A Flower Girl

Our niece Megan got married on August 2. She asked Sadie to be the flower girl and Sadie was beside herself with excitement. She was so excited that even Eli was jealous of her. Luckily, Megan asked Eli to help pass out programs so he felt included in the wedding as well. It was a beautiful day all around. Megan and Andrew are very uncomplicated people who just wanted to be married. The wedding was simple and tasteful. Their love for each other is so genuine and sweet. They have surrounded themselves with some wonderful friends who were so happy for them. It was really beautiful and I was so happy to be apart of that.

All day Sadie referred to Megan as "the bride".

Megan, Sadie and Andrew

The wedding party.

Sadie was disappointed that she couldn't throw petals, but she did a good job helping Joey!

The wedding dinner and dance was a blast. The DJs name was Marv and you know that any DJ named Marv has got to Rock. Everyone was dancing and having a good time. Eli lost a tooth during the meal and looked like he had gotten into a brawl with all of the blood that it produced not to mention that he got it all over his vest and pants! Sadie unfortunately was tuckered out after a busy day of being "on" and looking pretty and trying not to be nervous (and do her usual nervous "puppy paws" as we call them) that we left around 10:30.
On the way home Sadie said, "I'm so sad that today is over. Now, I don't have anything to look forward to."

Grandma and Grandpa with some of their grandkids!

Cousins!

I have beautiful nieces!

Mission attack Tony... It's hard to tell who's enjoying this more Tony? or the boys?

Indentical Cousins II

I love when history repeats itself, or I see my kids enjoying the same people that I enjoy. Or when they get to experience fun times with family that I experienced and remember so fondly. Many of my fondest memories happened at my grandma's house in Minot spending time with my cousins. Robyn, Brenda, Darren and I had so much fun together. We ruled the sidewalks on our Big Wheels, raised havoc in the basement, and just laughed and laughed. Brenda and I even lived together in college and have some stories that we'd rather not share. We knew all the free places to get food each day of the week and drank a lot of beer! Hockey games every Friday and Saturday were a must and we still laugh over stories of crazy Mary. Somewhere along the line we started calling ourselves "identical cousins" from the Patty Duke Show.

A blast from the past: Darren, Sharleen, Brenda, Tess and Robyn at Grandma Zs.

This past week we were in Bismarck for a wedding so I called up Brenda to see if we could stay with her family. The kids all just hung out at my cousin Carl's wedding so they were excited to see each other again. We had some free time in the morning before the wedding so we went to Fort Lincoln State Park and toured all of the different houses! They also terrorized the neighborhood on their bikes, chased down the ice cream truck, Rya and Eli both lost a tooth on the same night, and giggled in bed at night before going to sleep.

Hanging out with the CCC: Sadie, Eli, Josh and Rya

Take a look at these identical cousins 30 (eek!) years ago!

Ahhh, history repeating itself: Identical Cousins II.

P.S. More pictures of Sadie being a flower girl are coming up next!

Glacier National Park

Our decision to go to Glacier was sort of last minute, so Dennis didn't have a lot of time off. It ended up working out great considering we wouldn't have a car. We brought all of our camping gear along and camped at the Apgar Campground located on the western edge of Glacier NP, near West Glacier. It was only a 1/2 mile to the shuttle that took us across the park and Apgar Village where we could eat and shop for souvenirs and across the road from Lake McDonald. It ended up working out quite well.
The first day we took the shuttle on the "going to the sun road" up to Logan's pass which is snow covered all year. The kids had a good time throwing snowballs, but whined about their cold toes!

Glacier is full of gorgeous waterfalls. The water is freezing, but considering the temps were in the 90s the water was a relief!

The second day we went whitewater rafting on the middle fork of the Flathead River. The kids had a choice of the whitewater trip or a float trip and they chose the whitewater! It was a fun trip, the kids loved going through the rapids and getting splashed and by splashed I mean soaked. Again, the water was 38 degrees, but it was a steaming hot day so the water felt good. Sorry no other pictures besides this one as I didn't bring my camera on the raft.

When we got back from the trip we spent the rest of the day skipping stones and swimming on Lake McDonald. The water was warmer than the river but still cold! However, we all jumped in to cool off.

The last day we were in Glacier we went hiking to some waterfalls. The kids were troopers and had fun climbing rocks, skipping stones and playing in the water. There was a man making a Glacier video to put on youtube and he wanted to video tape us hiking. The kids thought that was pretty awesome!

As for animals, we  saw these big horn sheep. Sadie really wanted to see a mountain goat and claims she saw one. We are just going to let her believe that. There were plenty of butterflies enjoying the wild flowers that were in abundance. No grizzlies, thank god!

We got back into Williston at 7pm on the 4th of July and had to drive the 8 hours home that night because Dennis had to work in the morning. It was a long night, but awesome at the same time. We watched fireworks across the plains for 3 hours which was truly a sight. We managed to not hit the raccoon, deer, fox and owl that we saw on the road, but got the skunk! And we killed about a gazillion bugs. The kids loved the whitewater rafting and the fireworks the best and the train ride wasn't that bad either.

A Train Trip

One day I was thinking about how fast time goes and that Dennis and I have about 8 more summers with the kids before they have jobs and sports and don't want to go with us anywhere anymore. Considering that we only take 1 big vacation a year, well, you can do the math. Dennis and I decided we needed to write up a family vacation bucketlist. One of the things that made the list was "taking the train somewhere" and another item on the list was "Glacier National Park". We got to cross two things off of our bucketlist!! Woot for checking things off the list-- I love that feeling!

