We have a budding artist in the family...

Last week Eric participated in the Ely Greenstone Public Art Camp for kids.

The three day camp ended with an art show for family and friends where he got to show off his projects.

It amazes me the amount of talent that is in our small community and how these people donate their time and effort to put on such an amazing camp for kids to explore their artistic side.

Eric's projects for the three days included: a stepping stone, a mask, fish stamp shirt, memory box, flying saucer, clay sculptures, soap stone carvings, and general paintings.

A Boy & His Dog...

Nick & Raven competed in the local Dock Dogs competition a couple of weekends ago.

The two of them took dock dog training classes in the morning and then competed in the afternoon.

Raven jumped 11.4 feet!!

Hey, Hey We're The Monkeys...

If there is a tree to climb you will find at least one of the boys in it.

Nick taking a break and watching the festivities from above.

Eric in his perch.

Ty swinging from the branch.

Two crazy monkeys playing in a tree!!

Life...

Had to share this beautiful powerpoint presentation that I got from a friend via email.


Click here: Life

Lesson for the day...

You CAN pop a bag of microwave popcorn using the auto defrost setting. It will take 17minutes and 46 seconds but comes out perfect.

The Great Duck Escape...

Ok, pretty sure that I didn't mention this, but all of the baby mallard ducks have died. They were eaten by some animal at Papa's house. But, our beloved "aflack" duck named Frankie survived and even has a battle wound on his neck to prove it.

Last week Frankie came to live with us in town for awhile until he is bigger and can defend himself out at Papa's house. The boys built a small pen in the backyard for him to hang out in during the day and at night he sleeps in a tote in our back entryway.

All has been going fine with our Frankie camping out at our house until tonight. Both Kurt and I had meetings so the boys were at a neighbor's house playing with their kids for the evening. (Thanks Jen!!) Well somehow Frankie escaped out of his pen AND out of the fenced in back yard. He was wandering around our neighborhood taking in the sights when our other neighbor, Anna found him and brought him home with her.

Anna fell in love with Frankie and the boys even brought him back for a visit later this evening. We now have an open invitation for Frankie to come over and visit Anna any time and if we ever need a "duck sitter" she's our gal.

Now, our dogs escape and take a tour of the neighborhood occasionally, but who ever heard of a duck doing that!!

And I swear that Frankie is more human than duck. In the couple of days that he has been at our house he has really made himself at home. He comes to me and Ty when we go near the pen, peeping away until we pet him. He loves to be held like a baby and get his belly rubbed. Every morning he peeps loudly until we let him outside for the day and promptly takes his morning bath before eating breakfast.

Hopefully tomorrow I will get some pictures of our escape artist so you can see just how cute our Frankie is.

Nick has left the country...

Meme and Papa invited Nick to come with them on a trip into Canada that started on Saturday. It is so weird around the house without him here. You would think that it would be easier with one less kid, but it's not.

Yesterday just before Nick left, Eric went with a friend for the day to Ironworld to see their exhibit on Animal poop. Yes, I said animal poop - you know boys and their interest in disgusting things!! That left me with just Tyler who was very upset that he wasn't going anywhere special. So Ty and I decided to play tourist around Ely. We went to the Wolf Center, but didn't get to see much there. So we decided to hit the Bear Center. We got there just at feeding time and got to see Ted (THE 1000 POUND BEAR) eat his lunch while leaning against the window right where we were standing. Now, if you remember my fishing post where I mentioned how terrified I am of bears you can imagine how fun this was for me. But, I put on a happy face for Ty and made it through our 2 hour long visit at the center. Ty loved it!! After all the attractions Ty was hungry and wanted to eat lunch on the deck of the Grand Ely Lodge so off we headed for a mommy and me lunch. It was a blast to spend the day with just Ty. It happens so rarely to get one on one time with him and he never stopped talking the entire time.

Eric came home later that evening and Kurt decided that we should bike down to Dairy Queen for ice cream. At this point it was 9pm, but what the heck right?? It's summer vacation. So we took off for the other end of town. Ty peddled his bike there and back. His little legs going as fast as they could. Very cute.

So, what's on the agenda for today??
Well since it is another nice day we are headed out to clean a cabin for my brother's business then off to play mini golf and to the beach for a picnic and playtime.

WOOOHOOOO SUMMER IS FINALLY HERE!

deer, 991 & deep thoughts...

I love having those long chats about nothing in particular with my boys. Most of the time these talks happen while they are in the bathtub - but last night I drove to Virginia to go grocery shopping and do a target run and took all three boys with me. A car trip is another time that the boys tend to chat about all of life's mysteries. Last night was no exception. Here is a list of some of the topics covered on last nights car chat:
-why do some people drive so slow
-bigfoot
-how worms dig holes in the ground when they don't have arms
-do baby ducks go to heaven? And, if they do will they be grandma ada's pets?
-why is mom afraid of bears

And the major topic of conversation was: dead deer and calling 911.
We were driving home late last night and came around a corner and there was a dead deer that someone hit laying right in the middle of the road. The car that hit it was gone. So I called 911 to let them know so that the sheriff could come out and move it off the road before there was an accident. This call started a whole new round of questioning about: calling 911, why didn't I get out and move the deer, what would the sheriff do if the deer was still alive but couldn't move, if we hit the deer would we take it home and eat it, did I think the deer is in heaven with the baby ducks, if the deer was with the ducks in heaven would grandma ada keep it as a pet too? - and the list went on and on and on...

I love all these innocent questions and chats we have...

School's out, but the learning never stops...

School ended for the boys last week. I know it's summer vacation, but I still like to keep the boys into some type of school mode so they don't lose what they learned over the summer.

When Nick was in Kindergarten his teacher suggested the Summer Bridge Activities books.

I can't say enough good things about these books!! This year I got one for all three boys. Ty is always wanting to "do homework" with his brothers so he is excited to have his own book this year.

The great thing about the Summer Bridge books is that there is only one worksheet per day for the boys to do. You can do more if you want to, but I only do one a day and then the flashcards that come with the book. There are also extra life lessons in the back that you can do with the kids on different traits and skills. And, if you still want more learning they have a great parent's section on their website with additional resources.

The book is broken up into 3 months (sections). And you can choose to fill out the reward chart for each section if you want to. It's fun for the boys to complete their worksheet and reading book for the day and then check it of on the reward sheet. Once they complete the reward sheet for that section they get a prize that was decided on by me. We keep the prizes simple like lunch with mom without the brothers or things like that.

Check out their website for more info on this learning series!!

http://www.summerbridgeactivies.com/

Happy Summer Vacation!!

A word of advice...

Before calling your husband, get him out of a meeting and make him drive half-way up the trail to the minnow traps because the 3-wheeler stalled - MAKE SURE THAT YOU DIDN'T ACCIDENTALLY HIT THE KILL SWITCH TO OFF!!