A Cabin Vacation

Joel and Silas have been so excited about their first trip to Uncle John's cabin in Three Lakes, WI. The cabin has been in our family for more than 40 years. My parents bought it when I was in high school and 20 or so years later my brother-in-law, John Willis, took ownership. It has been a wonderful retreat for many family members.

Joel and Silas spent the afternoon with me on Tuesday, so I read them my special book Up North at the Cabin. It is actually a book about a cabin up north in Minnesota, but so many of the illustrations and events in the book are exactly like Uncle John's cabin in Wisconsin. After reading the book the boys enjoyed making log cabin pictures out of pretzels. Here they proudly display their work. I thought they did a great job!

Their plan was to leave this afternoon, and Joel is excited that he will wake up at the cabin on his 6th birthday!

Claire's Turn

Last Sunday it was Claire's turn for a sleepover at Grammy and Babu's house. Annie and Justin have lots of house projects to complete before the arrival of Baby Girl Shoe #2, and had planned to use Monday as a workday. So Claire stayed with us Sunday night and most of Monday.

She is always asking for "num-num" and I just happened to have a bag of Twizzlers in the pantry - one of my favorite yummy-nummy treats, so she found a new num-num that she LOVED. The only problem was that she wasn't too interested in eating her breakfast or lunch on Monday, but always had room for a Twizzler!

We've had tons of rain lately - seems like it rains every day! But it did stop raining for a couple of hours on Monday - long enough for me to take Claire to Bever Park where they have Old McDonald's Farm. Claire is at the age where she loves animals, so I had really hoped to take her there. She was entranced - she saw the prairie dogs, chickens, goats, donkey, calves, pigs, and lots and lots of different types of ducks.

They have these little animal deals the kids can sit on and rock back and forth. Claire knew instantly what to do - was rocking away. It was hilarious -but that little monkey REFUSED to look at me so that I could get a good picture. I kept calling her name and when she saw the camera she would turn her head.

I finally got a close-up of her face, but this was the best I could do. I need one of those cameras that takes several pictures seconds apart to catch a really good pose.

Claire really loved watching the ducks swim and splash. I'm looking forward to going with Claire soon to Niabi zoo where she can see lots more animals!

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Jim's folks just celebrated a milestone that most people won't get to in their lifetimes. On June12, Bertil (age 97) and Linnea (age 94) Engstrom celebrated 73 years of marriage! That's a lifetime in itself! Linnea always says "He hasn't changed a bit - still looks like the handsome guy I married!" So sweet! Congratulations, Mom and Dad!

Garden Helpers

The arrival of spring always requires many weekends of hard yard work for Jim. He hauls numerous bags (75-80) of mulch down the hill into the backyard every year to spruce up our woodland garden. He added several more brick borders this year as well, outlining areas that previously weren't so well-defined.

It's always nice to know we have two little helpers living down the street who LOVE to help grandpa with his outdoor work. They are actually learning a lot about gardening, and can't wait for a chance to maneuver the wheel barrow.

Joel got pretty serious about it this year, and wheeled it all the way up the steep incline with a pretty good load inside!

The load can get a little tipsy around those steep curves, but Joel handled it very well, and made it all the way to the top, load intact!

The trails and tiers ended up looking pretty nice when all was said and done!