Robots, Cousins, Sunshine, Rain

The latest favorite past time is being robots. Bucket on head=robot. We chase each other around and do robot dances. It's pretty awesome.

Pleasant Lake was overwhelmed with the visit of (from L to R) Hanna, Ella, Ezra, Connor, and Isaac. They swam, swam, swam and watched local favorites Mamma Mia and Cottage Cheese.
Bread Man is a hero among this crowd.

Sparkly water tube time with Grandma.

Crackers at Itasca State Park Beach. We saw a snapping turtle and a crawfish! They're doing some construction on the building site, to explain the orange fence. Ezra's sunglasses collection is growing!

Thanks for the underdog, Grandpa!

In his swimsuit, with his umbrella, in the rain, eagerly awaiting the sun.

Je suis fatigue

I am too tired to write very much. My eyes are blurring. Ezra didn't nap today and I had quizzes, comments, responses, pod casts, and readings to do when the clock finally struck 11 pm.

Do you know what I seriously just heard? Ezra.

O'well I can't really remember what I was going to say.

Happy Birthday Marla!

And happy summer to the rest of y'all! Our dear friend Marlita came to visit us last week, and we had some good times let me tell you. Swimmin, boat rides, the works! We even got ourselves some tattoos! Mother is thoroughly disturbed, but Marla and I have been talking about doing it for at least a decade so we decided to just do it. Marla got a darling little patch of grass on her arm (that's right: grass, the tattoo artist said it was the weirdest tattoo he had ever done, imagine that?) and I got some pine trees on my back inspired by this painting. I think it turned out well, and as I am currently living among pine trees, received the tattoo in Pine River, and really enjoy pine nuts, it seemed only logical.

Ezra in the tunnel at the park in town. The white residue on his face is from a candy necklace we got him. It never did make it around his neck.

I thought the eggplant parmesan was delicious, but apparently there was something about it that didn't sit well with Ezra.

I am proud to share that I made this little green and white striped tank top for Ezra, as well as one for myself.

Remember that super fast speed boat I mentioned? Marla was put to the test as well, and captured my concern. On the way home their dog fell off the front of the boat into the water, and then the boat went over his body. I thought for sure the motor had shredded the spaniel, but Casper emerged unscathed, soaked, and somewhat oblivious to what had just happened. (I later learned this wasn't the first time he'd tumbled in.)

On calmer shores, enjoying the lovely sunset.

Did I really get no pictures of Ezra and Marla together?????
Shame shame know your name.

We hope you have a great birthday today Marla! Thanks for making the long haul to spend some time with us, and we'll see you in a month!

Adventure Seeking

I haven't been posting as much lately because if I did the pictures would all pretty much look like these. Boating, boating, boating! Although the neighbors have been inviting Ezra on their super fast boat lately, but I'm too busy holding on for dear life to take a picture. Yes, they invite Ezra and I think "Could I let him go with them alone?" and I try to entertain the thought but quickly realize that no, I am not quite ready for that. I would be SUCH a wreck the whole time he was gone, and I already have enough grey hair sprouting.

By the way, the neighbors are 7 and 3, with one other adult in the boat who is driving. So it would be 3 kids, one adult, and one torpedo boat speeding along at 50 miles per hour. No bueno! It's amazing how much smaller the lake seems when flying around at this speed. With the pontoon we rarely putt out of the little part by our house, but with the speedster the whole lake is gone in moments. My stomach churns with the guilt of this excessive waste of gas much less the disturbance to wildlife. We need neighbors with a canoe.

On a happier and less disturbing note, Ezra attended the Kids' Fishing Contest here in Hackensack this morning. His rod didn't even have a hook on it, much less bait, but he seemed content to dip his bobber in the water and watch the other kids catch Sunnies and Northerns. Then this little know-it-all professional fishergirl had to butt in and insist Ezra have a hook and worm. She tore a worm in half and laced his body with the hook. I swallowed hard and informed her that in the case that he should catch something she would have to remove it. She agreed, and his true fishing began. Luckily, he didn't catch anything. A clever little Bass snuck the worm off the hook (we could see him not far from the shore), and then we quickly made our way to the minnow races so I didn't end up lacing any worms myself. (I'm not squimish about much, but I do not like piercing worms bodies with hooks, nor removing hooks from fish.)

No, we didn't catch a fish, but we did catch a hot dog.

We also caught a spelling error in the nearby general store.

Here's a little video of Ezra hanging out with the neighbor girl, Tea (pronounced "Tay-ah"). They made this little club house and then read some books together. She really likes Ezra, surprise surprise, and he really likes her.

What have I been doing with my two weeks off from school? Reading "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" and sleeping so much that I am having a hard time distinguishing between real life and my dreams. Marla comes tomorrow, so I'll get some fun in yet!

What a Weekend!

This past weekend Ezra and I ventured to Bemidji, a special place for a number of reasons. Most notable, it is the birthplace of Paul Bunyan. Now I don't want to hear any arguments about this, in the museum near these statues there are a number of Paul's personal belongings, including his finger nail clippings, sealing the deal that this is his rightful birth place (take that Brainerd!). Also, Babe the blue ox is so blue it's almost too blue, it's breathtaking blue, it's authentic blue.

Another great thing in Bemidji is this old train ride that yours truly remembers riding when she was as wee as little Ez. The other rides that used to delight are all gone (insurance reasons I hear) but this little choo choo will still take you on a lovely trip along Lake Bemidji for $1.50. You know who was ecstatic, although as usual I didn't capture his enthusiasm on film.

The awesomest part of Bemidji for this visit was seeing our old pal Max and his gal Tracy. They let us camp out in their back yard under a big, shady tree. Max took Ezra out on his skateboard, which was even more overwhelmingly exciting than the train. I captured a little bit of this fun in the following video, although it does not show his beaming face sadly, but you get the idea:

Another fun thing about Max is that he has cool stuff! Bongos, devil sticks, skateboards, but guess what they ended up playing with?

An empty beer box. Ezra started this by putting it on his head and pronouncing that he was a robot. I found this pretty hilarious and took the following short video:

The night that we spent in the tent in the backyard was magical. There was some thunder and lightning, along with a light rain. Ezra was a little scared at first, but with me going on and on about how cool it was he caught on pretty quick. We stayed dry and woke up the next morning feeling fine.

Then it was off to Grandpa's house! We had received word that there was going to be some music at Itasca State Park (very close to Gramp's) later that afternoon, so after a nice nap we headed over to enjoy hot dogs and a symphony under the pines. Here's a little glimpse of the pleasentness:

Last night I didn't sleep well at all because there was a stupid mosquito in our room that kept biting Ezra that I couldn't manage to get rid of until like 3 am, so we spent today napping for the most part. I finished my last final last night so I can do that now! For the next two weeks actually- yip yip yippee! Anyhow, we did get out a little in the afternoon, and here's Ezra playing with Nate who was in sore shape too because he had his first football training last night. Sorry Nate, but now the whole world knows your butt hurts! (Listen close, you'll hear.) Hardy har har. I really like how Ezra throws the baseball, notice his full body wind up. I think the leg motions he must be getting from the occassional Twins game we watch.

To continue attempts to embarrass Uncle Nate, here's a short clip from a few weeks ago showcasing his saxophone skillz:

What a guy! More from the relaxing weeks of break soon..

Memorial Day Weekend Review

All photos taken by Molly.