That's a wrap!

The fall musical is (finally) done! We put on Bye Bye Birdie, which I failed to notice is about 50% longer than last year's musical, Grease. Meaning it was about 50% more work. Like last year, there were times I swore I would never direct a musical at Minneota again given the challenges of directing amidst football and volleyball playoffs and hunting season. 

Our football players especially did not like the rehearsals and also claimed they would never do a play again. And then we performed. And it was a hit. And the day after our last performance several of the football players were stopping by my room, texting and emailing, begging to do another show as soon as possible.  I was reminded of having a baby - months of misery and exhaustion, followed by the undeniable reality that it all really was worth it in the end! 

Elena played the same role that I did (Rosie) when I was in the show 23 years ago. She did an awesome job and was perfect in the role. Her only disappointment was that I wouldn't let her actually slap Albert as I had done in my performances.

Our nephew RJ played the same part as Seth (bartender). Sam was Hugo, a usually boring role that he turned into one if the funniest and most popular characters in the show. When he had to play drunk, he git as close to method acting as he could get without getting drunk by spinning in circles offstage for a minute or so before walking onstage. It was very effective. I stood in for him at rehearsal once and was nauseous for 3 hours. 

We had some very talented newcomers, including our nephew, Reed. Ian took a tiny, but fun part and our niece, Laney was in the orchestra. Charlie can't wait to join next year. It's becoming quite the family affair!

The video link is at the bottom. 

We had to recreate one picture! It's even the same dress.

Here's the video:

Late Summer Activities

First, I had to share a recent quote from Olivia.  Seth was channel surfing and came across the movie Rambo and decided to watch for a bit. Olivia watched with him for a bit and then said, "That is the most sweatiest guy I've ever seen." 

The very last Friday of summer vacation, I managed to squeeze in a trip to the Ingalls Homestead with the youngest 3 kids. We've been trying to get there for 2 years and it's surprisingly difficult to find even one day in the summer where all the kids are free. We ended up having to go without Elena. There was no chance Sam ever would have made it between sports and work. Our friends joined us and we had a great time. Olivia absolutely loved it - I think the kids would have happily spent several days there.

And most exciting, Seth has finally started his lifelong dream of building a treehouse. He's been collecting wood for years and we finally decided he needed to just build it or get rid of the lumber. We were a little worried he'd build it only to have the trees die shortly after (we've had bad luck with trees lately). But after doing some research, we discovered that Norway Pines often live 250-300 years so we're optimistic they will last another 100 years at least. Of course, like everything he builds, it's neither small nor simple. He got phase one done pretty quickly. It's been entertaining to watch people drive by and then suddenly slow down or stop when they notice it. Our local paper got several calls from people asking them to cover it, so they came out and got a few pictures for the paper. Seth doesn't love the attention, but it's been kind of hard to avoid. 

HOCO 2024

 This year our kids had a great time dressing up and participating in all the homecoming activities. Students built floats and had a parade (this tradition was dropped years ago), and it seemed like a lot more kids dressed up than usual. St. Ed's joined in on the fun as well and both boys did a great job putting together their own costumes. 

RJ, Sam and Ian with Briar, Liv and Bella after their JV game

Students from my Spanish class on "Out of the Woods Day"

My favorite of Elena's costumes for the week. She created this Lorax costume herself for Out of the Woods Day.

Frank also put together this costume for Wild West Day without any help. I was impressed!

Charlie, ready for Blue and Gold Day. (He did wear a shirt, by the way)

Sam's highlight was the football game Friday night, in which he blocked a kid and sent him flying through the air. First and foremost, I am thankful the kid didn't get injured. Sam got a penalty and has to buy donuts for the team, but says it was worth it. His coaches said they would have been proud of him 10 years ago when those kinds of hits were still legal, but as things are now, the subsequent touchdown made from the play didn't count. We were ahead by over 50 points at that time anyway. 

I don't have a picture of the actual hit, but a woman from our community who takes pictures during sporting events happened to take a picture immediately after the hit. You can see Sam right above the guy on the ground. But more interesting than the boys are the looks captured on the faces of the opposing team and their fans. There are lots of mouths in a big O shape (especially the women). You can see everyone's immediate reaction to the hit (except for the one kid on the left staring at his phone who missed it altogether.)

Boxelder Bug Days 2024

Elena's year of being Boxelder Bug Day royalty went by faster than we expected. She had a blast going to all the parades and events, but she says she's looking forward to not having to wear the crown anymore!

One of the funniest things was at the Parade, when the Captain Jack Sparrow impersonator came by. Every year he comes and he typically makes some joke asking for rum. Seth was ready for him this year and had a couple of mini bottles of rum to give him. "Captain Jack" got a huge kick out of this - he said in 20 years that has never happened and it really meant a lot to have someone go that extra mile to interact with him. He stayed by our group for quite awhile interacting with Elena, the kids and Seth. After the parade, we met up again downtown where he got a few more pictures with Elena. 

     

Captain Jack wearing Elena's crown

Old and new royalty together

With Father Tanner!

Joining the marching band for a bit

Milestones (and a few quotes)

This summer has been full of milestones for Olivia - most notably that she learned both how to swim and ride bike. Once she started to get the hang of both, she insisted on practicing with every spare moment she had until she had mastered each task. By the time the pool closed, she could go off the diving board without a life jacket and get back to the edge, and she goes on bike rides daily. Every time, she proudly yells "I'm riding without training wheels!" to any pedestrian within a 100 foot radius of her wherever we go. I didn't take much for pictures of her biking or swimming, but here are a few pictures from the fair. 

And now for the quotes!

