Fall fun

A couple of weekends ago the Johnson's gathered at Como Park in St. Paul a little earlier than usual for the Buddy Walk for Down Syndrome. We have been getting together annually for the event to support and encourage our niece Abby and her parents Brenda and Jeff. It is always a fun day and a great chance to get together and accomplish something good.

It was a beautiful day, and after the walk we all went to the Como Zoo, the carousel, and the conservatory. That zoo has changed so much over the past few years but there are certain things that remind me of the times that my parents would take me there when I was very little. The oragutans are so cute, and I still remember Ginger the first como orangutan and many other things. It was one of my favorite places to visit and still is!

We came back and had a great week of school. Naomi is getting more comfortable and actually brought something for show and tell this week. Freja and and I started a new unit the Rag Coat and had a lot of fun with it.

The girls had their second to last horseback riding lesson. Freja got to go without a guide this time and she did really well getting Stormy through her cones. Naomi trotted for the first time. Last Saturday we went to the Art Institute for the free family art day, then to a birthday party for Cort's daughter Hattie, and finally to the Lester River Rondevue. Those things always sound like a good idea, but really they sort of freak me out. Those people, full grown adults, who get together and play cowboys and indians are really strange! Some people are afraid of clowns. I have decided I don't like rondevuers. Freaky.

This week we had a lighter week than usual as I was getting ready for a garage sale. Freja did help a lot though with pricing and she ran the table for me on Friday collecting all the money and giving change. Today Kathy took the girls to breakfast and to the Home Depot project day while I had the final day of the sale. Glad that is done.

Dusty has been down in Albert Lea since Wed. working on the Extreme Home Makeover house. He sounds like he has been having a great time. We all can't wait to see him tomorrow though. We have a surprise for him so I'll write again after tomorrow.

Hawk pictures and more!

Here are the pictures of our hawking experience...

Pretty cool, huh!

The rest of the week was good too, but this was the highlight.

Wednesday Freja had her 2nd "real" piano lesson. She had been taking pretty informal lessons from our neighbor girl for a year or so. At least on the weeks it happened to be convenient for all the parties involved. But, the girl moved away and that ended awhile ago. Last year about this time I "won" a silent auction bid for piano lessons at a music academy but I was saving them until Freja was a bit older so that she would benefit the most from them. I think it paid off because she is doing very well despite not having anything to practice on.

Last week we had a guy out to tune our piano that we got off of freecycle a couple of years ago, and he basically told us it wasn't worth paying him to do that. The piano was a piece of junk. So we unloaded it on Freecycle to some other sucker at the beginning of the week. Today we went to Music-Go-Round and picked up a 1980's electronic piano for a song (ha ha!)! Freja has been practicing now this week but she doesn't want to play the songs in the book, she wants to play her own songs that she is making up. Hmmm...that's a tough one, let her explore the music and come up with her own songs, or sit there and force her to play Row, Row, Row, Your Boat. Well, I told her if she wanted to play her own songs that was fine, but first she would have to figure out how to write them down. Until she can do that she will have to use her practice time for the songs her teacher told her to practice and save the creative playing for her free time. She pouted a bit until I told her that if she didn't want to do what the teacher said I would let Naomi take the classes instead. Wow, she played every song on the list in about 10 minutes.

Friday Freja and I finished up a great week of school. We had been studying France this week. Freja loves France because it is the home of all things Fancy (at least that what she learned from Fancy Nancy). Friday afternoon after we had finished we went to help out in Naomi's classroom. It was fun to see what Naomi is up to! She has made lots of friends and really didn't pay much attention to Freja and I at all. She just went about her business and had a grand old time painting. We also took a mini-field trip to the outdoor classroom where they ate their snack and observed the changing fall colors. We helped with the projects, and the distribution of snacks. Freja can be so bossy with her sister, but she was very patient, kind, and helpful with all the kids.

Today we met up with our friend Kathy at the Chester Bowl Fall Festival. We had a great time browsing the vendors booths, eating blooming onions, cheese curds, and carmel apples. The girls especially loved the pony ride and face painting. Afterward the girls went to Dennis and Kathy's for the afternoon while Dusty and I went and looked at some of his job sites and just hung out together. Afterward we went back over to their house and had pizza and a grand old time just chit chatting. We probably stayed about 1/2 an hour too long because by the end of the night the girls had gotten their second wind and were bouncing off the walls. We bounced them out the door and home into bed just in time to avoid the up-to-late melt downs.

