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." 

More of St. Louis

 I hadn't gotten to the picture on Seth's phone yet when I wrote my last post, so here are a few more snapshots:

Looking up from the caves to the big slides

The caves area 

Out for supper! We had delicious seafood and the kids enjoyed their mocktails

On top of the arch

Under the arch

In front of the arch (I'm starting to feel like a PBS kids special on prepositional phrases)

Sculpture garden

The Spirit of St. Louis (which I had to explain to the kids - that's one old plane) 

Busch stadium 

St. Louis

We settled on St. Louis, MO for our family trip this year. Our main goal was to see the City Museum and it did not disappoint. It was like a dream come true for kids who like to climb and explore (and what kid doesn't, honestly) - and it was fun for all ages. It's hard to put into words so if you really want to get a feel for it, just watch a video on YouTube. We put in a full day there, and were exhausted by the end of it. We also hit up the zoo, the Arch, a ropes climbing course, the botanical gardens, sculpture garden and lots of good places to eat. 

We stayed in a nice Airbnb in Dogtown, which is the Irish district of St. Louis. At first we thought someone had just forgotten to take down their St. Patrick's Day decorations, but soon we realized every house and business was decorated with shamrocks and Irish flags. On our last evening, Olivia wanted to go for a walk so I strolled her around. After about 45 minutes, Seth send me a text saying "A little Irish goes a long way. You can't go 50 feet without stopping to talk with someone." And he was right! I think we walked 2-3 blocks and had 8 conversations with people who were also out walking with their dogs. Olivia was telling everyone that the next day was her birthday, and amazingly, of not one but TWO of the people we met had the same birthday!

Charlie is the one climbing in the center of this picture. If you look, there's a similar structure even higher up. 

Everyone (including Sam and Seth) had fun in the building room at the Science Center

Friday was Oliva's birthday. We went out to eat at an Italian restaurant, but she fell asleep on my lap after eating so we had to bring her birthday treat (cannoli) with us and sing to her in the car. She did not like the cannoli, by the way.

That evening we had "ice cream cake" with friends of ours from Kansas City who came to meet us.

The boys favorite feature from our Airbnb - an arcade machine!

This was some of our kids' very favorite thing in St. Louis. At the City Museum, there was a tank of little flesh-eating fish. If you put your hands in the water, they would come nibble all the dead skin off of your hands. This is Charlie. Olivia took a few hours before she finally put in just one finger - and that was enough.

The person we asked to take a picture of our whole family at the arch did a terrible job so this is all we have from that site. Oh well.

Freak Shakes! One has an entire brownie, peanut butter cup and chocolate dipped pretzel in it. The other has a cupcake, a snickerdoodle cookie and lollipop. They were delicious! 

Olivia with our friends' son, Ameson.

Charlie and Frank going down a 5 story slide:

And this is Sam going down a slide. He thought it would be fun to pretend it was absolutely terrifying. Unfortunately there was a young girl behind him about to go down and after watching him, she absolutely refused to go. He tried telling her he was joking, but she wasn't having it. Sam apologized to her mom, and fortunately her mom thought it was funny. Her poor dad had to climb all the way back down with her through narrow tunnels and climbing structures. 

Best quote of the week: 

On the ride home, we were working on getting onto the freeway, and the kids were requesting that we put in a movie for them to watch. We needed to focus on driving and had to keep telling the kids to wait. One of them asked again for us to start the movie and Seth, getting frustrated, said "Just wait! We have to get on the damn road first!" And Olivia piped up in a completely sweet and innocent voice, "We are on the damn road, Dad." Of course this triggered all the other kids to start giggling. We were trying really hard not to laugh, but she caught on that she had said something funny and was laughing, too. Fortunately she didn't repeat it!

Buzz Cuts!

It's now officially a tradition for Sam and his friends to get buzz cuts once school is out for the summer. The group lost two members and gained two. Charlie immediately regretted getting his buzz cut last year and said he would never do it again (smart kid!), and RJ wasn't allowed to get one this year. Ian, however, doesn't have a girlfriend to impress this year and took the . After watching the rest get their cuts, Frank decided he wanted to join in. - and he loves it!

Here's a picture from last year:

This year they got started a little early. Brayden and Levi showed up at our house Saturday morning the week before school ended wanting to try out mullets for a week before buzzing it all off. Only Levi's hair was long enough for a proper mullet and it was hilarious.

Then they ended up having scheduling conflicts on the last day of school so they all cut their hair the day before, which meant they all got to show off their new do's at school. But first, they gave each other TERRIBLE haircuts and went out in public to show them off. It was too late to go out to supper at the local restaurant so they had to settle for shopping at Dollar General. Usually you wouldn't run into too many people there, but they lucked out as a bus with the entire Dawson girls' softball team was there. The boys, of course, rolled with it, asking the girls if their barber did them good and if they thought their cuts were "worth the $100 they paid." Half the girls said they looked great, half said they looked horrible, and I think all of them have decided to never date boys from Minneota. 

On their way to Dollar General. 

Brayden

Levi

Ian

Sam

I don't have a picture of the completed buzz cuts, but they look pretty much the same as last year. The kids at school had a good laugh seeing them all the next day.