We were recently visiting friends on a cattle farm, and Olivia wanted to go see the cows. Seth took her to show her, and she had lots of questions. She started asking why they had so many cows and what they were for. He explained that they would become things like hamburger and steak. She was a little taken aback and said, "They're going to kill them??? That's rude!!"

Last week, the boys watched a TV show in which someone was hypnotized. The next morning, Frank came downstairs to breakfast and said, "Mom, I think Charlie tried hypnotizing me in my sleep last night because this morning he clapped twice and said, 'Who are you?' And then I just didn't say anything." A minute later, Charlie came down, clapped twice at Frank and again asked him who he was. "Charlie, did you try to hypnotize Frank?" I asked. Charlie responded in mock surprise, "Whaaaaaat? I would never try to turn Frank into Luke Skywalker?" He followed this by quickly clapping once again, asking Frank who he was, and then quietly muttering "Dang it!" to himself. 

Olivia put on her cowgirl boots to wear to daycare the other day. Seth put on his sandals and they were ready to go. As they were leaving, Seth said, "Let's go, cowgirl!" To which Olivia replied, "Ok, sandals!"

Oh, Frank!

Frank had a couple of quotes recently that are too good not to put on here. However, he's at an age where he's a little self conscious when he says things that come out funny so I'm hoping in 5 or 6 years, he can read these and be glad I saved the memory. In the meantime, maybe don't mention these to him. He's such a sweet, helpful, caring boy with a great sense of adventure and curiosity. As fun as it is watching him grow up, I don't want to forget these moments that only happen while kids are still young!

#1 Frank was spending the day with my Mom when he suddenly said, "I'm going to be an uncle soon!" "You are?" Grandma responded (more than a little taken aback since none of our teens are even dating). "Yeah, cuz Elena is 17, which means she could be married before too long and then I'll get to be an uncle like Reed!" (Reed is his cousin who became an uncle around age 8). 

#2 For Mother's Day, Frank was so excited to give me a coupon booklet he had made at school. It had coupons that said things like: "Clean my Room," "Free Hug," "Pick up Toys," etc. He said, "You can use one right now if you want!" So I told him I wanted to use the Free Hug coupon and he gave me a huge hug. 

The next morning, he handed me the booklet again, asking if I wanted to use another one. I said, "Well, your room could use a cleaning so I think I'll use that one, and you can go clean your room." He looked at me confused, and said, "What do you mean?" I explained that when I gave him the coupon, he would have to clean his room and then that coupon would be used up. His smile completely disappeared and he said, "I thought it meant you were going to clean my room."   That would explain why he drew long brown hair on the person in the picture....

Summer fun!

Elena went to Girls State in June. She had a great time, made a lot of friends and learned a lot. One thing she learned is that she definitely does NOT want to go into politics. All the meetings were long and tedious. In her words, "If you agree with someone, just say 'I agree.' You don't have to repeat everything they just said over and over again!"

I already posted about Olivia's 5th birthday in St. Louis, but we did have a follow-up party with an actual cake after returning. She wanted her cake to look just like last year's cake. And she did all of the decorating herself, which explains why there are way too many candles.

One of the biggest June highlights was a visit from Uncle Joe and the Boston cousins!! All the cousins except for Alex (who had a baseball tournament) were able to get together. The girls were reintroduced to life in small town Minnesota. They were shocked by things like driving on gravel roads and the way we knew practically everyone - and waved even if we didn't know someone! 

Hoku accurately pointed out that this view looked just like the original Microsoft background. 
In case you forgot, here it is:

Grandma and all the granddaughters

And of course, we've gotten in lots and lots of swimming. Olivia has been working hard on swimming without help or a life jacket, so she asks to go to the pool almost every day no matter the weather.

Frank's friend, Teddy, successfully buried Frank up to his neck in sand at Camden Park!

And Charlie's baseball team won first place this year in the championship! There were enough 5th and 6th grade boys in baseball this summer that they had 3 teams. Thankfully, they put these 3 cousins all on the same team. 

And here's one random quote from Olivia: 

I don't know what you're talking about....but I do know what my coffee is talking about: drinking coffee!

Summer work

As usual, summer is full of work and projects to be done. Sam has been getting up at 5:30 every day this summer to work a full day of construction, then coming home to lift weights and squeeze in a round of golf before bed. Recently he cut his head at work and it was bleeding pretty badly so he wrapped it in a t-shirt and finished out the day. Fortunately, once he unwrapped it, he discovered it was a much smaller cut than suspected so no hospital visit was required. 

My summer projects have been primarily tending the garden and painting. I just finished painting the front porch (minus the floor - that will have to wait) and a stairwell at St. Ed's school that was peeling. Unsure of how to reach the high walls, Seth told me he could just "build some scaffolding quick." He went to the school and finished in about 2 hours. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't this! It worked really well and covered the whole area without needing to be moved so it made for a quick and easy paint job.

 

In addition to the weeds, some of our grapevines have been getting out of control. In one area, they had completely taken over our gooseberries and yellow raspberry bushes. Frank was complaining that he was bored on the day I had decided to tackle the grapevines so I told him I would pay him to help me with them. He worked outside for about an hour while I did laundry, and when I went to check on him, I was blown away by the work he did. He had gotten right into the thick of the (very prickly) bushes and pulled out most of the grapevines including some very thick vines that required a lot of hacking and tugging. Then he made several trips to the compost pile and packed them all down. This was our conversation when I got outside:

Me: I'm really impressed you did all of that! That was really hard work.

Frank: Well, I pretty much got that from Dad. Dad's really strong and works hard so I got that from him. And you're good at cleaning (this is debatable), so I got that from you. And that's why I was able to do it! 

After thinking about it for a minute, he added: "...but my dance moves. That's just all natural."