Babysoroos

I have a couple of child laborers around here. But rather than forcing them to work, sometimes it’s hard to get them to stop!

But, you know, little boys, summer, basin of soapy water….. it’s a recipe for fun.

Today Ben mopped my kitchen floor. All by himself. Last time I tried to do it, there were three of us fighting over the mop: me, because I wanted to “do it right”; Ben, because he wanted a turn; and Timothy, because if Ben wanted a turn, it must be good. This time, I gave Ben his turn first while I did something else, and before I knew it, he’d finished the whole thing! The floor might not be perfect, but it’s better than it was when I was avoiding cleaning it so I didn’t have to fight over the mop. And he didn’t flood the place, so that’s a bonus!

Yesterday we spent the day at Choochokam, our local town’s summer festival of the arts. It was sunny and hot, busy but not unpleasantly crowded. We bumped into lots of people we know, watched the Island Strings performance (kids on violins, mostly; the same group who ran the camp Ben did last week) and other music, got coffee, got strawberry and chocolate crêpes, had pizza for dinner, and hung out for part of the Saturday night street dance. The first band (a reggae band) was too loud, so we went down to the beach where we could hear it from a distance.

The boys at around 7pm on Saturday:

The second band was much more fun, the kids loved it, we danced and laughed and ran around. It was after 8pm before the tired’n’crankies hit and we had to go home.

On the way home, Eric said something about the reggae band. Ben wanted to know what the “oregano people” looked like. 🙂

Ben loved it. Timothy was not so sure.

Ben loved floating around the Lazy River on a double inner tube with Eric. Looks like quite the regal ride, huh?

Timothy was… OK about it as long as he was on me and we didn’t get caught in the wave pool (which we did) and we didn’t get dripped on (which we also did). See that cave in the picture above of Eric and Ben? Dripping, all along the cave wall, a good half of the width of the river. A fan of the dripping, he was not.

These huge green tubes below? Waterslides. Outside the building. Which you go down in those same inner tubes you use in the Lazy River. They start and end inside the waterpark and they’re totally enclosed and comfortable. They’re really swirly and wet, but not too fast. Ben’s reaction to his first go (on a double tube with Dad again): “That was FUN.”

Above photo is from the website of the Radisson Hotel, attached to the Waterpark, since I neglected to take any of the outside myself and trying to describe this without a picture is… not as easy. Oooh! They also have a picture of inside the slide!

And this watery blur is Eric landing back inside in the pool at the bottom of the slide. Despite the fun verdict and numerous pleas from mama-with-a-camera, Ben refused to go one more time for a photo.

This picture is some totally random dude, not Eric, but Eric did try this. Boogie boarding — surfing on your stomach with a half-length board while the water is pushing you uphill, a bunch of people are standing watching, and you’re trying to retain your balance and dignity. (Dignity which most of them lost as soon as they stood up and had to hitch their shorts back up.)

It was fun. We basically spent as many hours as we could there, given our one night stay and the opening hours of the park. If we ever have a need to spend a night in or near Minneapolis again, I’m pretty sure I know where we’ll stay….

Ben has been fascinated with the violin for a while. Every time we visit some friends who have child-sized violins at their house, he wants to play with them. At home, since we didn’t have a child-sized violin, he made do with some sticks from the yard.

He would “play” the sticks and sing Twinkle Twinkle. Pretty cute.

These are old photos, from a few months ago. We do now have in our possession a rented violin, and this coming week, Ben will be participating in a Suzuki method violin camp at Greenbank. For his age group, the camp is just one 45 minute lesson each day, which Timothy and I will attend as well, followed by a picnic lunch with various activities and recitals by older students. It should be an interesting experience, at least, and perhaps give us an indication of whether this is something he wants to pursue a little more.

Some photos from the day we drove from Iowa to Minneapolis. It was about a 4 – 5 hour drive.

We saw a LOT of these windmills at a few spots on the drive. Hundreds. And lots of farms like this — a house, a new barn, an old barn, and a grain silo. Most of them have some shade trees around the house, though.

The boys looking grumpy. And one looking sleepy.

The boys holding hands. Awwwww!

Running around and swinging at the park in Mason City, where we stopped to have lunch and stretch our legs.

Daddy trying to teach Ben by example how to swing by himself.

And finally, we ended up at our hotel, and there were these awesome beds that the kids were really excited about!

After we all recovered from the bug, we did manage to enjoy ourselves somewhat.

These are koi fish in a pond where the kids can feed them at the Des Moines zoo. They were seriously so densely packed that it looked like they were climbing over each other, even out of the water, to get to the food.

More pictures of this on Eric’s blog here, here and here.

Timothy loved the sandpit in the kids’ area.

Both of them loved running in and out of these tunnels into/under the prairie dog exhibit. Tim had a little easier time of it since he could stand up. 🙂

And of course, since there was a train, we had to take a train ride. Both of them enjoyed that.

Then there was some fun at the park in Indianola, too, one day.

Climbing and jumping….

Swinging and sliding….

And little brother wanting to imitate big brother in everything.

Going back a bit….

Here are the boys at Eric’s cousin Phil’s wedding in Iowa in May. Feeling miserable.

Laying on Daddy’s lap during the ceremony.

Wandering up and down the outside aisle, not wanting to be with us, but not wanting to be far away either.

Deciding to just lie on the floor and be done with it.

Totally asleep in the pew afterwards.

They were so cute, all dressed up. Too bad we all felt so awful. These are about the only pictures we got.

A few days ago, Timothy refused to nap. Absolutely refused. Then demanded to be pushed in the swing.

A little while later…..

Sound asleep.

We’ve been working hard in our yard for the last few months, so we decided that with predicted hot weather (finally!) this last weekend, we needed to go do something fun, especially for the kids.

My plan was to find a U-pick strawberry farm, but that didn’t quite work out. When we eventually found one, most of the way to the north end of the island, we were one day early for the season. Still, they had strawberries for sale from their own, non-U-pick fields, so we bought a bunch to make jam. Then, since we were nearly there anyway, we headed on up to Deception Pass for our picnic.

It was glorious at the beach, but thank goodness we were early! As we were leaving, there was a constant stream of cars entering the park and I’m sure it was getting to be really crowded.

The next part of the plan worked out much, much better! I recently discovered that there is a public, outdoor pool a little south of Coupeville. Next to the water, with views of the mountains and the passing ships.

It wasn’t crowded and one of the pools has an even depth of 3ft, which is perfect for Ben to bounce around with his head above water. He had a blast. Even Timothy warmed up to it pretty quickly.

After an hour in the pool, the only way we could get Ben to leave was with the promise of strawberries in the car and that we’d come back soon.

And then…. barbeque. We’d been to the farmer’s market on Saturday and had loads of little artichokes to grill. Along with our standards of mushrooms, potatoes and tofu. And also, a few tiny onions that had been “liberated” from our garden by a certain one year old.

Ben thought he’d try some wine. (It was empty.)