November-getting caught up

Molly made her stage debut in the 4th grade play this fall. Picture #1 is with her classmates singing a song about MN. The play was titled the "Blizzard of AAhhs." It is based on the Wizard of Oz but is about MN history. Picture #2 is Molly as Governor Alexander Ramsay. She spoke her lines really well, loudly and clearly.

We have had some snow but not enough to make it beautiful. Going into the deep freeze now. The Christmas tree is up, has been for a week but no lights on it yet. Perhaps we'll get to it today in between hockey.

Fall 2009

We are trying to stay healthy here but R.J. seems to catch everything that goes around so I am home w/him for the second time this week. Since I baked cookies on Tuesday and I don't want to clean today I thought I'd blog a little.

The first pic is of R.J. & Molly's new favorite pastime-climbing trees, this one is in our back yard & the other one is from the one nice fall day that we've had. We went to the apple orchard by the cabin picked apples, explored the teepee and bought some pumpkins. Since fall is my favorite season of the year the early snowfall and lack of leaf color is a downer. On the up side, freshmen football season has ended so now Bob is home a bit more since he only has Varsity practices, games, etc.

Zeke may go hunting soon. Bob's brothers both hunt and are without dogs that can hunt at the moment so Zeke may get his chance. They went to the hunt club last weekend and he is not gun shy but he is still a puppy-more interested in playing with the other dogs than hunting.

Other news, Bob's dad is not having a good fall. We are averaging one hospital visit followed by transitional care per week. The doctors can find nothing wrong with him. It appears to be his nerves. Living alone is hard on him. He is scheduled to go back home this Sat. so we will see how it goes this time.

Our garage got broken into Tues. night. They stole R.J.'s bike. We were home at the time, garage was locked and everything. I'm looking forward to 2010-2009 really has not been a good year for us.

Lots of stuff

Here's photos of some events since school has started. R.J.'s first cross country meet and a visit from Henry & Brian in Aug.

Now and back then

Lake Superior

In the cave by lake Superior

By the mouth of Temperance River

The view from our campsite

We've just returned from Temperance River State Park. We have the primo campsite and even Zeke adjusted to the great outdoors once he figured out that the routine was to basically do nothing most of the day. The walks along the trails & lake Superior were the highlight of his day.

I taught R.J. how to play cribbage and he even beat me once (I pointed out all of the points he was going to leave on the table.) Bob however, was unable to beat me the entire trip! Molly got her fill of s'mores and Solie enjoyed sleeping with her humans.

Happy Birthday Nature Boy

We had a successful first camping trip of the year. To celebrate R.J.'s eleventh birthday he elected to go camping with a friend. Karsten had never been camping before and I am happy to report that he survived the weekend. Molly and the boys had a grand time. The red bird on R.J.'s head was Molly's gift to him. Very creative. Mom and Dad surprised him with an ipod shuffle so now he is constantly plugged in. Look out middle school here we come.

School's out!

We made it to the end. Everyone finished up by last Wed. R.J. & Molly had the opportunity to go on a fun end of year celebration on Fri. One of Molly's friend's invited a bunch of kids from Adams Spanish Immersion school to Como Town for the day. Como Town is an amusement park by Como Zoo. The kids had a blast. I will try to post pictures but the first time I tried the computer and hte web were having trouble communicating.