A Week Behind!

I know I'm running behind this week; so goes life! Two weeks ago Aiden had the stomach flu... causing lost sleep, an increase in laundry and household chores put on hold. He was better by the weekend so we packed up and headed to northern Minnesota to visit friend Erik and Jessica for their kids birthday party. Ethan just turned 1 and Grace is now a big 3. We had a fabulous time visiting, eating cake, watching the kids play and touring their house and seeing all the renovations they have made. The kids had a grand time playing outside in between rain showers and after gift-opening, playing with all the new toys!

Here is Grace getting ready to blow out her candles.


Ethan having his turn!


Ethan and grandpa...


Grace and Aiden going shirtless on the new birthday wheels.


We spent the remainder of the weekend doing things around the house: washing all the windows inside and out; powerwashing the house; edging the driveway; mowing, etc. A very productive day!


And what is a day of work if it's not followed by a little 'play'?? We lit the fire and sat around relaxing until after dark. The kids had a blast since we never let them stay up that late!


Our little family of ducks watches for us all day. The ducklings are over half the size of their mom and practically run across the water when they see us come out. They are hilarious to watch - racing to get each piece of bread. The momma duck will not eat any of the bread, but just watches to make sure her babies are safe. The neighbor kids love to come over and feed them too. We go out at least every other day to feed them and watch them.


I'm also behind on getting flowers in the ground this year! A trip to Lowes fixed that in no time. I am most excited about my two hanging baskets - they were a steal! All because they were a little dry.
My $2 one:

And the $1.50 fuschia:


Father's Day is always a hit here. The boys love shopping for their dad and buying tools! After church and lunch it was finally time to open gifts. Then it was time to try out all the gifts: the pole saw and weed puller were the most used. Dinner of lasagna followed by cake completed the day.




We also started a new house project - finishing off one wall of the garage. We have everything moved away from the wall now and Wellyn has started running the wires so we will have electrical outlets! Very exciting since we only have one outlet in the entire garage currently. Within the next few weeks we should be able to finish running the wires, get the insulation in and then on to drywall.

The following Tuesday Brendan woke me up before 6am with a sick tummy... the flu visited him too. It took several days before he was on the mend and we missed a couple of soccer games and some playdates. What a terrible time to get sick - no child should be sick during summer!

Brendan has spent afternoons this week at a Lego/Mathematics camp through the city parks and rec. The worst part of it is the camp has been held outside under a pavillion, the hottest week of summer - temps most days over 90 degrees! He's had an awesome time and I hope they do the camp again next summer. They've learned card tricks based on math, built moving merry-go-round, a mixer and some math magic tricks. Yesterday morning they spent some time in the sprinkler cooling off.



In the midst of all this we've been dealing with one set of tenants that are continually behind on rent. They are just about moved out (thankfully!) so it appears we won't have to go through the formal eviction process. Unfortunately, they've trashed the place. Not terrible, but enough small things that will require a good day of repair, along with the required cleaning, painting and possible carpet removal.

Tomorrow we have soccer tournaments; one game in the morning and one in the afternoon. Their team has played hard all season. Last Tuesday was a tough game for them; they had several shots on goal, but not one made it through. Of course it was super hot and they were all dragging by the end; especially Brendan who wasn't quite up to par from being sick.

Sunday we leave for South Dakota. We're going to take the boys out to see the sites for our first family vacation not to Michigan in several years. They are very excited, counting down the days, packing all sorts of clothes and toys... I will need to go through the suitcases again and weed out some things! We'll be staying in Hill City the majority of the trip so if I'm not too exhausted I may update on the road!