Around the house

Here are some super important things from the last month or so:

Danny and the kids caught an alligator lizard up at the family cabin and we brought it home to SD. The kids love catching bugs for it and watching it attack and eat them... (Well, Danny and Isaiah love it the most). It will eat nearly anything alive which is the right size - Danny has even gotten him to eat food out of his hands.


The kids had fun making these little flags to decorate for the 4th of July. We went out to a church picnic in the afternoon on the 4th, but missed the fireworks because we weren't willing to let the kids stay up until 10:30 to see them. Cranky kids all of the next day just so they can see some colored sparks in the air? Call us bad parents, but no way, Jose.

The kids each sporting their Red, White and Blue:

I promise Isaiah's hair doesn't look like this in public. Usually. His muscles, though, are always this big.

Naomi found this food idea in a book we were reading from the library, so we tried it one morning. Toast, jam, and raisins in the shape of pigs:

Here's the whole lot of them:

Joel is really starting to wake up from newborn-hood. It's so rewarding to coax smiles and occasional giggles from him.

Isaiah quotes:

[Laurie is looking at Isaiah's craft from church about Jesus ascending to heaven]

Isaiah: "That's Jesus with his hands up."

Laurie: "Why are his hands up?"

Isaiah: "So he won't hit his head on the clouds. That would hurt."

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Isaiah: "Dad, you're a SO-good dad, and...I'm getting used to you."

Danny: "What does that mean?"
Isaiah: [thoughtful pause] "It means I kinda like you."

Cabin 2009

Around the end of June we spent a week at our family cabin at Hume Lake. This involved a lot of firsts for us: the first time with just us (i.e., just the six of us! - usually Laurie's sister and her family join us), the first time we had to plan all of the meals ourselves, and first time we didn't bring our espresso maker (we're such compromisers!), among others. We had a great time, though. Lots of day hikes, a bit of frisbee golf in the pines, some relaxing time on the deck, BBQ'ing almost every night, cruising around like royalty in the golf cart, and of course corn dogs and milkshakes down at the snack shack.

Danny has an annual tradition of doing a few cabin-improvement projects. This year he and the kids removed a stump, installed a small stone revetment wall along the driveway, and did a good deal of general tidying up. Here he is terracing a level walking path around part of the deck. Little work, big improvement. Jordan is helping with some of the heavy lifting.


One of the favorite activities of all younger kids at the cabin is quality time spent in the dirt. Here, Jordan is involved in some type of dirt reallocation project. At one point, the dirt was reallocated scoop after powdery scoop into her happy mouth.

Prepare yourselves for this: here's Isaiah, a day after he took a spider bite (at least we think that's what it was) to the upper eyelid/brow region. It was really disturbing to look at him for a day or so, but the swelling just went away on its own.

Grandma and Grandpa Frese came to visit us for a day while we were there. Grandma was pretty excited about extracting some happiness from Joel:

Another of Danny's annual traditions at the cabin is trying - and failing - to make fire using the bow/drill method. As in, you start with a pocket knife and a shoelace, you carve some pieces of wood, and make one piece spin against another fast and hard enough to produce a smoldering pile of dust, which you then use to start a fire. Danny thought this was his year, since he learned that Cedar is the only type of wood in the area that will work for this. He had a few nice tries - lots of smoke - but again failed. Danny swears that this is one of the most extraordinarily difficult (and frustrating) things one can ever attempt. The event involved Laurie's encouragement (with a twinkle in her eye that was pure mockery) and videotaping.

Getting ready (with an audience):

Smoke. No spark.

Consolation was found with some hammock time. Ahhhh...

All of our time at Hume, of course, was scheduled around the demands of this little human: