Storm Clouds

My battery was dying and these are the only shots I got of our recent storm.

We were just sitting down to dinner with our friends The Begley's, who moved here last fall from Prairie Crossing (where we lived last in Illinois), when the tornado alarm started to go off. It was really, really loud. The sky did not look stormy and we continued eating. We started to see some storm clouds and then I thought of the tornado that touched down nearby in Hugo last week. So we went inside and turned on the news - it looked like the storm would pass us, but we stayed inside. It did hail a few times and poured rain quite a bit - but it all passed. I love to watch storms and see the two seasons fighting it out.

My sister is in Mexico (living with her hubby and four kids) and they are watching and living thru REAL storms. The kind from the ocean. We hope they all stay safe in the beginning season of the hurricanes. Last year they evacuated once.

We are glad to finally have some warmer days here and things are growing like mad. We harvested some micro greens that I planted a few weeks ago. This is baby lettuce before the head starts. I had it at a local restaurant and they were just as tasty! I think I have a new salad! Ours was a variety of 5 lettuces that I planted and there is still enough to fully develop and I think that they will regrow as well! Yummy!

Cody just finished he finals for his freshman year of high school. Slade and I are very proud of his A/B report cards this final semester and his motivation for wanting to do well in his classes. He has also really enjoyed being on the soccer team and the track team this year. He actually lettered in Track. He was on the Varsity Pole Vaulting and lettered from that.

This next week is the last week of school for the kids. Cody's school spends their last week doing community service projects. His group is going to work in a local old folk's home, it is a really neat program and for his Junior and Senior years it goes international. Graham & Santiago depart on Monday for their 5-day bike trip with the Junior High for their last week of school. They are both very excited. Sebastian's class leaves on Monday for a three-day trip to the Land School (the school's farm school) and I get to attend as a chaperone. We had our all-school picnic this past Friday night and it was lovely to hang out with many of the parents and staff of this wonderful community we have found here. Zane's last day of school will be this Tuesday and Erika will be hanging with him while I'm at the Land School. We have decided to have him stay in Children's House for one more year. He and Seby as both late spring bloomers. I held Seby back one year also for starting 1st grade. And it has been so worth it. It also gives us one more year with Zane's teacher - a favorite of ours!

The Wall

Here is today's pic. Notice Sebastian?

The Wall

This was taken yesterday, or was it the day before? I can't remember. The tuck pointing is finished on the front of the house, now they have to do some kind of wash to it. I also asked them to take off the storm windows and wash them and the house windows. This job made quite a mess and you can't see out of the windows at this point!

The wall is coming along nicely. Of course we ordered an illuminated house number sign - but it is lost in this house! Yesterday I ordered another one (and I think I like it better!). So, the column it goes in must be in wait mode. A lot of the yard has been leveled off and that makes it a bit nicer from the street. It is still of course quite a mess out there! Luckily our mailman is still bringing us our mail.

In this pic you can see the two center columns have brick. More to come ...

Memorial Day Weekend

We spent Memorial Day weekend up at the lake - O'd, Alex & Liam came up for the weekend, as Liz & Wes stayed home to get Wes to a flight for his German class (he is going to Germany for two weeks). We also invited up Erika.

Erika, Seby, Zane & I drove up Friday morning, with Slade, Cody, Graham & Santiago leaving later in the afternoon. It was great to get up there with the sun still high in the sky - and so many of the chores taken care of from last weekend!

Seby & Zane unloaded most of the car. I started to clean the house from the latest house changes up there. We had our built in couch/bench moved down to the basement and fixed the flooring - so there was much construction debris to clean up, along with the usual dust build-up. It was great to clean before everyone got there and that Erika was able to tackle putting all the food away. It was also amazing how much work Seby & Zane were able to do - maybe I need to do this more? Erika got the big cooler up to the landing and they carried two things at a time until it was empty, and emptied most of the car.

It is great having the built-in moved downstairs - the bench seat lifts to storage and now we have a home for all the many shoes in this house! I am trying to get everyone to remove shoes before coming in and I hope this helps.

We were up the previous weekend for just one day and met with our builder to go over some repairs/changes we wanted done (like the built-in bench getting moved ) - and last fall a tree fell on our stairs to the dock/deck and we had that railing fixed, along with having many of the dead trees removed that are closer to the house. It created a nice open space between the house and the trees and we are trying to do some gardening there. Slade handles the vegie garden and I the flowers. We got two apple trees and two lilac bushes planted!



