Things I should have posted a week ago…

Early last week the girls were playing so nicely together.  I was vacuuming and the girls went off to their room.  A few minutes after I walked past their room; I didn’t see them because they were in their closet with the door closed.  Knowing that there wasn’t much they could hurt, I left them to whatever they were doing.  A while later they came downstairs in dresses with their dolls (also in kid size dresses) and strollers.  They were playing store, and the closet in their room was the clothing store.  Bria had changed both her and Bentley’s clothes.  According to Bria, the basement was the grocery store, and when I served lunch that was the restaurant.  What a great imagination.  It was fun watching them play so well together and seeing what was going on in their imaginations.

The girls with their “new” clothes.

Friday was a really warm day.  So warm, we decided we should give the yard a little water, especially since we haven’t had much moisture this winter.  David was watering the yard, which made Bria ask if she could put on her swimsuit and run through the sprinkler.  It was definitely hot enough (upper 80’s), so the girls got their suits on and played in the water, in the middle of March!

Too bad I didn’t get their squeals on the picture as David tried to spray them.

We have had lots of fun the last week.

Warm Days

We have had some really wonderfully warm days this week, we’re talking mid-sixties to mid-seventies.  The forecast for the whole next week looks just as fantastic.  These temperatures are what I love the most.  Yes, I realize this is not ideal for farmers and ranchers, especially when there isn’t any moisture in the forecast.  That doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate and enjoy it.  After all, we can’t change it!

Monday of this week the girls played in the snow piled in the church parking lot and stomped in the water running down the gutter.

They also spent time outside on Tuesday digging in the mud.  They were seriously covered from head to toe.

Today Bria was out swinging while Bentley finishes her nap.  As soon as Bentley wakes up she will join Bria outside.

It is hard for me to believe that for a whole week in the middle of March we will have temperatures close to seventy degrees, if not over.  Crazy!

Tropical Paradise

We are now home from our vacation, which was soooo nice; I will just post a brief update about our activities.

We flew out of Minneapolis the morning of February 22nd and spent the whole day either flying or waiting in airports and arrived in Honolulu, Hawaii at 9:20 pm local time, 1:20 am central time.  Needless to say, we were exhausted and crashed in bed as soon as we got into our room.

When planning our activities, I figured a full day of travel would wear us out, so we didn’t do much our first day.  We mostly explored Waikiki Beach (which is where our hotel was), did a little driving around in the convertible in Honolulu, then went to a luau in the evening at Paradise Cove.

The view from the balcony of our hotel room.

David and I on the beach at the luau.  We learned a lot about ancient Hawaiian culture and cuisine.

The most beautiful sunset we saw was during the luau.

The next day we went to Pearl Harbor and took a city tour.  We learned a lot about the events leading up to and resulting in the attack on December 7, 1941.  We also visited several historic landmarks throughout our tour.

An anchor from the USS Arizona, weighing 10 tons.  It was huge, but in comparison to the ship, it is actually very small.

This is the National Cemetery in Punchbowl Crater (a volcano).

Day three was spent touring the southeastern portion of the island, both along the coast and through the mountain jungle.

One of hundreds of pictures of the ocean.

A view from the mountains at Pali Highway Lookout.

Our fourth day we did some hiking, a helicopter tour of the same area we had toured by bus the previous two days, and a sunset dinner cruise.  In hindsight, we should have done the helicopter tour first.  This day was quite hazy due to smoke from a volcano on another island; our view was still great, but the pictures didn’t turn out quite as well.

Diamond Head from the helicopter.  This was also the volcano crater we hiked that morning, to the tallest peak in the picture.

The ATV tour we took through the most popular movie filming area on the island was the highlight of day number five.  The ranch where everything was filmed encompasses all types of terrain as well as coast line.  We also took a jungle tour on the ranch, then drove the coast to the north shore, and continued our drive through the middle of the island and past the Dole plantation.

A picture of the jungle portion of the ranch.  The picture of the valley where the ATV tour was is on David’s phone and I haven’t had a chance to put them on the computer yet.

The Bonsai Pipeline on the north shore, the most treacherous beach on the island.  The picture doesn’t do justice to the size of the waves.

The sixth day was our final day, we spent time at several different beaches that we had visited throughout the week (I love the ocean) and drove back to the Pali Highway lookout to do some hiking that one of the locals recommended.  After a long day outside, we flew back to the mainland, about 9:40 pm (local time) and arrived back in Minneapolis at 5:00 pm the following day. 

We spent the night in the Cities and slowly made our way home later that afternoon after the weather cleared some.  We ended up staying at David’s parents that night.  Today we made it the rest of the way home.  Vacation is wonderful, but so is home.

Two Weeks Ago

We left our house two weeks ago so David could help a friend in Sioux Falls before we went on vacation.  We also spent a couple of days at David’s parents before heading out.  The girls had a great time at both grandparents, but so far I only have pictures from the first part of their trip.

Our first day at grandpa & grandma’s was spent at a children’s museum (I was there too, it was before we left).  It was so big, they only did a couple of areas; there is still more for them to explore, so they want to go back.  The largest area was the farm to market section.  Kids could pick vegetables, corn, and flowers; milk a cow and put baby pigs up to their mother; then deliver the goods to a conveyor that took them to the grocery store.  Once the items were in the store, they could go shopping at the grocery store.  This area also had items for building houses, climbing in the clouds (2-stories high), a sod house, a teepee, and a hut.  The other room that they spent the most time in had all kinds of water activities.  They could do everything except swim.