My cousin got married in Western North Dakota so we decided to hop on the train from there because a) it was cheaper and we were already there and b) it was only an eight hour train ride during the day.  We looked into sleeper cars and those suckers are expensive. We could have traveled by plane to a remote island in the Pacific for the price they want for sleeper cars. This way, we got the train experience with some affordability.
The train ride was great. The seats are roomy. The kids could move around freely, go to the bathroom, and play games without too much restriction. We even ate in the dining car, but we were disappointed in the quality considering the price. But, we wanted the experience... and it was a great experience.

I hear the train a'comin...

We boarded the train in Williston, ND

Ready to board!

This is called " My mom wouldn't let me bring my ipod because I had to experience the train."

Sitting in the club car enjoying the view!

Just entering the park...

"Look!"

We left Williston around 11:00am and arrived in West Glacier around 9:00pm. We had a shuttle van meet us and take us to our campground. I'll tell you more about the vacation later.... Stay tuned.

French Camp

Sadie went to French Day Camp at Concordia Language Village. They do all of the usual camp things: games, songs, arts and crafts, etc. only they do them all in French with the counselors only speaking in French (and lots and lots of dramatic movements and hand signs) the whole time. The counselors also only speak in French to the adults who come to pick their children up. I just smile and nod, smile and nod because I have no idea what they are saying!! Sadie says the best part of French camp was "all of it."
These pictures were taken at the end of camp at the performance. All campers in all of the villages get a wooden nametag that they wear every day. Sadie's French name was Cecile.

Why is she waving the Belgian flag? Their presentation was about francophone countries and they speak French in Belgium.

Here are some of the campers singing the "Lac du Bois" song.

Kitchen Update: Before and After

For the last 4 months Dennis and I have been spending our spare time updating our kitchen--updating to make it look a little vintage-- but updating no less. We (mostly Dennis) did all of the work ourselves, with the exception of the quartz countertop. Dennis is quite the handyman. Who knew he could do plumbing, electrical work, install flooring and a backsplash and rebuild cabinets. With the help of youtube and a can-do attitude we accomplished it all!! Here's what we did. The before:

 

Drumroll please... And the after:

I'm so happy with it I can't even begin to tell you how much I love it. Let me give you a run down of the work we, ahem, he did and I assisted with.

First we painted all of the cabinets white, which was probably the biggest pain of the whole project and the part that Dennis reluctantly agreed to. Then, we added all new hardware and took out several of the wood faces of the cabinets and added glass fronts. It's hard to tell, but the insides of the glass cabinets were painted gray. We also added a small molding piece to the tops of the cabinets. I can't tell you how long I've waited for that little piece of molding. It automatically made the kitchen look a thousand times better! I painted the walls a yellowish white color (I think it's called Canvas). We changed out all of the lighting and added 4 more lights above the windows. Dennis must really love me, because he agreed to let me spray paint my new lights black! I had all sorts of crazy ideas, I tell you.

The next, obvious difference is that we moved the sink to where it should have been installed from the very beginning. Now I have a work place where it should be and I no longer cram my work into a small corner between the sink and the stove. Moving the sink involved making new drawers and moving around some cabinets. We installed butcher block counter top on the back counter and black quartz silestone on the rest of the cabinets. The quartz is the only thing that we hired out for and let me tell you, it's the part of the project that took the longest!! In between the installation of the two countertops we put in new cork flooring. This was another thing that I had to do some persuasion on, but it looks and feels great!

Finally, we added the subway tile backsplash with the charcoal grout and added new black switch plates. Oh, and Dennis made and installed a new cabinet/bookshelf/wine rack above the fridge. The original cabinetry had been torn out by the previous owner in order to fit the larger fridge but had never been reinstalled. You can see that in the first picture.
Considering I spend about 75% of my home waking hours in the kitchen, I'm thrilled with how much our hard work paid off. Dennis thinks it's too black and white, but that is exactly what I love about it. From his reaction, you can tell that this was a labor of love for him and he agreed to most of the changes without too much debate.

Spring Piano Recital

I can't believe the kids have been in piano for almost 2 years already. Getting them to practice is always challenging and I'm often wondering why I have them in piano lessons. It is a skill I do believe they'll thank me for one day, right? I hope so. Learning new pieces, practicing a gazillion times until it's perfect, performing in front of an audience is a good for them on so many levels. It's probably more nerve racking for me at the recital than for them. In both of their songs, they both make errors on songs that they've played perfectly a million times. It just goes to show how challenging calming those nerves can be sometimes!!

A New Belt

Eli started Tae Kwon Do in March. He had his first belt test last night and broke his first board. He was pretty excited to get his orange belt but was so nervous during the test. He almost forgot how old he is but rocked the rest of the test!

Schoolcraft's Spring Concert

Schoolcraft held it's spring concert last week. Each class sings several French songs and a song based on their expeditions theme. Here are the highlights:

A Celebration of Learning: Sadie's Bird Expedition

Sadie's class has a pet bird. He's a budgie named Speed-e and the kindercrew spent the semester learning about Speed-e and "What Makes a Bird a Bird?" (Feathers...that's what makes a bird a bird, in case you didn't know.) On their expedition they learned: about beaks, feet, feathers, bird adaptations, nests, bird identification, and more. Because of this expedition Sadie has become an avid bird watcher and can identify more birds than me!

In art, they made wings and masks.

Owl pellets.

Nest building

Feather identification

Bird watching, identification and graphing

Creating a bird.