Happy Birthday Grandpa Les and Uncle Mark!

We are sad that we missed celebrating all the brithdays together in Minnesota. Enjoy the girls' special message for both of you.

Art Party

Maddie is 7 and I am so proud of the girl she has become -- responsible, fun-loving, kind, curious, and especially artistic. So an art party with friends was a great way to celebrate her!

They decorated an old sheet for their art table, twisted up t-shirts for cool tie dye, painted a mural together using only with feet, and made totally creative masterpieces.

Elise made "Birdy"

Brooke and "The Gem in the Sea"

Eden and "The Sky and Ocean Jewels"

Anke and "Watermelon"

Eleanor and her "Poofy"

Kyle made two creations, but really liked his cool plate.

Natalie and her dog

Caitlin and a self-portrait with an alien

Ryan and "The Dawn of the Sun"
Lynn and her Artistic Palette Cake!
(Inspired from the Internet)

Real vs Fake Birthday

We started the tradition to celebrate just with our family on the kids' actual birth day. Maddie calls this, "Your REAL birthday" and then she had her friends' party another day -- "Your FAKE birthday."

So this year, Maddie's real birthday included chocolate chip and powder sugar pancakes, playing at the pool, the last day at art camp, gifts and phone calls from family, dinner of her choice at "the fancy pizza place" (aka Pizza Hut), and fun at the concert downtown.

She loved the week spent print making at our local art center.

Elise got Maddie an outfit and a BIG hug!

Talking to the midwest relatives.

Uncle Hedgehog sent an "Uncle Hedgehog" :)

Thank you grandparents for the great clothes!

HAIL!

Unbelievably big hail fell yesterday for almost a half hour and we are now dealing with the effects.


I was driving downtown when an ice ball fell out of the sky and hit the windshield. I jumped and wonder if someone was throwing rocks at our van. Then another hit and another. Hail! The kids and I ran into a building after we parked and watched the most amazing hail storm we have ever seen. After a long wait with a lot of people talking about the power of the weather, we went home and Elise collected a pail full in hail balls as big as golf balls. Then we assessed the damage...

The Subaru is covered in hail dents and the windshield was cracked in at least 10 spots like these. We were lucky -- some cars totally lost their windshields or some neighbors' skylights shattered in their homes. State Farm will have a drive-thru claim office set up later this week to deal with all the damaged cars in town.

We had a great garden started. I was just thinking I wanted to take some photos of the lettuce and spinach that had flourished from the recent rains. Now it is cole slaw! :*(

All of our solar lights are broken.


Even though it is a mess and a bummer, we are all okay.

Chefs

Maddie and Elise have been playing more with the neighbor girls this summer. They have been making many tasty treats out of mud lately. Mud cakes, mud cookies, mud cupcakes, mud seaweed wraps, mud tacos, mud hot dogs, mud burgers, ...

The girls were doing their "cooking TV show" for me on the deck and then I went inside to find this...

After a good laugh, I went to get the broom and Gus dove right into the flour and looked like this...

No Corn-on-the-Cob for Maddie

How many teeth can this girl lose?

Happy 4th of July!

We sure missed the Ovaska celebration in Germantown on the 4th but friends invited us over for a BBQ and to the local fireworks.

Eric was feeling well enough to get to and from the fireworks but the local bus stopped and gave us a ride! Nice!

84 Years Old

Bucky is getting old! He has been part of almost all of our married life -- 12 years!! He has slowed down a lot this year. No more big adventures with Eric and now he is even having trouble jumping over a log or two. But we all love him!

The kids decided that we needed to really celebrate his birthday this year so Maddie and Elise spent a day making decorations and planning games. This is what happens when you are at home recovering from surgery as a family!

Eric was able to twist some dog balloons and the girls hung them.

Pin-The-Tail-On-The-Dog,-Cat, or -Squirrel

Life is just like this ... a page full of cherries. (Elise's gift to Bucky)

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Releasing the Pinata

Bucky and his only birthday guest loved the pinata candy -- BONES!