Remember When Slide Shows Involved A Projector And A Bedsheet?

Glad you could stop by. Go ahead and get comfortable on the flower print sofa while I mix us a couple of 'Rob Roys'. Don't worry, we'll get to our weekly card game soon enough. First though, you're in for a treat. Our vacation slides just came back from the developer and I have them all loaded up in the projector. I tacked the bed sheet to the wall for our screen, so I guess we're ready to relive our entire summer with you.

What's that you said? Just sounded like a big sigh to me. Nothing? Ok, let's begin. Back in July we made the trip out east to the Wisconsin Dells. Did you know they have water parks out there? This is the one we visited for 3 and a half days. That's me at the top of the orange slide.
They even had one of them there fancy indoor water parks. Number One Son was showing off for the girls on the Wavy-Surfy thing.
Sweet Pea had fun on it too. Wipeout!!!And as if two water parks weren't enough entertainment, they had an indoor amusement park to siphon some more money from us. N1S is about half way up this rock wall during our race. I was climbing the wall just to the left of him. I was waiting for N1S at the top but unfortunately I was just cut out of the picture.

Well, how do you like the slide show so far? No, don't get up, there are plenty more slides to see. What do you mean 'it's getting late'? You just got here. Now put down your coats and sit. The little Lady will be out shortly with coffee cake and Sanka and then we'll start the card game as soon as the slides are done.

In this slide we see an actual mermaid the resort hired to swim around the park. She was a big hit with SP who is wearing the pink goggles. The mermaid swam all around the lazy river followed by a dozen or two little girls. It seems she was also a big hit with some of the teenage boys who were swimming. Haw haw haw!

I see the coffee cake has vanished. Hey Lady Di, your cake was a hit again! Well, that's the end of the slides. Just a minute! I meant that's the end of those slides. Now we can put in the second carousel of slides from our vacation to Madeline Island in Wisconsin for all of our enjoyment. Whoops! Looks like I put all the slides in upside down. Don't worry, it'll only take ten or fifteen minutes to turn all of them over. That'll give the Little Woman time to gather up those snack sets and get them washed. We've been having a little trouble lately getting our dishwasher loaded. It takes you about two shots and a beer chaser now, right honey! Haw haw haw!

There we go, that's better. We're getting ready to ferry over to the island with our friends and their family. Now these slides you'll really like. While on the island we camped in our tent for four days. We got to see a lot of nature while there too.
We saw a lot of deer at the campsite and while riding our bikes. Some were tame enough to let us get within 15 feet of them. Isn't this a great shot! If you can't see the deer, it's the tan thing in the middle of all of the gray, brown and tan things.

We also took a long family nature hike though the woods. And this must have been the year for mushrooms because we saw so many different kinds, shapes and colors that we had to take a picture of every one we saw.This slide shows the most brightly colored yellow mushrooms we saw. We literally found mushrooms of every color of the rainbow except blue. Yes, we even found purple.

Hey Honey, where did those other forty slides of mushrooms go? They don't seem to be in the slide carousel anymore. You don't know? Well our guests really wanted to see them.
Oh well, plenty more to see. You havin' trouble with your watch? You seem to be checking it every five minutes.

Anyhoo, we got to see some nice views of the cliffs on our hike too. Here, the kids got in the way of a nice shot of some old rocks.

On the last night of our camping trip, we took a family walk on the beach. We skipped stones, found driftwood and collected interesting rocks. Don't worry, we didn't take a picture of every rock we saw. Who would be dumb enough to want see that? We did, however, happen to have a full moon rising that night so we all lined up for a picture.

SP's dour expression comes from her accidentally losing her most precious and most interesting rock she found on the beach. A rock that she could NEVER EVER find another one like it ever in her whole life ever!!!


Well, I can see that your facial expressions are matching SP's for some reason. I hope it wasn't the coffee cake. So I guess we better just call it a night. I'll look around for those missing mushroom slides for next time. Sorry, we ran short of time for our card game. We'll just have to play two games next week. Haw haw haw!
What do you mean you're busy next week?

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

I'm sorry that I have been so absent lately from this blog, but I've had good reason. Two good reasons actually. Firstly, N1S performed in his play Hansel and Gretel and did a great job. Pictures and details will follow in the near future.
Then, right after his play weekend, Lady Di and I went on vacation.

