.

to be continued...

A few hours with Casen

It is hard to remember Brianna at 6 weeks, but I was able to hold and play with Casen a little bit yesterday and it gave me a slight reminder. He's so small in comparison! We had a good time hanging out. I think Brianna was even a little jealous, but she played it cool and tried to share her pacifier with him.

Eko on the other hand, did not play it cool. He couldn't figure out why my free hand wasn't petting him but patting someone else's back. Three's Company for sure! He would not leave my side or the babies. I had the blanket laid out for them and he did all he could to be right up next to it, even on it. At one point I was on my hands and knees next to the babies and he came right under my arm, stuck his nose up right next to mine and just stood there.

The Curtains I was talking about

Craft Day at Our House

It was fun to have everyone (the twins, my mom, and 3 of my cousins) over last Friday for a craft day. I must admit my sisters are much more on the craft ball than myself, but I had a good time and it was fun to talk and craft. I helped keep an eye on the babies a little bit till our cousins came, then I was able to make some yummy bread. As the afternoon wore down I got out the camera to get a few shots of Brianna with Lucius on the floor. He was showing off his mad rolling over skills.

Oliver even decided to join the fun.

I'm starting to like the day after craft day even better. I found myself in the mood to continue the productivity and hem up a few curtains that I've been waiting on in our bedroom and Brianna's room. With the left over fabric from a our curtains and the leftovers from Brianna's existing curtains I was able to make one more set of curtains for Brianna's room for above her crib. It's nice to have that checked off the list, plus I think it turned out quite nicely!

Dainty Moves

*Please turn down or mute your speakers!

Ok... So I've been trying really hard to catch Brianna rolling over. She has been rolling over, but only when I'm not looking - tricky girl. Yesterday I had the Lord of the Rings on, not really watching it, just playing in the background as I was getting a few things done and she started rolling over. I'm not sure why, but when I recorded this with the camera, it came out really loud. (I promise it was not that loud) I'm not sure what happened. Anyway, I finally caught it. I think her method is superb, almost as though she is practicing her ballerina moves already. Notice the legs crossing and the arm move straight up and around!

As an added bonus, the first person to tell me what part of the Lord of the Rings (it might be somewhat difficult) happened to be playing at that certain moment, will get a (tbd) prize!

Some Things are Not Meant to Be Understood

This afternoon, while Brianna took a nap, I thought I'd take the opportunity to clean the bathroom (yay, fun!!). Eko had been outside all afternoon and finally came inside to cool off. I guess the tile or hardwood wasn't doing the trick. He followed me into the bathroom, proceeded to gingerly climb into the bathtub and then lay down - he only gingerly moves when he thinks he's is being sneaky and doesn't want to be caught. I will say I'm glad he isn't afraid of the tub and likes taking baths but this, I thought, was a little extreme. I had to wait almost 10 minutes for him to get out of the tub so I could finally clean it (I didn't think it was worth it to move him).
It was a good thing I was going to clean it because his dirty paws left their mark!

Eko Needed a Checkup

At a garage sale last week, I found a doctor's play set (One of my favorite pieces is the blood pressure cuff). For our last play time together for a while, Oliver wanted to play with the "doctor's kit". As we were learning what each piece was for, we tried it on him, me, Brianna and even Eko. Here he is practicing on Eko!

"Lookin' good Eko"

The entire time we were practicing, Eko would just lay there. I am so thankful Eko is so calm (for the most part) with kids. We couldn't ask for a better dog!

Minor Front Yard Conversion

The previous homeowner must have REALLY enjoyed small granite landscaping rock because it is tucked away here and there all over our yard. We planned and schemed and tried to figure out how to get rid of these little things with as little labor as possible. How does one relieve himself of unwanted landscape rock? (and don't say Craigslist)

Thankfully, as I mentioned before, these little rock of ages are in various landscaped areas in our yard. So we hauled them to our backyard 1wheel borrow at a time. We didn't keep track of how many loads we moved, but the area I'm standing in above is 200 SF and the rocks were 6" deep. That's almost 4 CY...a lot of rock!

Anyway, we thought it would be fun (ha!) to plant a small flower / vegetable garden in lieu of the dull, dry, and boring granite rock. So today we began by hand tilling our new garden spot.

Here's the black dirt that will replace the granite.

Eme is happily evening out the new black dirt.

Thankfully my dad came over to lend his expertise in manual labor, but more importantly planting. You know what they say, "You can take the boy out of the farm..."

In progress...

The finished product!

It doesn't necessarily look like it from this picture, but it was a lot of work. But we can't wait to taste fresh produce later this summer. Oh and, of course, the weeds will pull themselves, right? ;)

The Show

It was all smiles last weekend...except the Twins lost. East Coast teams...ugh!

Last Week Wednesday

With only one more week to go at work and with our kidswap winding down I thought I would pull out one of my stops and try coloring with Oliver. I was able to "recycle" a few wrongly printed banners from work and was glad to have a purpose for them. I'm not sure why I didn't try coloring before but we had a good time. As you can see, the banner is long, about 8 ft in length. I had to really coerce Oliver to move from coloring the same spot over and over again. I traced him on the paper and at one point said, "let's color some hair on your head." Well, I should have been more careful because he started to take the crayon to his actual head.

Saturday Moving Excursion

Last Saturday, Jon, Brianna and I went to help finish moving Grandpa Bill out of his old apartment. I did what I could to help, but holding Brianna with one arm and moving furniture was not on my day's task list. I offered to help clean out the cupboards and fridge, which ended up to be quite the task in itself, but I was glad to be of some use. In between working, I had to take breaks to feed and/or change Brianna. Our niece, Kaitlyn, was all about being wherever Brianna was and took the opportunity to come with me when I would leave the apartment. All she wanted to do was hold her. Here is a picture of her trying to readjust Brianna on her own!


She did very well. She was even able to carry her back to the apartment all by herself. Which I think she was pretty proud of! No pictures of that... I was too busy being her spotter. Thanks for hanging out with us Kaitlyn!