Now that Labor Day is passed and all of our white clothing is packed away, I have time to write. Maybe.
Good grief, I just can’t keep this thing caught up, so a “brief” overview should get us current…
During our stretches of hot weather, I came up with an idea that the girls thought was so amazing, I should be nominated for “Mom of the Year” if it wasn’t so simple. I filled a storage container with water. Yep. That’s it, and it kept them busy for hours. HOURS. The neighbor girl even taught the Ella how to turn the hose on, so she would fill it on her own…she didn’t know how to turn the water off, so we had to monitor that. But really, water in a bucket. No batteries needed.
I had read of a fun idea to celebrate a half birthday with half of a cake. Because we’re not big cake people, even half a cake is a lot. For Lily’s half birthday on August 13, Ella and I made Lily a cake while she was napping. We made a nice carrot cake in a round pan, then cut the circle in half and frosted it as a half of a layer cake. It looked great, at first. But then the top half started sliding off the bottom half, and then cracked in half. It wasn’t pretty. I figured Ella’s decorations would distract from the hideousness that was unfolding. Nope. The cake was atrocious. But, we ate it and enjoyed it! Happy Half Birthday Lillian, now you’re old enough to go to school (with a variance from the State)! I should totally get into the wedding cake business.
Mid-month, Loran was out of town and the girls and I enjoyed an evening at the Fillebrown House for Pops on the Porch – put on by the White Bear Lake Area Historical Society. We had a little cold snap (for August) and I had to dig out sweatshirts for the evening, but it was perfect. I packed us a picnic dinner and we enjoyed our food while listening to some big band classics. The girls LOVED it. Lily’s head started bobbing up and down a block before we’d arrived upon hearing the music. They mingled with the older folks in the crowd and then busted out some dance moves. I’m always pretty proud of myself when I can get both girls and myself to any event and have a picnic packed. That’s like extra credit.
We took a nice warm hike at Tamarack. All summer, our indoor girl Ella, has complained about the sun being too bright, too hot, too windy…And the kicker is that she also doesn’t like night because it’s too dark. So, she dislikes sunshine and darkness. *eye roll*
Somehow, I inadvertently started a tradition of walking to the gazebo so the girls can dance and run around, but we stop at Grandma’s Bakery on our way for a sprinkle cookie, or as Lily calls them, “Sprinkler Cookie”. There has been a lot of dancing and goofing off with only a few bumps and bruises. On one of our visits, Ella hugged Lily and Lily tipped over hitting her head on the concrete. Eating her remaining sprinkler cookie helped with the recovery process.
Despite Ella’s dislike of the sun, we have spent our fair share of time outside. We’ve done some little bike/trike rides. Taken the babies for walks and used our YMCA membership to visit the playground, outdoor pool and when the weather hasn’t been favorable, we’ve played in the gym.
Ella keeps growing by leaps and bounds. Lately, everyone we see comments how she seems to have grown since they last saw her. Even our neighbor girl, who plays with the girls quite often came over, walked in the door, took one look at Ella and exclaimed, “Ella! You’re taller!” And really, she’s been playing with Ella all summer. Ella is also outgrowing the car seat in Loran’s car. We’ve moved her into a high back booster, she thinks this is pretty neat.
Lily took a tumble on a sidewalk, so I engineered a character bandage for her. Both girls are getting some board game playing skills.
There is a water ski show, the Ski Otters, that performs every Sunday in the summers for free. Yet, in our seven years of living here, we’ve never been there. Top it off, our neighbors are in it! We picked a night and went and it was great fun! The girls really enjoyed it. It was extra fun because we had an older couple behind us and the wife of the duo used to do water ski performances when she was younger, in the 50s, on Lake Michigan. Hearing her commentary on what was a difficult skill was really interesting.
This summer, our cat Lola has been a cat about town. She stays near the yard, but does go visit the neighbors’. I figured she would get eaten by one of our neighbors’ hunting dog, Scout. But when Scout comes out to water flowers with the neighbor, they seem to have a mutual understanding. Scout ignores her and she hisses if he gets too close. Every once in awhile, Scouts ball will land near where Lola is lounging and Scout will get his ball without even looking at Lola. She also visits the neighbors on the other side, laying on their deck as they enjoy morning coffee or end of the day night cap. Their daughter just loves Lola. At the end of the night, Lola is eager to come in the house and still spends every night with her best buddy, Ella. Sometimes, I think Lola is a bed hog though.
