Busy-ness

It has been a very busy week. I had curriculum work every morning but this one, plus class Monday night and Wednesday night, and more curriculum work yesterday afternoon. We also had our friend Michelle over last night for dinner. All of this has left little time for post updating. Or for what I should really be doing...cleaning the house in anticipation of bringing Joyce back here next week. It will be her first time visiting our new house as well. But, despite the fact that I have one last little bit of homework to do, books to return to the library and plenty of housecleaning, I am going to take one little break to blog.
So here are some photos of Henry last week when Mom was in town. This first one is him doing his trademark answer to "where is the (fill in the blank)?" I think this time it was "where is the train?" as we were sitting outside at Oliverii's watching all of the evening commuter trains go by.
Here he is in his monkey pajamas, playing Dad's drum. He pronounces it "gum".
This is him trying to convince me that we really should keep on top of the laundry. He loves to sort. He also says "bagget" which means basket.
We have a couple of lovely little prairie walks in our neighborhood. We took Mom out for a nice walk and Henry stopped to smell all of the flowers. You may notice that this spot is actually mowed (mown?). It's not all natural prairie...they seem to think they need to mow around the spots where they're planting trees. But it's still a very nice spot.
We went to Ravinia to hear some excellent Russian music performed by the CSO. Henry also took the time to do some performance art of his own, in the way of a puppet show. These little plastic finger-monsters were 60 cents each and possibly the best toy I've ever bought him.
So that's it for now. More updates after the weekend. I should have photos from Burlington then. Unless the camera melts. The weather is supposed to sdjnejbejwjjkbjjbbjfhbjhnbhjbhjbbhbjbhjhjenhghhjjjjkjjrekrlkklrklrkjkkjjkjkktjkgjhrtGFAS (these comments posted by Henry)
be getting hot hot hot.

Nine Miles Where?

Thursday night Pete's band played a gig at Durty Nellie's in Palatine. It was a little bit of a drive to get there. More so for our friends from the city. Parking was more of a challenge than expected! The place was spick and span, though. And cavernous as well. Plenty of room to mosh.
Everyone was there. The two Marys....
Stookey and Stephen...
These two crazy dancers...
The band sounded good. They rocked the estrogen-influenced tunes, which is always enjoyable.
Pete asked me to hold on to his wedding ring. Something about not being able to wear it while he's drumming...? I don't know. Seemed a little suspicious.
There once was a time when I would go out to all the shows and I wasn't fazed if a show didn't start until 10PM, even when I was originally told it would start at 8:30. I'm not quite that same girl anymore, but it was fun to pretend for one night. Rock and Roll!

Some of you may notice I was wearing my Central Standards t-shirt. Seems that cover bands don't typically sell shirts, especially at their first ever gig. So I spread the good word of the C.S. instead.

Rock and Roll Drummer

I am a rock-and-roll drummer


It's how I get my kicks


I'm a rock-and-roll drummer


And these forks are my sticks


Rock and Roll!

Pool Party

Looks like we'll be using that pool water to water the plants this morning. Last night I awoke around 11:30 to a noise that sounded like someone had stumbled over one of Henry's buckets. I freaked out, thinking somebody was in our backyard. I sat up in bed, watching out the window for a bit, and could make out some dark shapes moving around. The shapes seemed small, fat and low to the ground...so I wasn't quite as spooked. When I heard splashing I decided to get out of bed and investigate more closely. I moved stealthily around to the family room where I could watch out the sliding door. Not seeing much, I switched out the outside light. After about 45 seconds a big fat raccoon came waddling out from the side bushes, making it's way to the back of the yard. Then another came out, smaller....followed by at least 3 more raccoons. I suspect it was a mama and babies. Kinda cute, kinda creepy...kinda makes me not want to put my son in that pool.

Note: These are not the actual raccoons from my yard.

Hot!!

It's so hot. All we can do is gaze wistfully out the window at the pool in the backyard. Oh how we wish we could dip our toes in its icy coolness. But the sun is too hot to even be out there. We did get a little outdoor time this morning. We took a walk and had a little breakfast picnic in the park, near Henry's favorite thing-the gazebo. When he says "gazebo" it sounds suspiciously like "elbow", another favorite word of his. Franklin did not enjoy being tied to the tree. He really wanted to get a taste of Henry's cereal (cereal-another word Henry is working on.) But please note-Franklin did get a nice cup of filtered water from Starbucks.
So I guess we'll spend most of the day indoors. I have schoolwork I haven't looked at since class on Wednesday. Pete's been organizing his CDs. We're trying to only let Henry watch one episode of Muppets ("gugget!") a day. And of course...we'll be celebrating Auntie Liz's birthday today! Sounds like a steak dinner in Deerfield to me. Happy Birthday Liz. We hope it's a wonderful year, full of happiness and excitement!

Sushi

Last night I made my first sushi. It had cabbage instead of rice, as I'm trying to lose a few pounds. It also had tofu and carrots. I found the recipe at this site. Sadly, I forgot to add the baby corn. I guess I'll save that for another meal.


It turned out pretty well. It was easy and quite tasty. The nori was pretty tough though...any tips on making it not-so? I didn't soak it, as neither the package nor the recipe said to, but where I moistened it so that it would stick together-those places were softer. (Please admire my sentence structure). I think I'll try to put Henry down for a nap and have some leftovers for lunch. Due toAmber's blog I have to make Pete blt's for dinner. I'm not complaining at all. They're one of my favorite foods. I just hope he knows there will be LOTS of blt's once my tomatoes ripen....

