For My Dad

Here you go Dad, Mr. Jim mowing!

Just what he needed and was sweating like a pig because it was hot here tonight.

(And CMW loved every minute of it.)

Mystery Poop

Jim: 'Lexie, We need to find the mystery poop!'

Lexie: 'What?'

J: 'CMW had poop on her and I can't find it the rest and it isn't in her diaper.'

L:'Oh, this should be interesting, thinking to myself.'

CMW was in her room by herself which isn't unusual, she has stuff to play with and nothing to get into that is serious. Well we saw she had no diaper on when she came out to visit us in the living room and so Jim decided to get her ready for a bath. That's when I hear him say 'I can't find the poop'. And that's when i went to investigate. I found the diaper, it didn't even look like there was poop on it so i didn't think there was any poop else where either. Well, I had to clean up the pee that was on the floor and her rug, and that's when I found it. In the process of cleaning up, I found the mystery poop. In the corner by her closet, all nice and neat, just like the picture shows. :-) I told Jim, 'I found it', oh good, he said.

A funny day at the Waa's indeed!

All about Fun

Fun at the Beach!

Reading books in her 'favorite corner'
Mudpuddle fun!

Playing in the dirt & watering the flowers!

Stockholm

'King and Queen' of Stockholm's 125th Anniversary.

Henry 90 yrs young & Kathryn 91 yrs young

One of Jim's favorites of the tractors. A small Farmhall!

Tabor Lutheran Church, where my great aunt Kathryn attends.

The Tabor Cemetary, we always visit the cemetary and check out the sites.

Dinner with family.

(Paula, Art, Jim, Kay, Dennis (my dad's cousins) Aunt Kathryn (my dad's aunt)

and myself with CMW.)

Jim says, this is a blade and one was used to create the ditch in our back yard, yrs ago.

Stockholm SD celebrated their 125th anniversary last weekend, the 13th and14th of June.

It was great fun!

We went for many reason but I love getting together with family and just catching up. Plus Kathryn, my great aunt loves visitors. Jim had not met some of these relatives of mine either. My parents were out for the celebration along with some cousins from Rapid City. It was a good time.

To start, Kathryn is 91 this year! She was thrilled to be the 'Queen' for the celebration and just loves visiting with friends and relatives. She still lives at home, drives her own car, mows her own lawn. I was quite impressed but she said, 'it's a self-propelled mower so it isn't a lot of work' and if she can't get it started after 2 pulls, she gets the neighbor, how about that?. She goes to church and town every Sunday to visit at the nursing home and eat out. Her sister-in-law lives next door and so they are often together. She also has many friends who are a bit younger then she is and is busy. She puts the edging on quilts for her church and she averages about 8 a month. She is just a good spirited women and I wonder what has made her live so long. She also has been a widow for some 30 yrs and never had children. I have always enjoyed this little lady and it's always good to see her well and healthy. My dad also enjoys seeing her since she is his favorite aunt!

So, both days were beautiful. The parade was fun, small town (pop. 105), and not to long. The area business participated along with area fire trucks and a 5th/6th grd band playing on a flat bed. It was good to see them out and trying. Tractors and snow queens, little Mr. and Miss. and much more. They had a quilt action and fiddler players in the afternoon. A band was playing in the evening but i didn't have enough in me to go. We crashed early, all that sun 'does me in'.

On Sunday after church and 'dinner', we visited the ag museum. They had tractors, old field equipment, switch boards for the phones that was used until 1993, tools, cars, postal equipment and everything in between.

I love Stockholm, it's small, very Swedish, lots of history, family, family, family everywhere. You trust about everyone, there is a small Restaurant (soon to be B&B) and a post office with a library hub from Milbank SD and best of all Aunt Kathryn will be there when I visit.

Shoes & Smoothies

To start, the shoes... My good friend Sonja is going to start a tradition with CMW. Her birthday is Dec. 6th and in Germany this day has something to do with shoes. You put your shoes out by the door and they get filled with candy. It seems similar to our May Day traditions here, sort of. So, here are her shoes, Pink Baby Puma tennies. They are adorable but won't be worn long, her feet are growing and now we know, that Puma's need to be bought large or they won't fit. Next, we have the smoothie episode of the day. If you look close she had her smoothie from the bottom of her nose to the bottom of her chin and on both sides of her cheeks. Kind of like very large clown smile. Here's how it happened, I needed to walk out of the kitchen for about a minute or two thinking she would okay with using the straw. Well she had different ideas about her drink. So it ended up in her bib (next pic) and all over her face. Now isn't she just a beauty? I love this girl and this is one more way to make me smile!!

(Look closly in the bib pocket, lots of yummy smoothie & this is a better shot of where that smoothie is on her face. :-))

Park Play

A little fun at the park it was ! This was a couple of weeks ago (may 29th) and I remembered I had these images to show.

Paula and I met up for one last park play before there wasn't time to get it in. The girls had a great time playing on the play stuff. They even went down the slides one by one.