At the end of August, I ran in the race I’d spent all summer training for. It was my third year and I didn’t have any nerves beforehand. I also didn’t have much of a goal. I knew I could do it based on previous performances. I knew the terrain. The weekend before, I’d run my personal best 5K time during our training run, and given that our training path is relatively flat, I didn’t have a lot of hope of breaking that record on the hilly course. I was moved to tears when I finished with a time of 30:57 for 3.2K and my Nike+ app informed me that I had run my fastest 5K (30:08), run my fastest mile (9:22) and fastest 1K (5:48). Thanks to Jen, my running partner in crime. We only walked for 30 seconds. I hadn’t expected to break those records. I was quite pleased and felt great, I even helped a few of our other Moms run to the finish. The girls were both signed up for the Daisy Dash. After a lot of waiting around, they ran their race in a whopping 26 seconds! Both were so excited to get medals and certificates.
We have found the best way to recover from a record setting race is to eat friend foods on a stick. After the race, Chelsey joined us to go to the Minnesota State Fair. It was a little rainy on and off, but that didn’t deter us from having a great time. The girls loved riding the bus, as usual. We spent some time at the Texas exhibit doing some interactive exhibits, but it was all worthwhile to get the gem of a photo we walked away with!
We saw baby animals and big animals
Ate some food on a stick
Failed at riding our one and only ride. Ella loved the slide last year, talked about going on the slide, couldn’t wait. Then, crunch time, she got up to the top with Chelsey and no amount of coaxing was going to get her down that slide the traditional way. Chelsey says the guy up top was pretty frightening, which may have contributed to Ella’s change of heart. Chelsey had to do the “walk of shame” – Kidway style with Ella.
We saw my scrapbook pages in the Creative Activities building. I didn’t win this year, but I had good placement which seems like a good thing.
One day at the fair is just not enough, we were back about twelve hours later with a co-worker of Loran’s who was in town from Mexico City. Nothing says full immersion into Minnesotan culture like the Great Minnesota Get-Together. Carlos was fascinated by our snow removal equipment. Something there isn’t much need for in Mexico City. The city sized snow plow was a hit with him as were the snow blowers. Things we take for granted and walk by without even noticing. I wouldn’t mind not knowing what a snow plow looks like! I tried chicken friend bacon and balanced it out by also having a salad on a stick. I’m not going to lie, the bacon was fantastic. I would get it again. The salad was also fantastic and I don’t know that I could have handled the bacon without some veggies.
I like the old guy with the shirt that read “Old Guys Rule” – I hope we’re this cool in fifty years!
Following the trend of “go big or go home”, we followed our second State Fair adventure with a wedding reception for my friend Marlena’s sister. Marlena now lives in St. Louis so I get to see her once a year and this was my chance! The reception was at a mansion/park so the kids were very busy.
There’s just something that screams America and Summer about seeing the Weiner Mobile. Imagine my surprise when we happened upon it in downtown White Bear Lake while on one of our gazebo/sprinkler cookie adventures! The girls just don’t get it. But there it is, the Weiner Mobile! Happy Summer!
The girls and I decided last minute to join my family at the North Shore. That will be a separate entry, but two nights away on Lake Superior was amazing. We missed Loran, but the girls found the simple joy of throwing rocks by the hundreds into a large body of water.
We crammed a lot in over Labor Day weekend. Swimming at the Y pool, Children’s Museum and Minnesota Zoo (no photos, because really, they’re always the same photos). Loran did a lot of yard work and I did a lot of laundry and changed over the girls’ closet for the next size up. We took some walks along the lake and just enjoyed being together. Once the girls were bathed, their first day of school outfits laid out, we wrapped up our summer cuddled in Ella’s bed watching cat videos on YouTube. The girls loved the video of kittens riding a Roomba.
Hard to believe we’re back to school. However, after writing this entry, I’m exhausted, and this was just half of August. We definitely enjoyed our summer, but we’re excited to see what the school year brings!
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