So sometime, luckily after the wedding but in the midst of getting our life organized in this new home, I lost the battery charger for my good camera. These days my phone camera is pretty much as good as the camera although the lens leaves something to be desired. Plus, I have not mastered putting my phone pictures anywhere but on my phone and have no organization for said pictures. Then, being the rocket scientist that I am, I realized that I could plug my phone into my computer the same way I plug my camera in and download them into the same program I keep camera pictures and voila have my pictures accessible and organized once again. Prior to this great revelation I had been emailing one or two of them to myself at a time so that I could then download them onto my computer from the email and then upload them to my blog. I am sure there is an even easier way to do it, picsa for instance, but lets not get too carried away.
So with my newfound tech in place I present to you the last couple months in pictures:
Mother's Day. I did basically have to torture and bribe her to pose for this picture. I felt so special. We went out to sushi with my family. My brother planned it as this spring was drastically different from last fall. I went from having too much free time and needing a job to being so busy I could barely keep up. This was one of only a few days off for about 2 months and really I probably sent and email, text or answered a work related call on this day too. That seems to be how it went this spring. As my sales begin to close this month my bank account is thanking me for the effort.
Isabelle and I have begun going to the same hair stylist. It is fun to share this task with her. And I think our stylist Babbette is appreciative too. I normally just trim my bangs at home between cuts even though she always tells me to come in for a free trim. Isabelle, however, forgets nothing and at the appropriate time started harassing me to get in for the trim. I will be looking better going forward with her input.
Since I did not jump up to photograph the ducks walking through the courtyard a few weeks ago, this mother goose and her children decided to come see me! Walked right up to the window hissed through the screen door and, of course, pooped before walking away. Very entertaining.
Our outdoor pool opened the end of May and although a little chilly for my involvement, Isabelle was excited to try it out.
We had one of those, "what should we do today?" mornings where we suddenly decided to drive up to Duluth for the day. Our long winter and missing spring meant there was still ice on Lake Superior but that didn't stop Isabelle from wading in the lake. She said it felt like needles pricking her legs. We didn't let her stay in too long. Only in Minnesota does it make sense to be wearing a tank top while looking at a lake covered in ice. And, yes, I worked on this day from Duluth too. Negotiated the sale of a house. It may be busy but I love my job. The great integration of work and family that I need.
We got a plant from a friend. And it keeps doing this. Then I give it water and it perks up and then it does this again. It is like a needy child. You feed it and then it wants more. I don't know how many more times I can revive the thing. Geez.
End of school year. Isabelle did a report on Jane Goodall.
So we have 2 storage locations for all our stuff. Stuff that we might need again someday but can't fit in our home now, stuff that we don't need ever again, stuff that belongs to someone who does not live with us or in this state anymore, stuff that we will never need again but are emotionally attached to. We did bring a bunch of stuff to a garage sale at my parents house a few weeks ago and have cleared out quite a bit of room in the storage space we have near our home. However, the second space is about an hour from our home and it is packed tight. It mainly contains items from our former garage. We do need to sell, give away or throw away many things in there but it becomes a little overwhelming when you view it. The pictures do not even begin to translate how full it is or how masterfully my husband can pack a storage space.
Picture one is after John has taken out a riding lawn mower, grill, car ramps, ladder and a few other misc things. Imagine all that in the space he is standing in.
He hung the wicker settee and bikes and anything else hangable from the ceiling.
All packed back in less whatever it was we went to get.
We went out to Minnehaha falls to see it raging. The river was overflowing and this was before all the flooding rains we have had. My cousin's band, "The May North" was playing at the bandstand. He plays the upright Bass which a few weeks before this Isabelle randomly announced she wanted to play in band. Not exactly sure how that will work but it is nice to know there is someone who can give her a few pointers in the family.
For unknown reasons Isabelle decided to spread a chocolate candy bar around her lips like lipstick. I think this is that merging of the little girl and the pre-teen into one. Still plays with food and makes a mess but now does it in a fashionable way. I found out recently that Isabelle also set up her own instagram account so she could post these kind of pictures for her friends. I think she knows more about internet safety than I do so turns out I had nothing to worry about. I set up my own account too so I could monitor her but have yet to really understand how to properly use it. However, I got into facebook for Jake so I will master Insta for Izzy. Eventually. Probably.
Finally school is out and Izzy is headed to a week of camp at Trout Lake Camp. We, of course, stop for our coffee/sugar buzz on the way out of town.
Moments after we get on the road Izzy bites down on something and finally gets a tooth that had been loose for months to a point it needed to come out. The new tooth was fully in behind it so it has become hard to wiggle very far. She ended up becoming a bit of a moody teen as she wiggled and we pulled on the tooth the entire drive up there without success. We got there a couple hours early and stopped for lunch at Moonlight Bay. The weather was great, view of the lake and she sat like this.
But we are about to drop of moody for a week so we look like this!
More moody.
And then after we had gotten Moody checked in and her bed set up we walked over to sit on a bench by the lake and look at the tooth again. FINALLY IT CAME OUT. And it was like we flipped a switch and moody turned into enthusiastic and charming Isabelle who was very ready to be rid of her parents and bond with all her new friends.
She scored a spot in the brand new cabins they built this year.
So John and I walked around the camp alone while he reveled in the memories of his youth.
And then we were two people with no children for an entire week! And we looked like this! We didn't do too much while she was gone, we both had to work, but it was fun to be together and just worry about ourselves for a week.
We picked up our happy, enthusiastic and hoarse voiced girl from camp the following week. She had enough energy to wander through Nisswa, pose with Babe the Blue Ox and eat lunch with us before we drove back home to reality.
And to think we are only a month into summer break. So many more adventures await.
This week John starts his new job. This was one of the main goals of the summer, maybe the only goal of the summer. Get John and job and settle into the routine of it before he resumes classes in the fall. I love it when things come together. This seems to be a year where things are coming together for us job wise. It seems like we have been in weird limbo land with work for several years. Even before John started school. So it feels good to finally see stability coming to this area of our lives.
On the same day we picked Izzy up from camp another member of our family was having a special event in his life. In an effort to teach me to be the parent of someone in military intelligence he sends me lots of "parent pro tip" texts whenever I say too much publically. So I am trying something new today and will tell you about him Mad Lib Style.
My_______________(family member) celebrated his_____________(number)th Birthday. He started studying __________________________(language) last week so he can become_____________________________(occupation). He is living in ______________________(city and state). I have been tracking the weather for the last ____________(number) months and I can tell you that it is always _____________(number) and _________________(weather condition) All. Year. Long. apparently. Which sounds fun in January but is getting boring at this point.
Summer is my secondary time of year to do long term planning and as my work settles into a routine I am starting to get ideas and plans in my head. One thing I have already decided, in the fall I am going to stop using this blog. Don't worry. I hope to continue to have a lot to say going forward but I started this blog as a homemaker with 2 kids at home and now i am a working woman with 1 kid at home. I started a blog a couple years ago called "From Homemaker to Working Mom" at www.fromhometowork.com and am finding that most of what I have to say applies over there. Also, I am starting to get a little bit of a following and want to concentrate my efforts more there. So go ahead and check that blog out, save the link or sign up for emails (although so far that feature doesn't seem to be working, if you know anything about wordpress blogs and want to help me fix that problem please contact me). Also, I have a facebook page for that blog which I pretty much only post blog posts on but hope to actually put some interesting content on this fall as well. That part is still in the planning but the using that blog exclusively is pretty much a done decision. I will be reminding you throughout the summer so you can start planning to move with me too.
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