Hazy, Lazy Almost Days of Summer

I feel pretty privileged to work less than full-time (when I remember to put up work boundaries) from home. This lets me do things like volunteer in Annika and Lauren's classrooms every so often. At the end of the year, I chaperoned the second graders' trip to the zoo in Sioux Falls, S.D. Yep, that's a four-hour round trip.

I was given five kids I knew fairly well which is nice, but also a challenge depending on the attention-deficit or defiant nature of the child. But all the animals made it out of the zoo just fine. And I did have fun with them, although we did have to run through the zoo to see it all.

We also got to go to the Butterfly House in Sioux Falls. While all of the students were fascinated by the hundreds of beautiful butterflies there, several also were a little freaked out by the bigger blue butterflies, which are about the size of my hand. Annika was bummed she didn't get "kissed" by a butterfly landing on her.

They also had an aquarium there; yep, that's me taking pictures of the brightly colored fake coral. Goes along with that infantile fascination with color, I guess, but a tad embarrassing. Got a nice shot of Nemo and Dori though.

The next day, June 2, was almost the last day of school and Annika's class came to our house after lunch for root beer floats. We live about 10 houses down from the school so it's a quick walk and it was a nice day. While we would have done this anyway, I think Annika thought it was extra-special to celebrate her birthday this way. Fortunately, the 21 students and Miss Wubben could hang outside in our very large backyard. I think I enjoyed it just as much as Annika. I feel very blessed that we can welcome people into our home this way--and kids this age rarely care how clean your house isn't.

The kids also were great with Emily and Megan and allowed them to play Duck, Duck, Gray Duck (this is Minnesota, eh!) with them.

Kid quotes:
"They were so good, let me tell ya...they were amazing!" -- Lauren
"I'm wearing slip-slops." --Megan, on her orange flip-flops

Von Wheeler Family Debut

We didn't go too far from home this month, but we had several people visit us.

The Thursday before Easter was Grandparents Day at Annika and Lauren's school. We were blessed enough to have FOUR grandparents there. Dan's parents, my mom and my dad's mom made the trek from the Twin Cities in order to see short singing programs put on by the various grades and sit in too-short chairs. After, we smuggled the two girls out of school and to the Pizza Ranch. They returned to school just in time to have one hour left of the school day before a four day weekend!

While my mother-in-law was here she had mentioned something about dying Easter eggs with the skins of onions. I had never heard this before and the idea intrigued me. So, with the single yellow onion skin I had, I wrapped the egg in the skin, then wrapped it in tinfoil, then boiled it with the other eggs before dying them. You're supposed to use cheesecloth. However, I don't know what that is. Tinfoil seemed to work okay and it was kind of fun!

For Palm Sunday at church, the liturgical dance group Sacred Steps did a song. Later that week, my girls, along with a neighbor girl, decided to re-enact part of that song!

My dad and his wife also stopped by on their way back from Arizona from the winter. We finally got to meet their dog Sophie (much smaller than our former Sophie!). The girls also had fun checking out their 29 foot travel trailer!

Apparently, I left out all about Dan's 38th birthday last month. The girls made their very own streamers for him! Very creative! They also gave him some Darth Vader dark roast coffee, a work mug from Dunder Mifflin, and I can't remember what else. But a good time was had by all. We had dinner in our pajamas for some reason.

We also had family portraits taken. The ones with Dan and I in them apparently didn't work so well--something about breaking the lens. However, the ones with the girls were very fun! Derrick Hautamaki (Upper Peninsula) took them in Minnesota just before Mother's Day, so you can guess what the mas and grandmas got! We have more of these, but I have yet to download them (and don't want to do it tonight at 12:15 a.m.!)

Emily, Lauren and Annika made their singing debut recently at our church's annual Ladies brunch event, usually held around Mother's Day.