My sister also came to visit us for an afternoon at David’s parents before we left.  She doesn’t get to see the girls very often which made it a lot of fun for the kids.

They spent several more days with David’s parents where they played in the snow, visited great-grandmas, and ran various errands.  There were also other activities like dress-up and play dough, but this post is already getting quite lengthy.

After their time there, they went down to my parents where they played in the snow some more, helped serve a special lunch, played at the youth center, built forts, and I’m sure much more.  We don’t have those pictures yet since my mom quickly brought the girls back to us this afternoon.  They had to keep them for an extra day due to the weather here, which made things more complicated (as the weather can tend to do this time of year).

Crazy

David’s parents were here the end of last week to do some babysitting for us while we went out with our friend and her husband for her 30th birthday; then they continued on to the Hills for some skiing.  While they were here, they mentioned that when they came back through they would be willing to take the girls for a couple of days.  David and I will be headed that way soon, and then we'll be leaving from there for our vacation.  I wasn’t sure if that was the best idea since we would be leaving them for 8-9 days during our vacation.  After talking it over with David, and knowing that we would be with them for at least 3 days over the coming weekend, I decided it would work out all right.  Bria really wanted to go with them too. When was the decision made?  After grandpa and grandma stopped on their way through.  Talk about last minute!  That isn’t like me.  This way, I will (hopefully) feel more organized in getting things ready for our vacation.  Now I have a couple of days to straighten up the house, have it stay that way, and get everything packed without being interrupted.

Forts

It has not been that cold this winter, but it still seems like the girls have been inside a lot.  That probably isn’t actually true, even though it feels that way.  Most of the girls’ time inside results in the building of forts.  Every cushion of the couch is removed and every blanket is unfolded.

The forts never look the same, but always result in the same mess.  You would never know that they had a whole basement full of toys, because it seems like they never spend any time playing down there.  It is more fun for them to make a mess of the living room than it is to play with toys.  I must say though, they are pretty good about cleaning up the mess every day (sometimes even twice a day).

Bentley’s other favorite activity is to “make supper”.  Although she has a whole kitchen set and food toys galore, her “making supper” consists of using every magnetic item she has (letters and other magnets) as food and books as plates.  Every day, all the magnets from the door in the kitchen are scattered in the living room; as well as every book.

Needless to say, I love the days the girls can get outside and play.  I am tired of the messes, even if they are good fun for the kids.  Confession: a messy house stresses me out.  Did I mention that all the work that each girl puts into their favorite activity makes them more prone to fighting with each other when something is messed up by the other.  Second confession: I am tired of playing referee. 

Teaching your children to get along, to be kind and loving to others (especially a sibling), showing them the importance of sharing and respecting each others’ hard work, and not running to me over every little incident, takes a lot of work.  It makes for a very tired mommy.  Thank goodness daddy comes home every day and jumps right in to help.  What a great man!  I could never do this without him.  God knew what he was doing when he brought us together.  It is a great partnership.

Projects Completed

Throughout the fall and winter, we have slowly been completing the projects that we started this summer.  Sorry if some of these things have already been posted.  I couldn’t remember if I posted pictures or comments or both as the projects got done.

The front door is completely finished (sometime in October).  I painted it while David and the girls were gone for a few days.  David hung the screen door sometime after that.  It is so nice to have a door that doesn’t have a cold breeze coming through it when a northwest wind blows.  The door also clears the inside floor when it is opened so we can have a rug in front of it.

It is hard to tell from this picture, but the inside of the door is a dark red.

The outside of the door is a dark blue, and the screen door is cream.  The dark blue matches the shutters on the windows and the cream matches the trim (or will once the outside of the house is repainted).

This fall, we also painted our bedroom and master bathroom, except for the wall that where the window was replaced in the bathroom.  After David finished off all of the interior sheet rock and mudding, we finally painted it and hung blinds and curtains.

The wall is no longer a mixture of maroon paint and white primer.  Yeah!

A few weeks ago, I finally decided what colors I wanted to paint the kitchen and the bathroom on the main floor.  When we were in RC last week, we picked up the paint; that way, we can paint those areas whenever we have time.  The kitchen needed to be painted, especially where we replaced the window (same with the bathroom).  If we were going to paint any of these remodeled walls, the whole room would need to be painted to match the new color.  Yesterday when David woke up, he decided it was time to paint the area in the kitchen affected by the new window.

This area is actually above the basement stairs which made it difficult to paint.  Previously the wall was a medium tone tan.  Now it is a dark gray.  Unfortunately, we don’t have time to paint the rest of the kitchen; but at least we have the wall that was half primed and half painted tan covered with new gray paint.  I guess some other weekend, we will wake up and decide to tackle the rest of it.

We have not started to paint the main floor bathroom either, but it will get done some day.  At least we have the paint on hand to get them completed when we find the time.  It feels good to have fresh paint in most of the house.  The kitchen and bathroom are the only rooms in the house that we haven’t painted.