Birthdays: Ephraim 10, Sean 55

   Sean's birthday follows Ephraim's by one week exactly.  July definately feels like a party around here every year.  

    This year, Ephraim wanted to have his first "lots-of-friends" party. I was so grateful that this was possible because we made a LOT of really great friends this past year.   The kids went swimming at the high school pool, then came back to our house for a waterballoon - squirt gun fight, and cake and custard.

  We were SO glad to have Asher come down for the day!  He made the cake (Ephraim had requested carrot cake with cream cheese frosting) and brought down his ice cream machine to make custard with his little brother.  He offered gifts of of his time and talents that were much appreciated.

I should've taken a picture of the cake before I started to cut it up! 

Sean came up from work to help serve the custard at just the right time!

Sylvia got Ephraim a Bluey shirt to match Sean's (which they got him for Father's Day last month). These guys keep life fun around here.

I loved his excited expression as he opened our gift (a set of seven books in a series he has been reading lately).

Sylvia is tempted to start reading his books. she got him started on the "Poppy" series by Avi.

Asher, Sean and Ephraim went to play tennis together while I got dinner ready. I'm so glad Asher made the effort to connect with his brother who is 15 years younger. I used to worry a lot about the older kids being separate from the younger ones, but it seems to be working out.

Sean's birthday was today. On our family video chat last week he mentioned what he thought his perfect birthday would look like: some outside art time, getting a new board game, and playing it (something like Scythe),  and grilling brats.

So, that's how we rolled today. He took the day off work, and was up early to go oil paint at the park above the river.  We got him Scythe for his gift, so he spent a large chunk of the day learning the rules and setting the game up. We enjoyed playing it with him in the evening.  Which led to grilling brats, and video chattting with the older kids.   A good day all around.  (And cheesecake!  Lots of cheesecake!)

 Sylvia did a creative job of wrapping, since we ran out of wrapping paper. Luckily, she has a lot of sheet music printed out that she doesn't need anymore!

    We enjoyed cheesecake with Door County Cherry pie filling on top for breakast, and an afternoon snack. That's the benefit of starting the celebration early in the day.

Grill buddies. Ephraim supposedly helps keep the grill cooled to the right temperature with squirt guns.  Not sure if that's how the professionals do it, but it seemed to work, the brats were perfectly done!

RoadTrip Number Two: Party in St. Paul, MN

          The end of July brought a much awaited for three day vacation for the family.  Beth's parents (Dan and Kathy) invited us all to come stay with them for the weekend in St. Paul, MN.   It was a lovely offer. I was glad we got to know Beth's parents better and enjoy some of their local attractions.

     First stop:  a tour of the raptor center where they rehabilitate injured raptors then realease them. The ones that can't be released become education raptors. 

Here we have Ephraim trying to show he is bigger than Beth and all the raptors in the universe. Not quite.

I like the look on this one's face. This is how I feel when people around me continually want food or clothing, and it's my job to provide it.  Cooking and laundry seem to be never ending aspects of my life, and I'm still working on "being ok" witih that. Maybe that's what this raptor is brooding on as well.

Our next stop was a really funky/weird/one-of-a-kind shop called "Axeman".  It is tough to describe this store.  People (and the internet) use the words "surplus store".... but that isn't really what it is.  I'd call it "a functioning commecial art instalation commenting on the consumerism of our culture in a vey humourous way".  I LOVED wandering up and down the aisles reading the home-made items descriptions taped on various boxes and bins.   Here a a few for your own mind expanding experience...

"No:Bikes Scooters Negative Vibes".  This was taped on the entrance, and was only an appetizer of the feast behind the doors.

I think the vampire re-bar stake poster was my favorite!

                                                    Don't try the Booger Brush! It was a joke!

You're Welcome!  It's as if you were there in the store, right? Not quite, because you didn't come out of the store with a mix of practical and weird items.   We got some useful plastic picnic cups, but also a bag of 3 foot long straws.  You have to suck muliple times to get the liqued up that far! No wonder they aren't all the rage.

We headed back to the Fryxell residence and enjoyed some good food in their lovely yard.  

Kathy did a great job planning out easy-to-assemble meals.  She is a very thoughtful hostess. I can see where Beth gets her hospitality skills from.

One thing our family really enjoyed was seeing all the greenspaces ini the area.  The parks and neighborhoods were much more lush than over in our part of Wisconsin.  We had a good time trying out a local pickleball court and playing some croquet.

       Some of the best parts though, were not planned (and therfore not photographed).  Ephraim discovered a flock of wild turkeys living in their neighborhood on a walk.   He was constantly on the lookout for them afterwards.  I enjoyed playing cards and games with Kathy, and just sitting around the table visiting.

     Sylvia and Ephraim benefitted from Dan's patience, as he explained his woodworking tools to them, and helped them with simple projects.   It made me smile, everytime Ephraim would hear Dan start up a woodworking machine in the basement, his ears would prick up like a dogs, and freeze, then get up and sprint to the stairs to see what was going on down there.  Dan was really patient with his curious little visitor.

We had a fun tournament of Kubb on their front lawn before we left for home.

