Rainy Days And (No) Mondays

(Sit back and put your feet up because this is a lengthy post! And be sure to have your speakers turned on.) Last week Wednesday to Saturday we took a little spin up north for golfing and shipwatching. We should have known that bank of clouds on the horizon was not a good thing! Blue skies turned to...

just about the time we were to tee off at Grand National in Hinckley. We scrapped those plans and went to three IMAX movies instead..."Mysteries of The Great Lakes", "Dinosaurs Alive" and "Stormchasers". With the weather Minnesota has had lately the last could have been filmed here! We did catch a few ships on the first day there but often from a different angle than usual either because our timing was off or we were trying to stay sheltered from a storm. The Birchglen was just going through as we pulled into the Canal...

...and we watched the Edgar B. Speer from next to a wall because there was lightning all around us and we were chicken to be out in the open.

It's always worth it just to hear the horns though!

After sun and rain and sun and more rain we ended up with a rainbow on the horizon.
We had our eye on a ship coming in after dark. After he passed under the bridge he blew his horn an unexpected second time and it must have been in salute to the Sam Laud that was just coming out of the Canal. (This is the Laud...wait'll you hear the horn of that first ship...the James R. Barker!) So we got two ships for the price of one!

We golfed on Thursday up in Two Harbors and they warned us the course was really wet. We thought it was because of the dew since it was only 8:00 in the morning but they'd had a LOT of rain recently and sometimes hitting your ball down the fairway was like skipping rocks on Lake Superior!We stopped down at the Two Harbors breakwater to see if there was any ship action. The American Integrity was there getting loaded...which reminds me of one of my favorite billboards...

Jill's trying to show you that these ships really aren't that big.

But let me tell you, they are! The Integrity is a 1000 footer and he makes the Joseph L. Block (which we got to see come into port) look like his kid brother.

Technically, I guess these ships are considered female. But I have a problem referring to them as 'she' when the names are Edgar or Joseph or.....nearly the granddaddy of them all and my new favorite...the James R. Barker. How many women do you know that have a voice like this?!

Friday morning was a pretty sunrise and we were up early for it since the St. Clair was due in between 6:00 and 7:00.She was right on schedule but didn't toot her horn for us!By the time we were checking out the rain had set in again so we left Duluth the way we found it. It was very foggy but the funny thing was we drove out of it the minute we got up to the top of the hill headed south.

We headed over to the Brainerd Lakes area to golf at Pine Ridge and nearly got rained out there too. In fact, it was sprinkling when we started but we're glad we toughed it out 'cause it didn't last very long.

Saturday dawned gloomy but wasn't bad for most of the day. On the way home we stopped in the Cities for a concert on the U of M campus put on by the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus...."Extr-ABBA-ganza". We love those Abba tunes and weren't disappointed.

There's a holiday show in December that they'll be putting on and I bet that would be a good one too!

So the rain theme wasn't over yet. I'd been watching the radar on my phone and it looked pretty nasty heading for parts south. Mindy kept us posted via email and phone what was going on and, because you couldn't even see the traffic lanes, we pulled off I-94 to wait out the storm in some residential neighborhood. That was where I read the email that said DO NOT DRIVE! We had no problem heeding that but it was late when we got home. So all in all, it was a wet vacation but we can't call it a washout because we still got to do the things we like to do!

Not Terrible

Jill needs a crown on a lower tooth and had been dreading today's appointment ever since she made it because she has such a bad gag reflex. I got a crown about a month ago and when I told her there's one five minute segment where the dentist holds a bunch of goop in your mouth for an impression she darn near turned tail and ran! But she came home practically delirious with how well it went. They sprayed the back of her throat with Benzocaine and she never had one moment of discomfort. Almost makes you want to go back for more....but at $1040 I don't think so!

Who Wants A Treat?

"I do! I do!" said Cate.

We had a special visitor bring us baseball cupcakes for a morning snack today.

I thought it'd be cool to try for a group shot again. But even after five tries Cater wasn't getting what I thought would be so fun.

She lightened up down at the park and had some fun in the little playhouse.

Earlier this morning Claire was showing me how a new piece of exercise equipment should work.

Angela told me later that Auntie E was even teaching Claire how to breathe the right way and she was huffing and puffing pretty good during her one (or so) minute workout.

Today Is The Big ONE!

A year ago today Harvey opened up one eye to see what life's all about.

Six months down the line he was taking on the world with both eyes open!

And a full year later he's conquering a new challenge every day!

Happy Birthday, Harvey!!! If you have cake for a sweet treat today you already know what to do with it!

The 'Fest

Tonight we went with Mindy and the kids to see the boys in the band. Jon and Tony were playing in the Concert Band under the hot, hot sun on center stage.

At intermission they came to chat while we also took a break from that good fair-type food. Harvey has discovered he likes glasses.

Natalie was a good little helper when it came to finishing our shakes, and our ice cream and our strawberry chillers!

By the time we got back to our place it had all caught up with the Little Man!

Dinner And A Movie

In spite of an initial unfortunate experience with Redbox we get movies from them every time there's a free one offered. So tonight we went to our local HyVee, got a chicken dinner from the deli and Valentine's Day from the vending machine. Pretty classy evening, huh?One internet site gave it only two stars out of five but on the Netflix scale we'd rate it "Loved it". There were at least nineteen medium to big names in the cast, one of which was Bradley Cooper. Is this guy a workoholic or what?! We've seen at least five movies relatively recently that he's been in.

