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| Abrahm and Samuel arrived for a visit to their grandparents for a couple of weeks. We got them out on the river road and saw Minnehaha Falls and had ice cream (I had a liquid sugar treat instead). |
We've been preparing the garden for veges. Last week Phoebe and I put the final touches on the blueberry bed, adding a half a cubic yard of shredded pine bark. We put in 6 bushes and they're beautiful little plants. I'm sure there will be some fans of the fruit in time to come, but I look forward to the plants as landscape as well.
We already have a well established raspberries, rhubarb, and I've got 3 different hops rhizomes growing (Chinook, Centennial, and Willamette, for those of you who know anything about beer and hops), two of which are doing great. Last year I brewed a bit more than one batch of beer (2 cases of bottles or about 4 gallons) and in a few years I should be able to brew about 5 times that. A nice bonus since hops are the most expensive factor in brewing beer.
We've been biking a lot now that Peter can ride very independently in the Chariot (I was nervous all of last year even though we did it). Our van has less than 7000 miles on it as we approach 2 years of ownership. 2000 of those are from road trips. More biking will hopefully lead us to eliminating a car some day when the Corolla/Matrix dies. A couple weeks ago, I rode a Gran Fondo (100 miles) with a few friends. It was a fun community ride (not a race) put on by a local brewery celebrating their expansion and new facility in NE Mpls. A great ride, nice weather, and a lot of fun.
Peter has no words yet. But we're not concerned--he knows EXACTLY what we're saying to him. Especially when we say no, he laughs at us and runs off and does exactly what we don't want him to. It's cute. And it drives us crazy. When he's awake, he needs 100% monitoring. He's a physical kid who likes to keep moving and explore. It's great and exhausting at the same time.
Phoebe's loving her books. She and I have been reading the Magic Treehouse series together and she's taken to reading ahead of me on her own. She just smirks and now thinks it's funny that I'm missing out.
So, that's us for now. I'm sure summer will go by way too fast, but we hope you all are a part of it.
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| Soren, Sophia, and Phoebe. I guess what happens when one little girl decides to play dress up--Soren ends up with two brides. |
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| After a long, long winter, Peter absolutely loves being outside. He is content with dumping water and digging in the garden for hours. There's a lot of wailing and flailing when it's time to go in for a nap. |
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| Phoebe and Grammy rented Frozen in April when we visited. Phoebe has been quite into the story since, but has never asked if she can watch it again--let's keep it that way. |
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| All Spring, Peter was determined to swing on these. Finally, I added an extension and our neighbors gave us a kiddie seat. |
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| Phoebe's getting close to riding on her own. Currently, we get out about once a week. I run behind her and keep her from tipping (note the broomstick wedged in the back--a great idea thanks to my neighbor). She had some pretty long stretches today. |
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| We had 3 windows in our basement with some sort of plywood over/in/on/etc . . . covering light basically. I've ripped out 2 of the three so far and am putting in new. |
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| This one needed a header. I think I kinda over built it, but better safe then sorry. The old window was a piece of sheet metal. I wonder what the R-value of sheet metal is? |
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| This other window was merely 1/4" plywood and sheet metal. And all the wood was completely rotten. I tried my hands at mortar and glass block. I found the work quite fun and very easy. I built the window in an even, tore out the old in an afternoon, and mortared this in after the kids were in bed. Slick. |