This is the first time Lady Di and I have enjoyed a vacation away from the kids. Last Monday, we left Grandma and Grampa in charge and headed south to the Cayman Islands. We had a wonderful time and got to do a lot of things that we haven't in the past due to the kids' schedules. We also learned that we missed the kids terribly and will bring them with us when we go back. The whole time we were there, we would notice multiple things that would have interested the kids. When we got home we immediately had to wake up the kids to give them some long overdue hugs. It would be too difficult to be away from the kids for so long again.

So, we are still unpacking and downloading pictures so hopefully I will be able to post a few items soon. Your patience is appreciated.

This Old Closet

Today is my last day of vacation. What are good things to do on your last day? Nap, read a book, play golf? Nope. Put up wire shelves in my daughter's closet? Yes. We had a gift card for Menards, so we got some shelves and today is also the last day we have before Emery returns from Gramma's house. Lady Di will go and pick her up tomorrow. So it's now or never.

All of Emery's clothes and toys and books are now all over her bed and/or floor. I don't want 'Sweet Pea' to come home to that.

"What did you do to my room!!!" , "I want a different Daddy!"

OK, she probably wouldn't say that, but she wouldn't be happy.

So I asked Ethan to help me with this project.

"OK, Dad. What do we do first?", he asked.

"First, you get your radio from your room.", I instructed.

"To listen to music while we work?", he excitedly offered.

"Exactly.", I answered. "You do that while I get my tools."

Ethan plugged in his radio and couldn't find a radio station he liked so he put in his Wacky Songs CD. The one with Monster Mash, Short Shorts, and Purple People Eaters.

After my fifth or sixth trip to the garage, I finally had all the tools I needed. Lady Di mapped out where each shelf was to go and I started to work. So I marked a few spots, drilled a few holes, trimmed a couple shelves, remarked a few spots, redrilled a few holes, cursed a little, and a few hours later, my daughter had shelves. I now can't stand the song Monster Mash. Ethan was a very good helper. He got the music going. He resharpened my pencil. He actually took the broken pencil and returned with a different sharpened pencil. He thought this was pretty funny. He even made a 'Men Working' sign for the job site. We even got to whistle at Lady Di when she walked by. Just like real workers.

After we got the shelves in, it was Lady Di's turn to work on the closet. It was her job to put everything in place. She made sure the dresses were all together in the proper order. She also organized all of Emery's pants, tops, belts, socks, underwear and tiaras. Some books and Barbies also found their proper place. It is amazing how many clothes she has.

Ethan must have been tired after all of our work. We laid down on his bed to read a chapter in his book. When that was done, he pulled his shades and fell asleep. He may still be a little worn out from his ear surgery on Monday. Or he may be tired of watching movies all day and not being able to run around outside. Either way it was nice to get something done on my last day of vacation, and to have such a great partner to help me.

Ho Ho Ho

This weekend we visited South Dakota to attend a friend's retirement party. On the way we stopped in Blue Earth, Mn. While pulling into the gas station, Ethan noticed a big, green, scantily clad guy. No, not the Hulk.
"Look! The Green Giant!" , he said.
So we had to make a detour to visit the Giant and little Sprout.
We could only stay for a minute, because the temperature was 20 degrees with a wind chill of 'igloo'. I think I saw some goose bumps on the Giant's legs. The kids were excited when they saw the statue, until they got out of the van. They literally ran to him, stood for a picture, and ran back to heat. Now we can cross one more 'wonder of the world' off our list. We've already seen the world's largest twine ball in Darwin, Mn.

Our trip also involved a lot of swimming at the hotel. After the retirement party, we got some pizza. The kids ate one piece each while getting their swimming suits on. Their cousins, Ella and Hope, from Mitchell, SD also came to swim. We swam from 5:30 to 8:00pm and were exhausted. I think we learned a lesson about pool-side rooms. It is fun to be next to the pool, but when the pool closes at 11:00pm, sleep usually starts at 11:00pm too. I can't believe that parents let their kids stay up that late. The next morning Ethan woke up as usual at 6:45am and asked if he could go swimming. Emery heard the word 'swim' and popped out of a deep sleep, like toast from the toaster and jumped into her suit. They had to wait until 8am, when the pool opened, so they swam from 8:00.01 until 10:30am. The 4 hour drive home was pretty quiet, even though Ethan slept for only 1/2 hour and Emery didn't sleep at all. We had a lot of fun on this short trip in spite of the cold weather. It was great to see my sister and her family too.

Emery and Ella.......... Ella and Hope....... Ethan on the log