Homeschooling Fun!

Wed. AM we spent the morning trying to come up with creative ways to get Naomi's first tooth out of her head. She wouldn't go for any of them and wanted to do it herself. She worked it and worked it and finally out it came. Naomi did get a visit from the tooth fairy and received a 1oz Troy silver dollar (Freja knows better than to spill the beans). My Grandpa had given me some and I wanted to do something special with them so the girls each got one for their first tooth and it went directly into the safe deposit box so they wouldn't loose them.

Thursday we took a trip down to the cities with some other homeschooling friends to the Dodge Nature Center. We took two classes...Meet the Milk Makers, and Bee Ecology. They were excellent. The girls got to see lots of farm animals, make butter, and milk a fake cow. On the bee class we got to see a bee keeper collect honey from a hive and then we got to sample the honey comb. YUMMY!

After our classes we headed over to Mom and Dads to see them, Amber and Ronan, and Grandma was there too. We visited for awhile before we went back to our hotel for the night.

The next morning the girls, Amber, Ronan and I went to the Minnesota Zoo for the day. That was lots of fun and we saw a lot of animals that the girls had never even heard of before. The highlight of the day though was actually the "Farm" where we got a continuation of our lesson from the nature center. We actually got to see a cow being milked with modern equipment, and the girls got to hand milk a goat! After the zoo we went to my Aunt Judy's for a great dinner and then back to the hotel.

We came back on Sat. night and had a pretty uneventful rest of the weekend. Bubbles (who is doing great) got her new kennel. I also learned a new trick from Shila on how to make a dog puke it's guts out, along with whatever foreign body she may have swallowed, which worked quite effectively on the most recent of Dusty's tube socks. Between the two hopefully this will be the end of her ER visits.

Monday was a pretty typical school day, but today we had our first day of Community Bible Study which is a very well established and organized international organization. The girls were very excited as they have an excellent kids program. I was very excited because it is nice to be around other grown ups.

Afterward, we were on our way home when we unintentionally found ourselves at Hawk Ridge, which I have since learned is the 3rd biggest hawk migratory station in the world. We didn't realize that today was actually one of the best days to see migratory birds and it was a gorgeos day so it was just abuzz in activity. There were naturalists on hand teaching about all the different kinds of hawks. We ended up adopting a Sharp Shinned Hawk which I got to hold and release after it was banded. They brought out several other kinds of hawks to be released and they were so impressed by Freja's answers to their questions about hawks that they invited us to the "catch station" (a rare treat) so that she could have her own adopted hawk to release. She had been skittish about them earlier so I didn't know if she would chicken out or not, but she did great. She held her bird for about 5 minutes before releasing it for it's long flight to Central America. We will get a profile on it and every time it shows up at a station we will get an update as to it's travels.

This is one of the days that I am so happy I homeschool. It actually was our science day, but on one of the last beautiful days of summer we quite accidentally took our lessons outdoors and learned more about raptures, migration, thermals, aerodynamics, and conservation in a much more real-life, hands on way than would be possible at home or in school.

First Day of School!

It was the best of times....It was the worst of times.

Naomi was soooo excited to start Kindergarten, and Freja was so excited for Naomi to start Kindergarten:) They were both up at the crack of dawn and had their chores done before I asked. Naomi was dressed with her headband on by 7:00 AM. So the first day was going well. We got their brand spanking new chore chart checked off, ate breakfast, brushed teeth, did our devotional and they even had time to play a little bit, before it was time for Naomi to hop on the bus. I had offered to take her, but we had been to her class the day before for the open house. She knew that a good friend of hers was in her class and she insisted that she would take the bus.

So at 8:45 we all went to the driveway next door and anxiously waited. When the bus arrived there was a split second hesitation before Naomi started walking. We got across the street and she let go of my hand and wasn't even going to look back but I grabbed her and gave her a kiss and a hug which she rushed through and off she went.

