Happy Birthday Jumpoff!

Luke informed me on Sunday that it was Jumpoff Peppercaun's (his imaginary friend) 16th birthday. I was then informed on Monday that it was Kookaburra's (his other, recently invented, imaginary friend) birthday as well. Later, Luke decided that his little dog Shiloh was turning 16 as well. All these birthdays called for a celebration for Family Home Evening. Luke and I sat down in the morning to plan it out and then we ran a bunch of errands to find all the necessary components for a successful imaginary friend birthday party.

Dinner:

oven roasted potatoes, corn on the cob, broiled chicken and avocado salad

Luke and Noah each inhaled as much corn as we would let them get away with

The birthday cake was a compromise, Luke requested a frosted cake but I don't really care for frosting. So, we agreed that a peach cobbler with ice cream "frosting" would be okay, as long as the ice cream had sprinkles on it. I had intended to have candles on the cake as well. However, the matches were not allowed to make the move and we had no way to light them.

Decorations:

We had intended to blow up balloons and ran out of time. But, we did manage a few signs. This one is my favorite. Look at that "Happy"-- his attention waned before he could get to "Birthday".

Games:
Luke originally requested checkers, chess and water balloons as the games for tonight. As it turned out we did do water balloons on the deck, we don't own checkers (which I was unaware of), and we have chess pieces but no board.

Water Balloons

Some game called "Oh Rats"

Chess, played with Luke's rules-- you set up all the pieces and then try and knock down the other color

We love our park

This is Carrie, though it will say at the bottom that it is Nat. It was easier than logging on myself.

iPhoto and I are working things out and it let me load the most recent picture off my camera last night.

These are taken in the park that our townhouse backs up to. We love it. We are out there at least once a day. I have two little ones who love their nature walks.







I hope you're all soaking up the end of the summer!

A picture to make your day

We went to a Madison Mallards game before we left and this picture is making me laugh today. I would love to post some current pictures but iPhoto is yelling at me to delete pictures before I put any more on.

Have a good one!

Here

Here's the moving report:

We arrived in Maryland Friday evening after an incredibly easy and beautiful drive-- the boys were unbelievably good in the car, Nat stayed awake while driving and I didn't get too bored-- we're going to call that success.

We have a semblance of order in the upstairs and main level. We are still working on the basement and deciding what will fit and what will go on Craigslist. I am loving the new house. We went from one bathroom to three-- quite a step up. I guess this means that Luke won't have to pee in the tub when someone else is using the toilet (he might be disappointed).

The neighborhood is terrific. We unknowingly picked the side of the neighborhood where all the kids live. There is another four year old boy a few houses down and Luke has played outside with him every day since we got here. There is another stay-at-home mom a few doors down who brought us cookie bars last night.

The ward was also very friendly. It is a large ward with a good size primary and nursery. Luke went to sunbeams with no problem and it turns out that his teacher is an old family friend-- she went to high school with my mom and her husband is a good friend of dad's (I can't go to church anywhere without running into someone that my father knows).

I am finding my way around and enjoy the challenge of getting to know a new place.

Overall, the move has gone well. The movers did lose some things and have already come back once with some random things they found on the truck. I will make a claim this afternoon about the stuff that they haven't be able to find (crib hardware-- kind of important). Hopefully, in a few weeks everything will be located or replaced.

I am still wondering if I can be anything but a Midwesterner-- part of my heart remains in Madison. I find myself missing certain things and wondering if I will find them here (good, local produce). But, Maryland is stunningly green and terribly interesting. We will see if I can convert.

Love to you all. I'll post pictures soon.

With Your Face Sketched On It Twice...

Following in Carrie's music theme...there's my "Case of You" reference. We recently returned from the Van Bloem family reunion up in Mountain View, Alberta, Canada. (Hence the Joni Mitchell reference...eh? Eh?) We survived driving fourteen hours with a four month old, ate yummy food with Hutterites, got close up and personal with wildlife, and jumped into glacier water. (Well, I didn't do that, but the boys did.) Warning: This is the longest post ever. I was afraid that if I did it in sections, the last section(s) might never make it up here. I won't be offended if you don't look at all of it.