We had lunch and a short walk too, through Lindenwood Park. It was a great day for a picnic and good time with friends!

Cambrie and CMW looking out the window.

Not Goodbye, its 'See you Soon'

My good friend Paula and her family are moving away from the FM area. They left yesterday with their U-haul and house empty for their new chapter of their life. Her husband has been working at his new job since February and the move is now official. I helped plan a small moving/goodbye party for them and it was great. We had lunch and then started loading the truck and cleaning and chatting and reminiscing. Before we departed, we prayed for our friends who are leaving to have a great new chapter of their lives, to start well, to find a new church, friends and to know God is by their side. I'm certainly going to miss Paula and Cambrie (Jon too). Cambrie and CMW's were pretty good play mates from the time their were born. Paula and I, we went through our pregnancies together, Tuesday morning bible studies, we made lunch dates, mall dates, park dates, pool dates, and walked many miles together. And it all started by making the connection in the young couples bible study that I once met her when I lived with her sister during college. She certainly helped me get though those early stages of infancy with Claire and gave me much support as time went. I even remembered they first time she told me her husband was looking for jobs out of this area, my heart sank, I did not want to know about the possibility of her leaving. But it is here and it's okay and now we'll have fewer dates but a phone call is just a push of the speed dial away. I'll miss you Paula but I know you'll be back for visits and I'll being visiting too! It's not a 'goodbye', it's a 'see you soon'.

Friends

This week has been a week of gathering with new friends and old friends, friends leaving and friends coming. I have enjoyed all this time I've had to take to spend with our friends.

To start my week, my friend Christina came out to visit and for dinner. It had been way to long and I don't think this time would of been planned if we didn't randomly run into each other in downtown Fargo. How often am I downtown? Not often, so it was meant to be. We had a great time catching up and Stina is going to paint on the door that exits out to the garage. She is an artist and an art teaching to middle/high school students. I am so excited, Jim, well he's thinking about it. This was the kick off of my week. On Tuesday I got to visit and study with my bible study ladies for a few hours. It was wonderful.

Thursday was my busy day, lots of friends to meet with and catch up. Miss Amy and I haven't been in touch very well, she's a first year teacher and a busy one at that. She works for a private school and is the only 5th grade teacher. But she did wonderful and is excited for the next school year. Amy and I had a great time together and we're planning more meets in the future. They also have a new puppy which CMW loved. Then for lunch (a nice warm, picnic lunch at the park), Jim and I met with some good friends who both have just gotten back to the area. It was so great and enjoyable to have this small time of fellowship with them. The Castagna's have come back from missions training in Canada with New Tribes Missions and our friends the Emches have come back from Dallas where they were taking graduate classes. The Emches are leaving the middle of this month to head to Indonesia where they will be participating in more language training and missions with Wycliffe. The Castagna's are back in Fargo for the year, getting ready to head to the Philippines.

The time spent with our friends was so joyful for me. It is just exciting for me to have good friends who are called to serve our Lord overseas and for them to listen to the call and go. Paul and Matt are both great and unique men for Jim to have as friends and he's excited (as I am) to be prayer warriors for them. He will always be excited for when they come back and the fun time can begin once again. Krisanne, I never thought our friendship would be so strong and I'm certainly going to miss you but I know you'll be back. Erin and I get to begin our friendship once again, with being back in Fargo and staying home, I look forward to our play dates with Alaena and the newest addition to your family coming in August.

What a week of great fellowship with friends. I look forward to summer and to do this more often with lots of other friends too.

Yeah for Scrapbooking

To start, Valerie, a good friend of mine who watches out for me, encouraged me to take time for myself. To take a weekend away from my family to recover and do something I want to do and we did just that. We found a spot to do some scrapbooking. 

I pulled some strings with my piano teacher back home in Pequot and asked to use their 'cabin' for the weekend. It's a house and newly built two years ago after a fire burned down their first one. It was so nice. We of coursed scrapbooked and enjoyed each others company. We had nice beds to sleep in, warm fireplace to sit in front of and talk for hours. It was pretty good weather,very clean, and lots of green trees and landscape to be surrounded by. We got up when we wanted to, we went running and walked to lunch, we had a delicious dinner of asparagus, chicken and rice. And we talked, talked and talked some more.  

I chose to worked on my wedding album after almost 2 3/4 years of not having it done.  I was not prepared as much as I thought but I did get about half done. I didn't even bring a scissors or paper cutter with me, what was I thinking? But I'm lucky that I have a good memory and remembered lots of other photos that I will be putting in.  I took lots of notes to take home to order more photos and add other ideas to the book. I'm impressed so far with my work. Now I hope I will make more time to get it done or just maybe another weekend away. 

Valerie on the other hand, was working digitally on her scrapbook. And I would have to say that it's pretty cool! And it does not take out the creative-ness of scrapbooking. She enjoyed herself as well and loved being away from the ND landscape. 

Our weekend was wonderful, full of rejuvenation and great fellowship.  And we'll be planning on one again soon.