Shad looking good

Shad just arriving back home from regional orchestra concert. Good looking fellow!

Adam out for a leisurely Sunday drive

Co-pilot was playing with a toenail is how the story was told...

Shopping with Kaera

Kaera and I had a great shopping trip. Always a blast with her and somehow we always get pistachios...

Batching it

Kvinde and Raeghn went on a cruise without the boys so we went into survivor mode.

Here we helped someone paint a fence.

 Without a good cook we had to scrounge around town for food.  Kaera loves to dip things in ketchup.  We thought it was funny how she dipped each individual sliver of hash brown potatoes in ketchup.  (They are about the size of a pencil led).

 Adam has been begging for a basketball hoop.  I scoped out a neighbors whose hoop had been blown over in a wind storm and crushed the rim flat.  We took it apart and pounded it for hours at the shop and then painted it and put it back together.  Not one of our best projects as it is still shaped like a football (american style!) but the basketball drowns in it once in a while and we couldn't beat the price.  We spent some great nights out playing til dark.

 Another one of our survival trips to Taco Time! 

 Kaera didn't always fancy my selection of clothes and hairstyles but we managed to negotiate to the point where we were both comfortable in public.

We sure missed our Raeghn and Kvinde!

Froya and her first project!

 Obviously Froya (spelled with the O having a slash through it = cool!) didn't know what she was getting into when she agreed to join our family as an exchange student this school year.  So after our huge yard clean up for the neighbor, we had a 7 foot high pile of tree clippings.  She asked if we could burn them.  Having the IQ of a runt squirrel I decided we should do that in the middle of a nice sunny summer day.  WOW was that hot.  We were sweating like pigs (boys at least).  Froya said she was going back to Norway if we had two more Saturdays like that.  You can tell she's tough if she gave us two more like this one.  Wow did we ever collapse after that work out.  As tradition dictates we always get some kind of celebration treat.  This time it was Jamba Juice (incredible ice smoothies) AND dessert crepe's at the local french place.

Team picture! (me yelling because my skin is still boiling underneath my blistered exterior!)

  

Froya was an awesome sport and we got the best exchange student in America.  I feel bad for her but I try not to think about it too much!  ;-)

Kvinde Bday and water fun

Kvinde's 16th!!!  Holy Doodle went to town!  We had a dinner at the best Chinese place in town and then soon after she went on a cruise with her mother.. without the rest of us???

Before they left us we got to play in the water at the local water park

 Shad getting a tan...

 Sun girls

Fence Project

So I had this crazy idea last year...  Lets do a "fun" service project for someone each week.  A neighbor is trying to sell her house and the yard and fence are pretty bad so we organized a bunch of youth to come out and give her a hand.  The kids aren't too thrilled with all of my ideas as you can imagine...

Scraping on the paint was quite a chore 

 I got a turn at mowing the ditch

 Taking a break from scraping...

 Back at it

We came back another night that week and painted.  You'll notice Kvinde is not present.  She had a birthday and then got a big present (which meant leaving us to do the rest of the fence!.

Even Kaera got involved.  Nice coveralls dad!  Wayne and Marvin would be pleased!

Andrew didn't miss a spot!

Adam demonstrating that he too didn't miss anywhere.