   I don't remember who won or lost, but we had a good time. while we were out playing, a couple of ladies were walking by with their dog.  I asked them to take a family photo of us...

    We are a pretty good looking group.  When I look at this photo, I smile, knowling that behind Asher's head, Dan has a sandwich hidden on a plate.  We descended around him mid-lunch for my impromptu photo shoot!

    I think what I valued most about this weekend was that it was an offering of building a relationship between the families that wasn't based solo around the kids that connect us (Asher and Beth).  Our families have met at musical recitals, and graduation, but not for the sole purpose of hanging out.  This is a different pattern of in-law dynamics than either Sean or I had grown up with.  It is nice to be part of something new. I look forward to many more years of getting together with the Fryxells just because we like them.    

Road Trip Number One: HFAA Workshop

 This is the month of back to back events it seems.  Back to back county fairs, roadtrips and birthdays.  Why stop if you can just do it all over again the next week!?  (Well, one reason is because it gets a bit tiring.  I'm looking foreward to a much less scheduled August.)   We did pack in some pretty unique experiences the past couple of weeks.   Join me as I take you along on our adventures...

Roadtrip Number One:  The Hardanger Fiddle Association of America's national workshop (HFAA) at Folklore village, near Dodgeville, WI.

     I dropped Sylvia off at the workshop each morning at 8 AM, along with her friend, Laura Johnson. They spent the day learining Norweigen fiddle tunes and meeting other players from around the country.  Sylvia was in the advancd class, and got to learn from a teacher they had brought over from Norway.  

  The girls made new friends and learned new songs during the day, then played music for the dancers in the evenings.  I attened the final Saturday night concert and "dance party".  After the groups played, individaul fiddlers went up to the microphone and played one after another, for hours.  The dancers would listen to the music a bit at the start, and then start pulling each other onto the floor as they recognized the step patterns that went with the various type tunes.  It was really neat to see how organic it was.  I didn't get any video of that later portion (it was almost midnight, and I was just enjoying soaking it all in.)   We were in bad around 12:30AM.  I heard it kept going until 4AM!   Here is a video of a song I really enjoyed listeing to earlier in the evening, when the groups were playing the songs they had learned together:

While the girls were in classes, Ephraim and I went out adventuring. The first day was to Haven's Petting Farm, outside Mt. Horeb. What a fun place!  Basically, if you could catch it, you could pet it. Cats, goats, ducklings, rabbits, piglets, cows, chickens, llamas, and a zebra! It was fun to feed them, pet them, and hold them. We spent hours here, just enjoying all the marvelous creatures around us.

The upper portion of the barn was a fun area to play in. They had tunnels built in the bales of hay, and a huge corn pit. I saw there, and wondered why I just watch Ephraim play at places like this, but I had paid just the same price.. so I took my shoes off, and started digging in the corn. I buried my feet, then Ephraim. It felt really relaxing and hypnotic to let them run out of my hands over an over again. 

My favorite part was sitting at the top of the hill above the farm, looking out over the cows, and the hills. The wind was blowing, and it was so peaceful.  Ephraim and I sat on a bench together and talked about what we would raise on a farm if we owned one. I think Ephraim would make a great farmer.

We went swimming that evening to get all the dust from the barn and corn bin off us. It felt great.  The next day we went to the Mississippi River Museum in Dubuque, Iowa after we dropped the girls off at their class.  They had great exhibits on saltwater fish and oceans as well as the Mississippi River fish.

Ephraim got to feed stingrays. It was a really unique experience. He  got very wet, and did not particularly appreicate the salty water dripping down his face.

They had an amazing touch pool, with sea anenomes, cucumbers and star fish. It was as good as an aquarium as we saw at the Oregon coast.

  My favorite spot though, was the topographic map activity tub.  It was a tub full of rubber chips, with a light and projector haning over the top. It had a sensor on it, so it could color the tub different colors based on the height from the lamp.  It oculd also create "rain" if you held your hand out for 10 seconds, blocking the light (like a cloud over the terrain).  Then the "water" would run down the landscape you had just scuplted. You could dig channels, and make mountains or volcanoes. We played there together for almost an hour.  It felt good to play like a kid again, and be part of Ephraim's creative world.

It was a lot of work, keeping Ephraim busy, but not overwhelmed, for a couple of hot and humid summer days.  But we did have fun.  Fiona, the wolf pup, started her modeling career on this trip:

Ephraim got a kick out of making her look like she was in a National Geographic movie. We both agree that stuffed animals are much easier to pose for pictures than chickens.

Another of my favorite times was Friday night, when we were waiting for the girls to call us to pick them up. It was late, after 9pm, and Ephraim was in his pajamas, playing cards with me on the bed. We were snacking on a bowl of cheetohs and poptarts. It felt like such a good life.

     The final morning was pretty idyllic as well. We were waiting for the final morning of classes to begin, and had some extra time.  I sat in the rocking chair, reading in the cabin. We had the front door open to let in the fresh cool morning air. The sunshine made the wooden floor glow. Sylvia sat on the bed, fiddle under her arm, plucking a tune she was working on learning, while Laura sat on the couch, knitting.   You could hear the birds outside.  It was as if we were living out a scene from a "Little House on the Prairie" book.