I only cried a little bit, but the cars that were stopped waiting for the bus to load were really supportive. One guy gave me the thumbs up and the lady behind him clapped which made me laugh. So, Dusty went back to work and Freja and I went inside. Freja had burned through her 4th grade reading lesson and was letting Bubbles out while I quickly checked my email when I heard her scream. I ran outside just in time to hear the THUNK. Bubbles had been hit by a truck.

It was awful. Freja was screaming this gut-wrenching cry. Bubbles was lying motionless making this awful sound. The poor guy who hit her came up and apologized and I just told him to help me get her in the van. We got her in without moving her too much while Freja went and found my keys. Our office worker had called Dusty and he came home and we were off in about 10 minutes after the accident. Unfortunately, poor Freja thought the whole thing was her fault. We explained over and over that it wasn't but she felt awful.

It was touch and go for Bubbles. She didn't have any broken bones but she had internal bleeding and a collapsed lung. There wasn't anything we could do so Freja and I went home and tried to keep our minds on school. We actually had a very good school day. I think both of us were just trying to stay focused on our work rather than Bubbles.

Freja begged me not to tell Nomi. She missed Naomi and wanted to play with her and didn't want her to be crying. I told her that I wasn't going to lie to her but I'd try to downplay it. We went and picked up Naomi and she had an awesome day. She was so excited. She kept saying she loved it. When we got home she asked where Bubbles was and we just said at the vet. She didn't ask any more questions so we didn't tell her until it was time to go get her and move her to the ER Animal Hospital for the night ($$) at that point it was looking optimistic for Bubbles.

That night Freja and I were talking about why bad things happen, and that He turns all things to good. With incredible insight that is way beyond her years she says "I have been having a hard time believing everything, and because of this I have been praying really hard and God showed me that He is there and is listening".

We have continued to pray and Bubbles has continued to make a miraculous recovery.

The girls have had a great week of school and both are growing and thriving so much. Naomi has loved school and all the kids and it is so good for her to have her own thing, but she's been melting down in the evenings. She has such big days and has to be so reserved all day long so she comes home and is so excited to be home that she just uncorks, but I'm sure that will pass. Freja and I have been having a great time together doing her work. She really needs this one on one time and has had a major attitude change for the better just this week alone. The curriculum we are using is like it was made for her, and she even loves even the math program we chose.

Freja and I have even been going out to the trampoline for recess and doing a mini gymnastics lesson. She loves that. Earlier this week, I won the cool mommy of the year award when she had a friend over and I gave them both a basic lesson AND a demo in back to front tucks and full twisting layouts. Yes, I can still do them, although I now know that the reason there aren't more 30+ gymnasts is simply that the leotards just wouldn't look as good over the Depends it would require. I was a little sore the next morning, but the look of pride and the wink that I got from her when her friend was clapping was so worth it.

Freja and I have been studying China this week so the end of the week we had a China Party. They helped me make Chinese stirfry and eggrolls and we ate them on the floor sitting on floor cushions just like the Chinese. To top it all of we had fortune cookies and watched Mulan. Having a "party" is a great way to get kids to eat lots of weird new vegetables!

Labor Day Weekend

This year we actually took a three day weekend and went camping at Moose Lake State Park. Another park checked off the list in our quest to stay at every state park in Minnesota over the next few years. This effort has been made much more possible and enjoyable given the generous gift of an old pop-up camper by some good friends of ours.

Moose Lake is a nice park. It has a nice swimming beach, fishing pier, it is a pretty small campground so although the sites are not huge, it was very nice and quiet (till we got there, that is). When we arrived the site directly accross from us was still available. We had been talking to some friends about them coming with and they had decided not to, but we gave them a call and they mobilized right quick and came on down.

We had a very nice time. The girls played with their friends Ashley and Isaac non-stop. We visited the beach twice, went fishing (0), hiked all the parks trails, and even went on an adventure to the soo line pitts. We went to look for agates, but all we found was mica, and quarts crystals. It was entertaining though to watch the extreme four-wheelers that were riding down there.

It was nice and relaxing, Dusty's phone was off all weekend so no labor was happening and a good time was had by all.