Erika and the kids planted a lot in our now sunny garden spot. Two dead trees were removed from this space and we hope the many plants and seeds planted grow like mad! (Pictured are Cody, Santiago & Zane planting with Erika supervising). Well we told her she should supervise, but I think she did a lot of the work!

It wasn't warm enough for me to go in the water - but Alex got the first plunge! She said it was COLD!

While on a run to the garden store Erika and I were in a wicked storm. We kept hearing the reports on the radio, so we knew we had about 30-40 minutes before it was supposed to hit. The prediction was for large hail, some weird sounding lighting and tree uprooting wind. Writing it now I don't know why we didn't turn around and head back to the house. But we didn't and we almost escaped it. The hail started and was the size of a large gumball - a few larger -- didn't sound too good hitting the car (Slade's Mini). It quickly was pouring hail and we turned off the road and luckily right into the wrong direction of a bank drive up window. I saw there was a car behind me and pulled up enough for his car, then many cars were coming knowing that space was there and moving on to find some other shelter. It was pretty amazing and very fast. The hail quickly turned to pouring rain, which melted the hail. We moved on like the rest of the cars and up the road it looked like it was slush from a winter snow, further up it was flash floods! At the lake house there was light rain and they all were amazed to hear we of our experience. The only evidence of the strong wind was on our drive home seeing one uprooted tree - luckily it didn't do any damage.

It was great to hang out with O'd and the cousins - the previous weekend we all saw each other for Wes's graduation, but it was fast and with many people. It was a bummer not to be able to have that quiet time with Liz & Wes - but I guess that is what will be happening now with these kids growing up and doing other things! We will also miss Wes during our Winchester family time at the lake house - he will be in Korea for the month of July!

Here are Zane and Alex cuddling on the couch - this boy was in heaven being able to have Alex AND Erika eating out of his hands!



The weekend wouldn't be complete without a tournament of Texas Hold-Em - I told Erika she really didn't have a choice in playing. By coming for the weekend she was committed to the whole lake house experience! She even went ATVing!.



Here is Zane "resting" on the couch while we played poker.





At one point his whole body was under the cushions and I had to make a verbal announcement for us all to remember he was there and take him up to bed! (Slade did carry him up)

I don't know why we didn't take more pictures - just wasn't thinking of it!

The Wall

I don't know what day of work this is - but here is the wall with some of the columns - there will be a few more. The brick might get started tomorrow! The tuckpointing is going well and they might start mudding tomorrow as well. Slade and I are trying to figure out what plants we will have planted from the plans. The plans have a bigger picture of the landscaping then we want to finish at this point. So, we are looking at our books for favorite trees. I love to garden so we might hold off on all the smaller plantings. The fall is my favorite time to buy and plant - best sales then too!

Wesley's Graduation

Wes's graduation was this weekend and we really wanted to attend. He graduated from St. Lawerence - a boarding high school that he attended all four years. We drove to the lake house Friday afternoon because it is a half way point to his school from Minny. Usually we leave Minny around 6pm and arrive at the lake house around midnight. This time we got the kids out of school early and got off around noon - the sun was still up when we arrived at the lake house.

The kids had fun showing Santiago around. Saturday morning the boys got the trampoline set up and started tuning up the ATV's - they heard a loud noise and saw a tree fall across our road. Then they were able to use the chainsaw and cut up the tree. Oh fun.



We drove down to Wisconsin Saturday afternoon and met O'd & family for dinner and then all shared rooms at a local motel. Sunday morning we all took off to the graduation. There was a mass followed by the graduation ceremony. The school is quite international and all these nationalities were well represented during the mass. Santiago seemed surprised to be hearing so much spanish as well.

Here we all are after Wes's graduation and a lunch together.



Back row from left to right:

Santiago, Carol (Liz's Mom), Alex holding Zane, Graham, Liz, O'd, Wes, Ann, Slade, Cody

Front row from left to right:

Liam Sebastian, Me, Grandpa Will (Liz's Dad)

We had a great time but drove over 900 miles - my legs were bugging me Sunday night! Of course we will have another long drive this weekend as well as we head back up to the lake house for Memorial Day weekend.

Day Three

We are making such a mess. We are also having the front of the house tuck-pointed - so we are really making a dirt and sand mess!



Of course the old footings were toast - so we had to make new ones.

Retaining Wall - Day Two

We now have a moat around the house. It looks so cool we might need to think about doing a drawbridge!

We had hoped the old footings were going to be usable, but alas they are not and now we must dig for and then pour new footings. We knew it would be just our luck to have to do this, so we were prepared for it. When I came home and saw how much was dug up and turned over, I thought better not to go ask how much more it would cost. Tomorrow will be better when I won't be so shocked!

