For the 2nd time in 2 days Andy and I headed to the pool…thank God it was open or Andy would have had trust issues for the rest of his life!

Andy jumped of the side, splashed dad, and went down the slide for almost 2 hours.  It was a fantastic time!

As Andy rode down the slide backwards and one dad commented “your son is fearless,” I thought to myself…that is my biggest fear

We had an interesting encounter with a strange five-year-old that kept trying to stick his feet in Andy’s face.  After about 10 minutes Andy decided that he had had enough, so he roared at the kid like a dinosaur until the kid ran away.  A different but very effective way to handle a problem child.

On a completely different note…we had a huge snapping turtle wonder through the yard on Sunday….as Laura and I tried to think of ways to dispose of it, it “darted” back into the pond.  Hopefully never to been seen again.

This morning the GopherOne guy was out and marked the yard for utilities.  Time for some digging!

This morning we all got up before the sun was above the horizon to see Laura off for a week.

She packed up her sleeping bag, pillow, walking shoes, clothes and headed off to the annual 4th grade week long field trip to Wolf Ridge (just north of Duluth, MN).

Before she left she made sure Andy had a clean hair cut and I knew the rules of when to wear shorts and when to wear pants….who knew there was a rule.

Andy and I plan on being quite busy this week so I will try to keep the blog updated with our daily activities….today was a bit of a bummer, we tried to go swimming but when we got there the pool was closed for classes. Tomorrow will bring more excitement!

BTW GopherOne is coming out tomorrow

We’ve all been under the same roof this past week.

We’ve easily fallen back into the routine.

That is until these two decided they had had enough family time and instead took off on an impromptu fishing trip.  Pete and Andrew decided at the last minute to head up a little early to have a sleepover with the cousins.

Thank you to Ron and Wendy for inviting us up for the fishing opener!

Andrew had a blast!

While the boys were gone, I went to a tree sale at a local landscaping business.  Behold our newest tree, the bur oak.  Do not be fooled by the trees WITH leaves, they are not ours.  Ours is the large twig with symmetrical branches.  In addition to the oak tree, we will be getting three Miss Kim Lilacs and three Gro-Low Fragrant Sumacs!

Pete took a nap this afternoon and Andrew took the opportunity to decorate him.

When he was finished, he licked the spoon and bowl for 30 minutes helped me make a cake

We were able to spend some time with this little one this weekend.  Andrew is smitten.

We’ve spent much of our weekend cleaning and doing a few projects at home.  Last weekend we had a landscape designer come to our house to give us ideas of what we could do around the house.  The ideas were perfect, but now it is up to us to execute the plan.  After a trip to a nursery to start choosing plants, we came home, put Andrew down for a nap, and then borrowed his chalk to help us visualize the space we are working with.

This will more than likely take us a couple of years to complete, but we are looking forward to doing much of the work ourselves (maybe with the help of family???) and having some gardens that are unique.  Later in the day, Andrew surprised us by demonstrating how a combine works by breaking up his cookie and having the combine “eat” the cookie.

He has expressed interest in being a farmer when he grows up…as well as a tractor.  After the farming lessons, Andrew and I had spinach smoothies while we watched Pete dig up dandelions.

It makes me very happy to see him drink this AND ask for “more smoovie, peas”.

Both Friday and Saturday night looked something like this.

Now if only we had time to do the landscaping we’d be all set!  May is a very busy month for us.  Pete has trips to London and Australia and I’m heading to Wolf Ridge for a week with school.  Soon enough summer will be here and we’ll have all the time in the world, right?!

Woo-hoo!  Very glad that it’s over and that it went so well.  I finished just ahead of the 2:15 pacer!  I was expecting to finish around 2:30, so I’m happy with my time!  Thanks Pete for taking such great pictures at the Earth Day half marathon