Party At K2's!

My little great-niece turned three on June 4th and her brother, Harvey, has his first birthday this Friday. Yesterday was the party for both. What a fun time! Harvey had his own cake.And it was a good thing!

Natalie's cake was her favorite right now....Dora!

They both got some really fun stuff. Uncle Tom was there to help get Barbie in the car.

And there were cousins galore. Big cousin, John, has little cousin, Ollie, whose first birthday was actually yesterday!

Harvey was glad for all of it......and I think Natalie was too. Well, at least glad for big cousin, Ashton. As the party wound down, she got Aunt Kate to read her a Dora story. Looks like it was pretty soothing for Uncle Brian, too!

Father's Day 2010

Happy Day, Dad...

...and to everyone's father everywhere!

Already?!

I saw my first advertisement for the upcoming football season today. They're promoting the rematch of the Vikings at Saints for the season opener. You can't tell me that matchup was a quirk of the computer.

Of course, this makes me start thinking of Fantasy Football, too, and CBS online has been promoting signing up for a team for several weeks. But I'll save that for August and see who's making the news before I start thinking who I might want to pick up.

Clean-up Update

All that money I saved the other day using coupons more than went down the drain today when cleaning out the refrigerator. I didn't realize we had so much dairy and creamy stuff in there! Unfortunately, a lot of it was what I had just stocked up on Thursday at the store. The debris in the front yard added up to six heaping wheelbarrow loads to haul up into the woods. But, again, we were SO lucky compared to so many others.

Clean Up In Aisle 7

Any of you readers from the southern part of our state know we had nasty weather last night. The red on the radar just kept blossoming bigger and bigger. A shout out to KTTC for their awesome coverage with their radar technology of what was transpiring! I was hoping when I got up this morning that the power would be back on but it still wasn't so the only choice was to go outside and clean up the mess. We had a big limb down off the oak in back...

...and a lot of junk all over the lawn that I've got raked into a whole bunch of piles and will pick up tomorrow.

The neighbors have been back and forth comparing messes and everybody's got one but, overall, I think we were really lucky. Nothing fell on the houses. All the roofs are intact, though that wind that came through about 9:00 drove me to the basement. (Jill abandoned me when she got called into work pretty much right when the sirens went off, then she ended up traveling to Wisconsin on a patient transport!) And that wind knocked out the power which we just got back at 5:15. You really are SOL with no power and by the end of the day I was pretty grumpy. HOWEVER.................... I DO realize it could have been so much worse. Think of Wadena and Geneva and Albert Lea. Or even just the guys up the street. There are two houses there that, just this year, put up fences to enclose their whole yard. This is what they look like today.

All of the fence posts lay there with their little ball of cement having been jerked right out of the ground.

Tomorrow I think we'll decide that even after 20 hours without power our freezer stuff will be okay but we're going to be pitching things from the 'fridge. Minor considerations in the grand scheme of things.

Nickels And Dimes

At the risk of sounding like Jill's dad when he brags about what he got on special, I saved $19.99 today as a result of using my coupons. And most of the stuff I bought was stuff we needed, too! :)

Where'd She Learn To Talk Like That?!

Claire told me today "You have a lotta balls, Waurie."

However........... there is a story behind that! While the girls were swinging I was having fun putting all the balls in and taking them out of Cate's swing while she was in it. So at one time I did have at least six tennis balls and a plastic softball in my arms. Claire was right. I had a lotta balls!

Little Girl Antics

In case Angela's wondering why the fingerprints on the window look more like footprints there's a reason. Claire was showing me her new trick today.

Now when I do up some of our dishes I have two sets of helping hands.

For snacktime today I goofed and picked the exact wrong color for Cate's freezee pop after Claire picked her green one. I think Cate has just realized they shouldn't be eating green and yellow together. (Too Packer-y!)

The girls put a lot of thought into a design they were making...

...a little art project for someone very special!No questions asked, please.

Fish Fry

Seems like fish frys are usually on Friday nights. But Jill had some walleye she'd brought back from Red Lake so we took some out for supper at G and g's last night.

A little game of Dominoes afterwards and we were home in time for Design Star on HGTV!

Doctor, Doctor, Give Me The News!

Jill was trying to get Natalie to take her blood pressure on Saturday night. Harvey was just observing the technique.

That little guy isn't going to be so little for much longer. He LOVED his pizza! Mindy said he hadn't had that before but he kept crying for more. I would, too, if the only other choice was Packer pieces (green and yellow!) :)

There was one time in the kitchen where he was standing on his own for about 8 seconds until he realized he wasn't hanging on to anything. His balance is pretty good!

We had a photo shoot with the four of us. If one was looking the other one wasn't so Jill finally had to "help" Harvey look in the right direction.

Red Sky At Morning...

Yesterday morning dawned very colorful. By the end of the morning it did give way to rain and we had to use an umbrella to take Claire to a birthday party across the street.

But not before we had some fun at breakfast...

...and tried new hairstyles. Claire got a ponytail to go with her pretty new outfit and shoes.

Cate ended up with pigtails. First time I've been able to get those in but she looked pretty cute.

Since it was just her and me while Claire was at the party I subjected Cate to a little camera fun (for me, anyway!)

Thanks, Cater!!!