Happy Birthday to Me!

What a great day! Here I was sort of dreading turning 36, I mean I am closer to 40 than 30 now. How in the world does that happen. Anyway, it turned out to be a great day and I was surprisingly happy to be 36, and no it wasn't because it was better than the alternative. How can you be bummed about being older when you have been blessed with such a wonderful family.

My wonderful husband tried to surprise me by leaving a beautiful azaelea, card and present on my night stand, but I caught him. So we had an early morning little birthday party just him and me before the girls burst in with the cards and presents they made themselves. When the gift-giving snuggle fest was over we went upstairs and Dusty had even bought us some caramel rolls for breakfast. What a guy! The girls and I ate, cleaned up and headed to the beach, just us girls and Bubbles. It was a little chilly so we didn't stay too long, only a couple of hours. Then we went shopping with some birthday money I got from Dean and Sandy and Great Grandma F. I bought some perfume that I used to get from this little boutique and a beautiful necklace and bracelette.

Naomi and Freja had a birthday party that evening and a friend offered to pick them up when she picked up her daughter so Dusty and I were able to go out on a date! We went to a new restaurant called Midi and it was fabulous. Maybe one of our new favorites (next to Swamp Sisters that is)

Overall a great day. The only disappointment was the chocolate torte I got for desert. It was good, but not the decadent treat I had hoped for. So, the next day our family went to Coldstone for ice cream for the perfect finale of my birthday celebration.

A Fair Weekend

Last weekend Dusty had to work a Saturday, so the girls and I decided to take one last opportunity to go berry picking. Although they were less than thrilled to miss their Sat. morning cartoons I was thrilled that the weird weather we are having this year actually worked in my favor and I was able to get out the Blueberry Bush. Freja doesn't really like to pick at all, and Naomi prefers to make her haul in her belly so it was all up to me to make it worth our trip. So, while my friend Andrea and I each picked 10lbs. of berries, the girls sat in the car and drank my Diet Coke and played video games on my phone (two things they are not allowed to do). Stinkers.

After we had picked our share we went to this great little country restaurant called Swamp Sisters. Very quaint. It is run by three 7osomething-year-old sisters and they are only open on Friday and Sat. mornings in the summer and early fall. There are some interesting things about eating at Swamp Sisters. For instance, there is limited seating so we shared a table for 8 with four seniors that were loitering after their meal, and when part of your meal is done they bring it out to you. So, chances are you won't get your whole meal all at the same time, and you almost certainly wont get it at the same time as your dining companions. It was worth the wait however. The food was wonderful! The girls said that they were the best pancakes they'd ever had and gobbled up the farm fresh eggs.

After lunch we hurried home because we knew that Grandma and Grandpa Corwin were going to be in town. They weren't at our house so we proceeded up to the Hermantown Safety Fair where we had arranged to meet them. I hadn't know what to expect, but it was a really impressive safety fair. They had every kind of emergency vehicle that you could think of, virtual firing ranges which the girls got to try, lots of demonstrations, mounted police demo's and much more. Lucky Naomi won a door prize for the second weekend in a row. That really irritated Freja, I could tell but she was surprisingly gracious about it. We stayed at the fair until about 4:30 then called it a day.

Sunday was a big day for me. I had been working with 2 other women on putting together a community arts festival all summer. Every Tuesday I would take the girls down to the church office and they would play in an empty office while we organized the event. Well it was finally the big day. We had asked Mom and Dad to come up and watch the girls because Dusty was one of our "Art Specialists" and was working with kids on clay beads and sculptures all day. I was overseeing the event as a whole. It was a perfect day. We did not hear a single complaint, we had great weather, great turnout (hundreds). It was our goal that God would use us and this day to bless our community and we just couldn't have asked for anything to go any better than it did. Although we barely saw the girls all day we heard they had a great time. I think Mom and Dad did too but at the end of the weekend they were all faired out and headed home for some much needed R & R, I'm sure.

No pictures this time, I was just too busy to take any!

August Adventures

OK, I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that this won't be as frequent as I had hoped. Oh well.

