August has gone by so quickly! We spent the first part of the month finishing the clean up from the July storm project, trying to finish up some of the other random projects we started and enjoying outside time. Gus and Maarit have enjoyed catching frogs this summer and Gus was thrilled with this big guy he found. He carried this frog around for ages and fully inspected all his pieces. I don't think this frog will ever be the same!
Gus dancing with his frog friend!
Fully froggy inspection:
We travelled to Stillwater area to visit Uncle Bubs and Shanna before the Senn family reunion in Austin, Mn. Gus and Maarit loved the pool at Auntie and Uncles, but Gus was a bit dangerous! He loved to run and jump into the water and so we were pretty nervous with him around the water. He is not afraid of anything!
We had a lovely trip to the Minnesota Zoo with Shanna and Bubs. Gus and Maarit both enjoyed watching all the animals.
The grizzly bears were very active swimming and wrestling that day. We even got to see one of the bears getting trained at the window. It was amazing!
Camel rides were lots of fun!
Gus discussing goat farming with a random little boy his size at the petting zoo.
In Austin we enjoyed some catch up time with Uncle Ryan's family from South Dakota and visiting the nature center. Maarit was thrilled with this fox snake and held him for quite a while.
We went for a walk and visited the wildflowers.
While Gus and Daddy napped Maarit and I visited the Spam Museum with the rest of the family!
Maarit liked canning her own spam!
And of course she loved the rides at the Mower County fair. She wanted to go on some roller-coaster of death which hung you upside down and zipped around in circles, but mom and dad said she was a little too small. Good thing Auntie likes rides, I don't know what we would do because neither of us can handle those spinning, whipping around rides. I am not sure where she gets it from, but she loves fair rides.
Reunion pictures:
Cousins! Maarit had a lot of fun playing with Braeden and Will. Gus and Margo played, but when Margo chased him he was not happy. We discovered that Gus is fearless in all things, except when a little girl chases him--then he is terrified.
These pictures crack me up. We were eating dinner and somehow Gus got naked and then decided to crawl up on the table and attack Daddy. He was so proud of himself too.
We have been finishing up projects and waiting for the new garage to be built as the summer comes to a close. Hard to believe that Justin and I are back to school again tomorrow! Our summer has been relaxing and so I am really impressed at how many house projects we have actually gotten done with out much stress or mess (kitchen cupboards painted, deck finished and painted, asphalt removed, mound built, trees planted, gardens moved, storm damage cleaned up, shed torn down, play-set built, trampoline removed from trees and new one put together-this time chained down-, bedroom furniture painted and organized and lots more) We did awesome considering all the help we had from our little ones. In between all of the projects we got to spend quality time with friends and family and begin to really settle into our home. It feels more like home now that we have made many changes to make it our own and because we have had friends and family come to spend time with us here.
Gus has grown up so much this summer. He now repeats most words that he hears and his communication is getting better every day. The other day we were at Lucy's birthday party and sang Happy Birthday (he loved it!) and the next morning I caught him singing "Appy daaaay doo doo" So sweet. He has loved playing any kind of ball in the yard this summer and his hand-eye, foot-eye and just any kind of coordination impresses us! He is so very athletic it is fun to watch him run around and play. He has enjoyed all the frogs and the birds, especially the loons. Whenever he hears them he calls back. As long as he can be outside, he is happy.
Maarit has loved gardening and now harvesting from the garden. She learned to swim pretty well this summer, going from refusing to put her face near the water to fully diving under and loving it (hooray YMCA swimming lessons) and although she still refuses to ride a two wheel bike (not sure why, but she just will not do it) we are proud that she mastered one of what we think of as 'big' skills for safety, especially since we now live near a lake. Maarit has been looking forward to starting back to school all summer and she will really appreciate a return to more structure and routine. She thrives on her school schedule and she loves to learn. We had such fun shopping for her 1st grade school supplies. I think she will go to 1st grade missing her two front teeth, one fell out last week and the other is hanging on by a thread.
Happy End of Summer!
No comments:
Post a Comment