Day One:
We went to Waterton National Park and Caleb went up to Summit Lake. I hiked around Cameron Lake for a while.

As you can tell, I didn't hold my baby much that weekend. This is Caleb's aunt Andrea holding Addie, and her daughter Mirielle (I'm not positive that's how you spell her name, but you get the picture) and Caleb's cousin's wife Dana on the end.

This was outside the Prince of Wales Hotel. It was push-you-over windy out there as you can tell from my hair.
On the way into the park, there were deer just wandering around. They were not afraid of people at all. To me, it was a little sad. "Wild" life in name only. But it sure makes for some great pictures. I was close enough to touch these three little fawns.

I waved bye to the deer and it was off to Waterton Main Street for ice cream. Here we are with Uncle Mark "baby hog" Van Bloem and Mikayla (another hard to spell daughter of Andrea's.) Then Maegan (Another of Andrea's girls) and Dana again.

Day Two:
First thing in the morning, we visited a Hutterite Colony and all of the Hutterite ladies wanted to hold Adelaide. They're an interesting bunch, those Hutterites. They all spoke with a German accent even though most of them had been born and raised in North America. They can all speak an Austrian German, High German and English. This lady said that if Adelaide was having a hard time sleeping, we should "give her a little Schnapps." (This must be said in a German accent.) We ate the best meal of the trip here. Homegrown everything: salad (including homemade croutons) peaches, apricots, beef, milk, and really interesting pickled peas. They tasted just like pickles but without the mushiness of the cucumber. SO yummy.

Then onto the Pioneer Village. On the way in we saw this and had to get a picture:

Here's Caleb taking in the sights at the Pioneer Village. He loves history in any way, shape or form.

They let you touch everything, which is a little counter intuitive, but hey, I'm not going to argue. Here I am making a very important call:

When you picture a couple of multimillionaires isn't this what springs to mind?

The King Brothers. I had to take a picture of these guys. Don't they look like they're from a movie or something? They owned this ranch and made a LOT of money on land deals. They ended up just living in a cabin in the mountains until they died a few years ago. Ok...whatever makes you happy I guess.

After the Pioneer Village we went to Frank Slide and the Frank Slide Mine. The actual rock slide is pretty amazing to look at. I didn't go on the hike up the slide because it was supposed to be pretty intense and Addie was finally taking a good nap, but we did go to the mine. It was really cold, but interesting. I nursed the baby in the dark in there. I just walked along behind everyone in the dark with no one the wiser. Except you now.

Day Three:
Most of the family went rafting down St. Mary River, but Addie and I stayed home to do laundry. (Thus, no pictures. We didn't want the camera floating down a river.) Adelaide and I both got a good nap. We were both tired from the day before. When the group got home, we did a talent show over at the church cultural hall. Adelaide's talent was rolling over. She did an encore performance.

There was also a circus act that involved a lot of spinning around.

The Van Bloem Family Singers did their thing. It was really neat to see the siblings up there together.
Day Four:
The next day was Sunday, and after church we watched some slides and did family pictures. All of the cousins started piling on top of each other, and someone decided it was a good photo op. Everyone was laughing pretty hard.

Then of course the "grown ups" wanted to get in on it. After this picture, Grandpa literally hopped up and helped his wife to get off the ground. It was wild to watch. I hope I'm that spry when I'm over eighty.

I think my daughter is so photogenic. What do you think?


Day Five: (the trip home)
We decided to go through Glacier Park. We were going to take our time and get out every once in a while, and we stumbled on this glacier river that led into a deep pool. The water was so clear and blue-green, it almost looked like water in Hawaii. Caleb and Paul decided they wanted to jump in. Of course. (The other guy in the pictures here is a guy from Minnesota who was there with his family. They were a funny group.)

This was taken right before Paul and Caleb jumped off that cliff into glacier water. I got a video of it but it's pretty long so I won't post it here on this novella.

Adelaide loved getting the cold water splashed on her feet.

The Canadian Rockies are so beautiful and TALL. I loved them.

On the way out we saw a grizzly. You may need to enlarge this and squint, but he's there, lumbering around. After we left the park we got down to the business of driving home...for 12 more hours. We got home at about one in the morning, but it was so worth it. Canada: I could drink a case of you.

The End