Daddy’s Little Helper

Nessa was helping me do chores Saturday morning. No, she really was helping. You could actually tell where she had been sweeping leaves on the deck, and she raked them all into the leaf shovel by herself. She was quite a sight, maneuvering the broom and rake all by herself—I was very impressed. She also held the nails and handed them to me when I was putting up plastic over the sliding door on the deck.

All the while we had a great conversation. We talked about all sorts of things: why we were sweeping the leaves off the deck, where God is, what to do when you’re scared, why we were putting plastic over the sliding door, how many boards I was going to need and how long they should be, what she did at daycare last week, what we should do next, where we were going to put the leaves, and many other things. It was absolutely delightful to get such an extended glimpse into how her mind works and what kind of connections/comparisons between things she’s making now. Between Sunday School and what we read to her, Nessa’s been exposed to lots of Bible stories over the last year, and they often surface when she can make a connection between something she’s doing and something in a Bible story.

Afterwards we just played for awhile. I pushed her on the swing, and then we played Tag. Nessa seems to have Tag confused with Hide and Seek: she thinks that after you tag someone you’re supposed to go hide from them. Then we climbed up by the top of the slide and took the ship to Egypt, to the new playground there. Nessa has a wonderfully inventive imagination, and things from all over get conflated in her play scenarios.

Saturday afternoon Nessa helped me rake leaves. She did a good job of raking leaves into a pile…until the pile was big enough for her to jump in. Then the rake got abandoned and the pile succumbed to entropy. This happened several times in different places in the yard. She was having such fun that I was having fun watching her, so much so that I didn’t even mind raking. Now there’s a first!

Up North trip -- photos and more

Remember that wonderful trip "Up North" that we took at the beginning of July? Well, I finally got the pictures off of the camera (you have to love digital ... snap, snap, snap).

Below: Nessa and Megan swimming in Leech Lake's Walker bay

A hundred pictures later I decided that I had to give in and use flickr to share them with you ... they are all typical "family vacation" photos so there are a ton of blurry, out of focus, heads about cut off, etc. ... but they also tell the story ... fun times on the lake in Walker, MN and a bit of adventuring in the area including a great visit to a Bison ranch.

The girls also got some much needed Grandpa and Grandma time while Shawn and I relaxed with a movie and dinner (and a bit of unsuccessful gambling but we won't talk about that ... should have spent the money on fine dining instead). And we all did a bit (and then some) of shopping around downtown Walker.

The comments/descriptions on the photos in Flickr tell more of the stories so it really is worth a look (link below) ... the photos I uploaded there are a bit smaller in file size so they will only print well if you print them small (just in case any family tries), but they should display on the monitor well. :-) If I continue using Flickr, you'll probably see more posts like the one that I did with the picture of Marcus (directly from Flickr) too, and with those posts you can click on the photo and go right to the photo stream and view more recent photos. :-)

It was lovely and I wish we had another long Up North trip planned ... until I think about the driving.

Want to see more pictures (like Nessa below)?

View my favorites UP North pictures on Flikr!

Or, view all of the photos form the trip here.


Important -- when you look at all of them tagged with Up North, they are NOT in any chronological order, so you may want to look at and read the descriptions with the UP North Favorites specific set first.

Another sign I'm getting old

We went to the pool last night. It was the first time that all of us went to the pool this year...

I just really don't like all the splashing in my eyes and always look for the calmest spot in the pool (hah, good luck) when Megan wants me to spend time in the deep end with her. Yep, I'm an old fuddy duddy now ... although I do manage to keep my mouth shut and not actually say anything to those kids making all that noise and splashing all that water ... I mean what do they think they're doing splashing and having fun at the swimming pool?!? Sigh.

I did go down the water slides though so that made Megan happy. I did not have a chance to take Nessa down the "yellow slide" (much calmer and MUCh slower than the "blue slide") though because Nessa was only interested in standing at the edge (zero depth pool) and splashing her hands in the fountains there for about the first hour we were there. Eventually she went in deeper but never really settled in to "swimming" (and I was worried she would just run all over and walk right into the deeper water like last year).

And in spite of the hot day, as the sun went down the pool was quite cool (we were there from about 6:15 until closing at 7:45) ... Nessa's lips were blue and she was shivering ... eventually I decided she had had enough and dried her off and put clothes on her ... after she was dry and warm she decided she wanted to go back in the water! Instead Shawn took her to the nearby park for awhile so Megan could swim until the pool closed. :-)

Big Girl Swing

Nessa and I were in the back yard playing last Monday, and for the first time she got on the big girl swing. Tami and Megan were surprised when they got home, and we got some great pictures.



Nessa can also climb up to the platform at the top of the slide by herself now. Pretty soon there will be no stopping her!

Nessa riding one of her "bikes" outside

Nessa certainly enjoyed being able to get outside more last weekend!