Cowabunga!

Boy did we have a fun Memorial Day weekend. Dad got back from Arkansas Friday night. The weather was hot and beautiful all weekend. Mom was able to convince Dad that since we don't live near a pool we needed something for the backyard bigger than the baby pool. So after some bargain shopping, Mom was able to score the last waterslide like this one around. Zach was pretty terrified of it, but he liked shooting the water cannon at me. Mom, Dad and I all took turns going down and then the neighbors came over yesterday to help us break it in. Last night, Dad had some coworkers over for a cookout. We busted out the new fire pit, grilled out, had s'mores and stayed up super late. Dad even broke out his guitar hero moves for everyone. He's such a superstar.

Today we're just cleaning up the mess from last night and actually looking forward to a little rain to cool things off and quench our garden. Dad had to go into work for a bit, so we're just going to lay low, play some video games and rest.

Hope you had a stellar weekend!
Katherine.

Counting Down the Days...

We just can't believe I only have 3 days of school left! We're very excited for summer break to start. Although, Mom hasn't signed me up for any summer activities yet. She better get on the ball! I need to keep busy! The kiddie pool in the backyard was entertaining for the afternoon yesterday, but I think Zach and I need something bigger. I'm trying to talk Mom into one of those giant waterslides. Actually, more like Mom is trying to talk Dad into one. I think she wants it more than us!

We had a super-fun weekend in Wisconsin. We had a nice get together at Tara's house. Then we went downtown and had fun listening to the music and walking around the square. We went to the Drive In Saturday night to see Shrek 4. I really didn't want to see it, but Mom made me go. I guess she should have listened to me! The movie wasn't very good at all. But it is always fun to go to the Drive In and Zach and I were both very good. Nana had fun, too. We headed back to our hot and empty house on Saturday. Dad is in Arkansas again for the week, but just 5 days this time so it's not too bad.

Hope you are enjoying the HEAT and making the most of our early summer!

Katherine.

Word to My Mother

Today was the FIRST Mother's Day since we've been back in the States that we have not been in WI and Dad has not been farming! Yippee! Mom slept in ridiculously late. Just enough time for her to get ready to go to brunch. Brunch is yet another thing Mom has wanted to do but finally got to. Unfortunately, all the posh places were booked up, so we had our brunch at a Sports Bar, but it was actually really good with lots of choices for us kids. After Brunch, we played outside and Mom worked with me on some bead projects, we read a book and practiced my baseball swinging and catching outside. Dad took us swimming for a bit so Mom could have some R&R and catch up on laundry, uninterrupted. Mom would say it has been a great day. I agree. I made her a little, painted, wooden jewelry box at school filled with little memories. Here are a few:

My Mom is special because she makes good crepes
My Mom is special because she gets me cool books from the library
My Mom is special because she takes me fun places
My Mom is special because she makes good food

Isn't that sweet? Mom was just happy finally SOMEBODY appreciates her cooking ;)

Well, time for a busy week at school and looking forward to a trip to WI next weekend. Should be fun at Tara's house as always.

Later my taters
K.

Teach 'Em Young

Working with kids is tough. Just ask me. Have you ever tried to teach a 3 year old all of the Presidents of the USA? It's tough. I was pretty proud of Zach though. He made it up to like number 4 or so, Jackson throws everyone off. Check out the video to see our good job.

So we had a pretty great week. The beautiful weather and busy plans helped keep us distracted while Dad was gone. We had dinner at some friend's house, piano lessons, going to the gym and some hillbilly lawn tractor rides to keep us occupied. Dad got back on Friday after some delays due to bad weather. His bag didn't make it, but that's ok, he did. We're happy to have him home and hoping his next trip is at least a month away. The new factory line in Arkansas is getting up and running on schedule.

Can you believe I only have 3 weeks of school left? Wow! Mom's been trying to study all the summer program books and map out my summer activity schedule. I think I'll try tennis, t-ball and maybe a day camp or two. Nothing too crazy though...gotta have time to relax and be a kid! We're really kicking the reading into high-gear at school. Our teacher had a challenge for us to read 80 minutes over 4 days last week. We do 20 minutes a night, so it wasn't a big deal, but some of the kids got a little overly competitive, which made for some hurt feelings so it was kind of a bummer. But, the good news is that everyone met the challenge and we all got to eat lunch with the teacher on Friday. This week's challenge will be for ice cream sundaes!

Tomorrow is Mother's Day. I think we're going out for brunch and then Dad will take us swimming so mom can kick her feet up for a bit. Swimming indoors of course! We're sure glad we didn't plant our tomatoes or beans yet, it's going to frost tonight here! We wish we were in Florida right now with the rest of our family. Uncle Adam graduated EOD school and we're quite proud of him. He'll be moving to Fort Bragg soon and joining a new division doing what he loves...shooting stuff and blowing stuff up.

That's all for now, time to go screw off.
K.

Worm Party

So Mom got on one of her kicks again. This time it's vermicomposting. That's a fancy way of saying that worms are supposed to eat your yard and kitchen waste, and then we collect the worm poop for our garden. Dad is convinced the whole operation is going to stink. Mom is starting to think so too. Oh well, it will hopefully at least be a fun learning process for us! We bought our plastic bin and then went off to Ed's Chum Bucket to get our wrigglers. We started off with only 100, I guess they multiply like, well, worms! Mom is a little concerned we have too much waste in the bin and not enough worms, but time will tell. We had a lot of dried yard waste to get rid of. I had fun putting each worm in the bin, one by one and telling him to have a happy little feast and make lots of poop. We covered the whole job up with a black tarp. Worms like it dark. Hopefully the little buggers stay happy in wormy town and don't escape out of the ventilation holes or we may have a problem!

So Dad has been gone on his work trip for 6 days now. We're halfway there to having him home! It's been hard on Mom sleep-wise, but really the week has flown by. We've been super busy with activities and our nice neighbors invited us to a party last night, so that helped break up the week. Zach and I have been really well-behaved for Mom so she isn't stressed out about that at all. She says it's kind of nice not having to cook so much, do so much laundry and keep the house picked up all the time. I think she's enjoying slacking off a bit!

I'm very sad about the oil spill right now and the flooding in TN. We have some family that are directly affected by both. Let's all hope that things get better soon and the poor animals are not in too much danger. I was crying about the dolphins last night. Mom better start filtering how much news she feeds me!

Hasta la pasta my raviolis!