It starting raining and they decided to pour the new footings tomorrow.

The wall is coming down!

Finally!

It has begun. The wall is being torn down today, along with the front steps.

Here is the start of it...



A brick in the roots of one of the trees removed last fall.







The boys have come home from school and Zane says "This is the closest I've EVER been to a Bobcat." He has been sitting on the front porch and just came in saying "Well that was fun, until I saw a bee."




...another pic (for Slade who is out of town)

Mother's Day Continues...

My request for our activity this Mother's Day was to go and buy some window boxes and then plant and install them!

We did accomplish that - but for some reason I didn't take any pictures! Strange I know. The leftover plants went into various spots around the garden. Slade also got the water fountain up and running (he did that yesterday actually). Zane found a great spot for some leftovers in his planter that Erika did with him for his birthday. They planted clover, which is growing nicely and we wanted to add some flowers. We also set up the gnome garden and home, by summer's end plants are usually growing all over it and you have to weave thru the greenery to find it all. The tree has sprouted it's leaves and it's canopy is lovely in the yard.

Mother's Day

How to tell if you are Mom's favorite...



This cracks me up.

Happy Mother's Day!!!!

...so I was showing this pic to Seby & Zane and they didn't get it. They didn't see that the Mommy Bird was stepping on one baby to feed the other. Zane said, "Maybe they are just cooperating." Ugh.

Dessert Hot Springs

Slade and I went to Dessert Hot Springs (In California) for a few days. We stayed at Hope Springs - which is a small place with 10 rooms, adults only. We had looked at going here on a vacation many years ago, I think Slade had read a NYT's review of it.

Then several years ago Maud (Slade's sister) sent us the website for a small place she and her hubby were buying with some friends - same place. So, it was great to have Maud & Lucas come meet us for lunch at Hope Springs. They brought us lunch and we had a few hours to hang out and chat.

We worked on perfecting our ability to DO NOTHING. Well maybe lay in the sun and read books, but to be as lazy as we can during the day and end it going out to dinner. We went to some great restaurants in Palm Springs (a 10 min drive). The funniest thing to me is that being in the dessert the best food I had was the Alaskan King Crab - I got some in almost every restaurant we went to.

We are firming up our summer plans and look forward to the many adventures we have coming up. Spring is still taking it's time to get going. The good news is a late spring usually means a late start to fall.

Cody & Track

Cody is doing track for his spring sport in high school. You don't have to do it, but they highly encourage kids to pick a sport for every season (fall-winter-spring). It isn't super competitive, which also means that everyone plays. Cody did soccer in the fall and his coach (who is also the Track Coach) suggested to him he go out for Track because he is a fast runner.

Cody has been doing sprints, relays, and pole vaulting. He made Varsity for pole vaulting. I was a judge at the last meet where he cleared the 7' pole. He was thrilled to get a ribbon for it and points to earn the school "letter."

Coming of Age Ceremony

Last night was Cody's Coming of Age Ceremony.

Here is his good friend, Caleb, doing his Spiritual Statement (note Cody waiting for his turn on the bench).



Cody getting to the mic for his statement.



This is Mark, Cody's mentor for the class. The church set us up with Mark and it was lovely to meet somebody new in the church and get to know him and his family. I know Cody had a good time getting to know him and having their time together.



Cody with Slade and I. (Note, Cody is wearing the shirt Slade wore for our wedding!)



All the boys.



It was a lovely service and showed us (once again) what a great community we have found ourselves in. We are not members of the church yet, but more and more I feel the pull to take that next step.

Thank you to so many who sent letters of advise to Cody for his "Wisdom Book".

Zane's B-day

Here are some belated pics from Zane's b-day.

Here he is showing off his wad of cash from Papa & Clip Clop.



GrandAnn, you can see that the water bottle was a big hit.



At the dinner table.



Waiting to open his pile of presents.



Showing off what he got with his wad of money. Papa & Clip Clop - obviously you give the kid too much money!

Retaining Wall

The retaining wall has served this house well since 1913! Now it is time for it to come down. This coming Saturday it will stand no more! Of course that also has to be the day of the Junior High Potluck at our house. So folks will have to come up the driveway to the front porch, and hopefully most of the debris will be gone.

We are eager to get the new retaining wall up, a fence, and a new patio - and landscaping that is still being figured out.

I can't wait for a place that the kids can more easily play soccer and a spot for the grown-ups to watch them. The street improvement will be huge and I really look forward to that.