We never did go camping the weekend we were supposed to. After I got done with my blogging I was exhausted just reading about all the things that we had been doing and decided I couldn't bear gearing up to pack for a camping trip. So, we called up the friends that were going to go with us and asked them if they were up for a day trip instead.

We all went to South shore of Lake Superior to the mouth of the Brule river. It was a great day. When we arrived the lake was like glass and it was a perfect 78 degrees. We had a nice picnic and the kids swam and swam and swam. We even brought Bubbles and she had the day of her life swimming and running freely chasing kids and flirting with a boy dog that was also having a beach day. We stayed all day long and after we had packed up everything but the smoring materials we made smores in a fire pit that the kids had dug out and built up on the beach.

The second weekend in August was exciting for all of us for different reasons. I was flown out to Charlottesville, VA to visit my college roommate at her spectacular compound, limo ride from the airport included. It was very nice to just relax and catch up with my old friends.

In preparation for my travels and before Dusty's parents arrived the girls spent Wed, Thurs, and Friday at three different friends houses. It was a crazy week for them but they had a lot of fun. Dusty Johnson Contracting and Design was sponsoring a 5 on 5 soccer tournament so his parents came up to help with the girls. As it turns out he didn't really need to be at the tournament but it was great to have Grandma and Grandpa anyway.

Monday morning (11th) was back to life as unusual. Freja began a theater camp for the production of Snow White, and Naomi started Kindergarten camp. Although Nomi had been SOOO excited for K-camp, I did actually have to peel her little hands off the grab bar of the van and carry her out screaming. We went in and hung out with her for about 1/2 an hour until she made a little friend named Tori and then she was fine. The rest of the week was great and by the end she was embarrassed when I tried to kiss her goodbye. "I'm fine Mommy, you can go now." Overall, she had a wonderful time and is really looking forward to "real" Kindergarten. She will go from 9:00-3:00 M, W, and every other Friday.

Freja's theater experience was very different from the last one. They had actual auditions and Freja was pretty timid as they were conducted in front of 70 other kids. She was THRILLED to get the part (non-speaking) of the one and only butterfly. She did a great job on Friday night using her body and facial expressions rather than having to say lines and learn songs like the last time. She is excited for next year and thinks that she will be able to pull it all together and be Tinkerbell in the production of Peter Pan.

Sat. morning we left for the Ulen Turkey BBQ, an age long tradition in the Corwin family of which we have not participated since we turned vegetarian. I thought the girls should get to experience it now that they are old enough to remember. Plus, we were way overdue for a trip to Ulen to see Grandma Adeline.

It was fun, they enjoyed the parade (mostly the candy), and got to see the open spit line of 167 turkeys roasting. Daddy and Kevin were talking about what a beautiful sight that was and Freja thoroughly disagreed. She thought that they would be much more beautiful if they were walking around with their feathers. Other highlights were the Penny and Pals show, and the kiddy tractor-pull. Freja was enticed by the "prize" of a can of Dr. Pepper and gave it a whirl. She got a whopping 9' on the little John Deere. Naomi refused to sell-out her city lovin' self and participate in a tractor pull all for the sake of a can of pop.

Which brings us to this week. We had another week of K-camp, but this time Freja and I had a chance to have some Mommy-Daughter time and plan out our school year. I have been doing last minute volunteer coordination for the Art In Me festival that I have been helping to organize all summer. We also had our last regular "Girls Club" meeting this week. The consensus was from both the girls and parents that it was a huge success. I even got to witness some of the fruits of my labor and how God is using this group with some impromptu graciousness as three girls worked out a friendship triangle problem.

Today we had what may be one of our last beautiful 80 degree days so we packed a picnic and headed down to the beach with some friends. It was my perfect day. Summer is winding down now. Life is good.

Jeepers July is Over!

I really did intend for this to be more thoughtful and inspired. Instead it is turning out to be a frenzied racking of my brain to remember what in the world we've been up to since I last wrote.

Well the girls did not "progress" in their swimming lessons to the next level at the end of the two weeks. They learned a lot but were just not comfortable with their faces in the water. So, to keep the momentum rolling we enrolled them in another two weeks of level 1 (this is their 3rd time). Today was the last day and they PASSED!! They are officially on to level 2. This does not mean that they can swim yet, so we will keep going with this. What it does mean is that they can enter and exit the water safely by themselves, bob 5 times to chin level, and MOVE for five yards! YEAH! They even get a Red Cross level 1 card for that!