Outside

Here are some random thoughts and photos...
This is the outside wall of our family room. I think I want to plant some hollyhocks there, since the wall is so ugly. Any thoughts? Any other tall things that might look nice? Grasses maybe.
Here's a shot of my tomatoes all tied up. I used an old pillowcase. I have over 20 on there right now. Guess it may be a bumper crop! Pretty good for my first try. Just hope they continue to survive the yard's wildlife. Their chances are much better now that Bart is back on duty.
Then there's a photo of some of our lillies with two little green flies hanging out. I'm glad they're out there on the flower instead of inside with the ants. Yuck.
Henry has been enjoying his new water machine. I think it's actually made for sand, but he has fun pouring water through it.
And finally...some of our bird friends enjoying the new feeder. They're going crazy on the thing!
The other day I counted at least 9 finches. The mourning doves kind of push everyone else out with their chubbiness, and the grackles and red-winged blackbirds are just bossy and mean. It makes for some interesting wildlife viewing!

Dr. Carrie!

Carrie passed her PhD dissertation yesterday! Hooray for her!
We knew you would do it, Carrie! We're so proud to have a doctor in the family!

Bartelby The traveler

If you are very familiar with my blog, you are familiar with Bart, the overseer of my garden. It is his job to make sure that the birds play fair and that the rabbits don't get out of control. He also occasionally sends out a warning if someone is dangerously close to stepping in dog poo. He has lived in the ideal lookout spot since he came to live with us (delivered by the Houghs). That is, until the fourth of July. On the fourth of July Van felt that Bart should come join the party. If you look closely in this photo you will see that Bart is not in his usual spot.
That was okay. It made me a little uneasy, and Van probably sensed this....that was my first mistake. My second mistake was ever turning my back on Van.
A couple days after the party we left for Brainerd. It did occur to me, once, to make sure Bart was back in his spot...but we were so busy with preparations that I didn't think of it again.
Fast forward a couple days. We're sitting around at the lake house, drinking Mike's Hard Lemonade (mmmmm) peacefully chatting. I did notice Van carrying a paper grocery bag around at one point, which gave me a little flashback to a bag I saw him with at my house, but I figured he just had some beer in there or something.
Then I'm distracted again by Liz pointing out something in her People magazine. The conversation went something like this...
Liz (pointing to a picture): Hey, do you know who this is?
Me: No.
Liz: Oh.
Me: ?
Liz: It's this issue....
Me: Okay.
I was kind of thinking maybe she had lost her conversational skills, or maybe she just thought I was a loser for not knowing who the celebrity in the picture was. Turns out she was just trying to distract me. Then Van was sitting next to Liz and they were giving each other looks and Liz was trying not to giggle and I started wondering what was going on. Liz wouldn't say anything, so I went back to my knitting....or drinking...or whatever I was doing.
Then my eyes wandered out to the end of the dock and I saw this:

After I got over my shock and laughter I heard the whole story. Turns out Bartelby occasionally likes to go walkabout. I'll let the pictures from Van tell the tale...






After those photos I was glad to see this one:

If you refer back to the previous entry, you'll see that Bart ended his trip with a Busch beer on the dock, as well as participation in the family photos. Though he thanks Van for the pleasant vacation, I'm glad to say Bartelby is now safely back at his post in the yard.

More from the reunion

I thought I was finished with photos of Paul Bunyan Land, but then Mary sent me a few more. Here's Pete and I on the Tilt-A-Whirl, and Henry practicing his wave from the boats. He rode with his second cousins (once removed?) Taylor and Ethan. This Tilt-A-Whirl ride was crazy. Van and Liz were the only other riders and we thought the guy would never let us off. He did have sort of an evil glint in his eye.



I don't think I mentioned how hot it was Saturday morning while we were at Paul Bunyan Land. It was hot, and the place has little shade. Henry was covered in sunblock, and shaded in his stroller, but as soon as we got in the car after about 2 hours of Olde Tyme entertainment, he asked for some water, took a couple of sips and then conked out.
He was asleep for at least an hour and a half- through a diaper change, transfer to the stroller, lunch, transfer to the car and the drive back to the Garrison Inn. When he awoke he was perky as could be. He had a snack and we took a dip in the pool before heading back out to the lake house. I realize this is not a good photo of me, but Henry looks really cute. He enjoyed reading in the hammock. We were practicing counting, but he wouldn't let me get past "one" without clapping and saying "yay!"

More explanation about this photo will be coming soon. Yes, that is Bartelby my garden gnome. No, he did not ride up with us.

There was a lovely heron hanging out on the dock next to Steve and Pat's. Henry got a nice up-close look at it. I would point, he would look and then he would say "duck!" Duck was also his name for the loons we saw, though with much coaching he did eventually say "oon".

Here's a shot of the whole crew...

And finally, we had to get a photo of Henry with the giant walleye before leaving town. He did not care for the giant walleye one bit...as you can tell from the second photo. Had he known we were about to get in the car and drive for 12 hours he might not have been so determined to get away. Or, maybe he knew we were on our way to the Norske Nook.