Life around here is busy busy! The spring semester just ended and now we're deep into getting our lives organized for next year. We're headed to Oxford, UK toward the end of August to spend our sabbatical time there so a lot of things have happened (and will have to happen) around here in the next couple of months:
daycare for Elliot in Oxford - check
renters for our house/kitty sitters - check
UK visas - check
Kindergarten screening for Owen - check
Register Owen for school in UK - working on it
Finding a flat in UK - working on it
Getting plane tickets - working on it
Fixing up all those little house projects that never seem important enough to actually devote time to until you realize you'll have other people living here and those should really get done - working on it
Packing up a house for basement storage - ugh, not mentally prepared yet to work on it
Packing up to leave - future
plus a whole host of other small things to take care of...
Mix some vacation time into that list and we have a full summer ahead of us!
Despite all this, we still have time for family fun of course! This is why all those little house projects remain unfinished...I deem my priorities to be in an appropriate order.
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| Flax likes to be in on the train action too |
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| sporting the latest spring fashion |
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| yes, rainboots are just filling with water |
El started sleeping in the big bed about 3 weeks ago. He took to it right away and hasn't looked back since! Quite the difference from his big brother who had to be coaxed into it over the course of about 2 weeks. But like O, he also is amazing at just staying in bed. Even in the morning when he wakes up, he'll reach over to the side table, grab some books, and just sit and read or play with his stuffed animals until we come downstairs...it's awesome. El and O have shared a couple of nights - we thought it would be good practice for Oxford when they'll be sharing a room, but they have trouble actually falling asleep together (turns out bedtime makes for fun playtime when your buddy is around), so to ensure everybody is getting enough sleep, O has gone back to his own room for now.
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| O apparently doesn't mind having feet in his face... |
Now that classes are over, I have the luxury of doing things like midweek picnics at the lake with these guys!
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| "plane!" said through a mouthful of graham cracker |
We did our first camping trip of the season this past weekend. We went north to St. Croix State Park (a 1.5 hour trip that took us 5.5 hours on account of getting everything all packed up and pop up trailer hitched to the car only to discover the electrical connector was no good anymore...so 4 hours, 1 regular mechanic and 2 u-haul locations later we were finally on the road with working trailer lights). The weekend was great, we managed to keep it tick and poison ivy free (which I view as quite the accomplishment considering the plethora of both around these parts)
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| daisy chain construction helmet - and looking so angelic - so deceiving! |
In Minnesota all kids need to go through an Early Childhood Screening to make sure they are ready for kindergarten. This has to be done prior to any kindergarten registration. Owen had his screening on Tuesday (and did great! He had to get more than 27 on the "test" and he got 46!), which means we are all set to register him for school come Feb '17 when the deadline comes around.
Following this, we had a nice afternoon at the garden store choosing some plants to fill in our gardens (pic below).
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| Superman and Rubble from Paw Patrol - it was just a rescue kind of day! |
These guys both love to read!!
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| reading about "dinosnores" as Owen calls them (to Dave's delight I might add) |
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| a little blurry, but so perfectly captures Owen's happy squeal |
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| We found what appeared to be a fairly freshly hatched, and beautiful, butterfly in the garden yesterday. El wasn't too sure about having it on him though... |
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| tortilla making at day care...put those kids to work for their lunch! ha! |