Lets see, other than swim lessons some of the highlights of the past couple weeks were that on July 19th we had the Duluth Air Show of which Dusty Johnson Contracting and Design was a major sponsor. We got VIP seating in the "chalet" where we got to rub elbows with the pilots, enjoy free food and drinks and a front row seat of all the action. It was a really great show until the highly anticipated Blue Angels had completed their first few passes and the sky opened up into a monsoon. It was then that our VIP status officially meant nothing. Well, maybe something, they were kind enough to give us two plastic table cloths that we fashioned into ponchos for our 1 mile hike back to our car. Of course there are four of us and our plan was to tuck the girls under our ponchos which would have never worked. Fortunately there was an armed forces recruiting booth on the way out that had bags large enough to stuff the girls into poking holes out for their heads and arms. I then made rain caps out of four more bags and we were off like a little family of ducks.




We made it home in relative dryness and good humor, got changed and decided to go to a movie. I am not kidding this was record time we were in and out of our house in 5 minutes flat when we told them we were going to see WAL-E. That NEVER happens. Unfortunately, it was sold out. We went to Coldstone for dinner instead.

The next week the girls did get to go see the American Girl movie with our friend Kathy, picked 8 1/2 lbs of Raspberries, field trip to a sawmill, continued swimming lessons, girls group, a trip out to Solon Springs, WI to see our friend Meg who is moving to Germany, and then on Friday, horse lessons. I wish I would have had my camera with because Naomi came with this time. We didn't intend for her to be involved, but you know how it goes. She was just coming to watch and by the end she was walking Banjo (Freja' pony) and looking soooo comfortable that the ranch owner Wendy went and got a waiver and brought it to me. She said she looks so at ease with Banjo, and him with her "You know some people can communicate with horses." It really did look like that was what was happening so how can you tell a horse whisperer that she can't come back!

Friday night was a big event. Freja was in a fashion show. Our friend Crystal Pelkey has been doing puff paint art for years, even in the face of some scoffers yours truly included. God bless her, she has persevered and really turned her strange craft into a beautiful form of textile art. So, when she asked if Freja could be one of her models for a charity fashion show I had to say yes. It was really funny though when the girls were trying to figure out exactly what Freja would be doing. Naomi said "It's good that Crystal picked Freja because she is a really good waddler!" Yes, she is. She did a really good job working the cat walk in front of a full house.

Saturday we jumped in the car and headed out to Chisolm, MN to Ironworld. I know it sounds really exciting! It was actually very interesting, educational, and we had a great day hanging out with our friends the Johnson's that we caravaned out there with. The highlight was stopping at Valentini's Italian restaurant on the way home. Excellent food, even if we had to eat it in the bar part and watch the beginnings of a drunken wedding reception.

This week was all about the beach (after swim lessons of course) we went down to the sandy beach of Park Point on Monday and had a great time although it was a tad chilly. It was actually windy enough that the girls were "catching waves" on their little raft and surfing in.

Tuesday the girls went to Space Chimps with Kathy while I was at a church meeting. When I came back they were down on her beach looking for agates and sea glass. I walked down their to join them and then we ended up calling Dusty to come on down and join us all for pizza dinner. It was a beautiful evening and such a treat to be down there.

Wednesday the girls and I went back down to Park Point. It was much warmer and we just hung out all day. Today after the girls graduated from their swimming class on UMD campus we went to the Tweed Museum of Art to look around, then Freja wanted to see the library so we walked over there. We were killing time until we were to head down to the beach to see the "tall ships" from Boston come into port. When we tried to get down there the traffic was so bad we decided to go to Dennis and Kathy's and see if it would be OK if we watched it from there. Well, we didn't so much as ask as invade but they graciously let us in. It was cool to see the ships sailing around but we were too far to see the actual cannon firing so after waiting a couple of hours it was pretty anti-climactic.

Which brings us to right now. I am going to bed because in the morning we will be furiously packing for our camping trip and then scooting off to a party at the horse ranch before we go. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes!