Slade's home!

Here is a pic Slade took in Hong Kong, I meant to post it when he came back (a couple weeks ago). He has been traveling a lot lately. But he his home now until Wednesday, on Saturday I get to go meet him in Las Vegas. We will actually leave Vegas and go to Desert Hot Springs - a four hour drive away! We are going to stay at a small hotel we looked at going to many, many years ago.

Erika will stay with the kids. Zane is very excited. It makes it easy to travel with Erika holding down the fort.

A Night on the Streets

Here is our group of 24 kids from the First Universalist Church.

OK, so what is "A Night on the Streets?"

It is an event where 320 teens from 30 Twin Cities congregations spend the night in a church parking lot near downtown Minneapolis (walking distance from our house) to learn about youth homelessness. They had to stand in a very long line for their dinner (soup kitchen style) and spent the night sleeping out in cardboard boxes. This event is to increase awareness of youth homelessness, but also raise money to help



We heard from some youth who have been homeless and some who currently are homeless, along with folks who work for different groups that help the homeless youth. It was a lot of information to take in and we had a chat with the kids before bed to talk about what we all learned.

It all started on a fun camp out kind of note ....



...which quickly gave way to rain for the entire night.



Here is the inside of my box at 3am.... and a soaking wet sleeping bag!



I quickly took a plastic bag to use as a replacement sleeping bag - it wasn't warm, but it was dry. As I lay there getting more and more wet I really couldn't feel that sorry for myself. I knew I would be getting up and going home in the morning and I kept thinking of how the folks in New Orleans must of felt with their waters rising. I was dealing with less than an inch of water in my sleeping area! One of the parent asked in the morning "Can you imagine waking from a wet night like we had and then getting yourself to school?" That is what our homeless youth are doing.



Waiting for their parents to pick the youth take some naps to catch up on their lack of sleep.

And so it begins...

We are going to rebuild the retaining wall this year. It begins with the stairs into the house.

Seby & Zane were amazed by the jackhammer before leaving for school this morning. I'm sure they'll be asking for one at Christmas.

Happy Birthday Zane!

Here is Zane yesterday, heading off to buy doughnuts as a dessert from dinner.

A little football on the way to the car.







Happy, happy birthday my dear Zane Danger Winchester!

Zane is very excited about turning 6. He has been counting down the days. We wondered last night if his face would change over night. He made us measure his height and mark it so we could see if he grew at all. I think Graham measured him this morning and remarked that, yes indeed it appeared he had grown a little.

Zane left a message for Slade this morning saying "Can you come home one second after I get off the bus?" We will be happy that Slade can pick up Cody from track practice and then get home for birthday dinner.

A few weeks ago Zane remarked that he knew where he wanted his birthday party. I had to inform him that one doesn't get a birthday part every year. We talked about that his birthday would be celebrated, there would be cake and presents, but not a party. He was confused by all this and the other day thought it meant he wouldn't get a cake or presents. I assured him that he would. He felt better when he came down to the laundry room the other night and saw me wrapping a present for him. Oh boy, the excitement. I think he has shown everyone in the house where his presents are.

New Glasses!

Seby has been border line for needing glasses the last couple of years. This year he earned to ability to get them. He was very excited and picked out a handsome pair. He feels like and looks like an older boy. I told him he probably needs to go to the next reading level - now that he can see better!

It was fun to watch him look around at the world when he first got them. You could just tell everything looked a little different. The doc says it is a very small correction and he may grow out of it.



This is a blanket that Zane made at school. He is especially proud of his "whirlpool" that he quilted in the center.



Here is a pyramid cake that Zane helped Erika make the other day. Zane has been having so much fun the last couple of days going over to Erika's. They have been playing board games, reading books, making cakes. What more would a 5 year old want to do? Graham chuckled and told me he overheard Zane telling Seby "Isn't Erika just the best?" And of course, she is!



The weather has warmed up a few times - it is hard to think of it now as it is rain/sleet/snow/hailing outside right now. It is 2am and I have gone up to the roof twice to sweep up the water - because it was dripping through the ceiling!

I have one more photo of Zane asleep. Trying to stay up late one night during the Spring Break. The boys were all up watching a movie and Zane fell asleep half way in.

Well better go do another sweep of the roof - luckily all the insidle dripping has stopped, but it is pouring outside. Zane is up and in the bed now. He hates storms.



Luckily I was able to carry him upstairs to his bed without any help!

The older boys and I have been getting ready for a fundraiser we are doing thru our church (First Universalists). It is quite an event. I'll have to post about it later. You can check it out at nightonthestreet.org

I have also been busy working on a journal/photo book for the JH's auction item. It is the best site for doing any kind of bound print piece you might want to have. Super user friendly. You can check them out at blurb.com

I must go to the roof!

MOA

... can mean a couple things. For today, it meant Mall of America!

The bigger boys (Graham & Santiago) slept in late, while Seby & Zane
woke up early. We had a full cafe going around 10am - two different
kinds of hash browns, ham, scrambled eggs, and I turned down making
bird in the basket (fried egg in a piece of bread).

We arrived at Mall of America around 1pm. We first went to the
Underwater Aquarium


(these pictures are all taken with Santiago's camera, as I forgot mine at home, the date is obviously wrong on the pics)

You can see that Seby & Zane are STILL wearing their hooded towels I bought them days ago at IKEA. They have been wearing them ALL DAY and SLEEPING with them on. Well sometimes at night they get too hot and take them off - but drape them over their bed.



After being at the Underwater Aquarium, we headed to the theme park part of MOA. Here the boys are all going on the monster truck ride - Graham & Santiago went along after we begged them.

Spring Break Continues

Today I took the boys rock climbing.

Early in the afternoon I took Seby, Zane, Santiago, Graham and James (a friend of Graham's & Santiago's from school) rock climbing.. We spent a few hours there then dropped of James and then picked up Cody and his friend Devin. We ate dinner and headed back for more rock climbing. Once you pay you can come and go as you like for the day and they are open until 10pm. We left around 9:30pm.

The amazing thing was how Seby & Zane were the ones who went up and down the most.

Spring Break

It is Spring Break here for the montessori kids. Cody is back in school.



Here are Seby & Zane having a picnic outside on Sunday. They had a great time riding their bikes and scooters in the back.

Yesterday it snowed.



It really doesn't seem fair. The good news is that it is melting really fast. We got 8 inches yesterday. It didn't feel like that much because some of it melted before the storm ended. It pretty much snowed ALL day and then over night.

Today the kids had a snowball fight. It started with Pete (our next door neighbor) throwing snowballs at Santiago. Graham said Santiago had no idea where the snowballs were coming from. When they discovered it was from Pete they all got up on the play house to attack him as he came out of his basement.



He (and wife Kim) have been working on a remodel in the basement. Pete would bring up his load for the dumpster, take the abuse of the snowballs and then hit them back as best he could. I finally heard him say he surrenders. They turned their snowballs to each other and had a very civil snowball fight. (Seby & Zane are wearing hooded towels I bought them at IKEA - they have been wearing them every waking moment since I bought them yesterday)

It has been land of boys here. Playdates, sleep overs, eating, running, music too loud, etc.