A New Skill

Seemingly out of nowhere, Rachel decided Monday evening that she wanted to learn how to ride a bike. I helped hold her steady while she pedaled for a little while, and then we were done for the night.

Yesterday morning, she asked me to find the training wheels for Teresa's bike, which I thankfully was able to find in the shop. We only got halfway there, however, for even after several attempts, I could only get one side loose to attach the training wheel. So, that meant that I was one of the training wheels, which, after a mile or so, can really start to wear on a mom's back!

After awhile, we found our neighbors out fencing by our house and, after Darwin heard what our problem was, immediately came to our rescue. 

We attached the training wheel, but just a few minutes after that, the old back tire sprung a leak! Thankfully one of our local hardware stores had a tire and tube. With a little help from YouTube, I was able to change her tire and she was good to go!

As she was telling her dad about the afternoon, it went something like this, 

"Did you take the bike somewhere?"

"No, the bike stayed here."

"Did a guy fix it?"

"There was no guy. Mom fixed it."

When your girl wants to learn to ride a bike, a mom's just gotta figure it out. :)

After a beautiful rain this morning, we will soon hit the gravel . . . and concrete . . . for more practice!

Neises Family Fun

Our family was able to take part in the 2nd Annual Neises Cousins gathering last Saturday. This year's theme was the Olympics and we all had a great time both catching up with and getting to know new family members better. 

Both we and our children competed in the events, which included a relay race, a word search, watermelon eating race and the team plank race.  (What is the proper name for that??) 

The award for best team name was hands down Team #1--The Neises Crisis.

Rachel has already told our bank teller and mail carrier this morning about the big bowl of watermelon she got to help eat for the contest. Truly a dream come true for all of my kids! :)

Farewell to Callie

Our first day of school was bittersweet around here, as I discovered after the kids got on the bus that our faithful dog Callie had died.

It wasn't unexpected--she had been unable to use her right leg for at least 6 weeks--but it is still hard to say goodbye to a family dog, especially a good one.

We had been without a dog for a few months in 2007 when I saw a poster in the Cresbard Post Office for puppies. I knew it had been hanging there awhile, and doubted there were any puppies left. I took the poster home anyway, called the number, and they did in fact have one left. I loaded up the boys and we headed down to a farm near Polo to get our dog. (We surprised David with her when he got home that night. Since she was basically free, I knew he wouldn't mind.) :)

Landen and I decided Callie would be a good name, since it was close to "collie," which she mostly was.

She was about 4 months old and only looked like a puppy for probably a few days after we got her, but the farm kids who had been caring for her had already trained her not to chase cars and do other puppy things. The first time I heard a semi drive by and she didn't run to chase it, I knew we had a keeper.

This was my favorite memory from the day we brought her to our farm:

And so she was our friend through the girls being born and all of the adventures since then. Since Nathan was only 1 year old when we got her, he was especially close to Callie.  I took this picture of him in 2011.

We know she was "just" a dog, but she was our dog and she was a good dog.

We will have more dogs.

But we will never have another Callie.

Duluth/Superior Vacation

You may remember the infamous family vacation to Duluth in August 2010. 

Even if most of that first trip was miserable for me, the kids have asked many, many times when we could return. The truth is I wanted to return because I really do love Duluth and I knew we could do it better. We decided to return over our last week of summer vacation.

We highly suggest coming in to Duluth from the south on the Interstate. Coming over the hill and seeing the harbor below is awesome and makes the long road trip all worth it. (Although driving through north central Minnesota is never a bad road trip!)

We stayed south of Superior, WI, which is just across the bridge from Duluth. Who doesn't love a bridge . . . and you have a choice of two (three if you count the lift bridge)!

On our first night, we visited Amnicon Falls State Park outside of Superior. It's a small state park full of waterfalls, paths and hiking trails.

Rachel had to take her multiplication table, which was her MAP. She consulted it several times on our hike. We may not have known where we were, but we knew 2x2=4! (Yes she is a smart little girl, but, no, she does not do multiplication yet.) :)

It was much more fun to get off the trails and get close to the waterfalls. We saw several people swimming in them, but we stayed dry!

We kept our waterfall theme the next day with a road trip up the north shore to Gooseberry Falls State Park. This was our first trip to this park, too. I knew it was going to be worth the drive when several friends mentioned it as a favorite place. We ended up spending most of the day there and finding three waterfalls.

Another favorite of this state park was the wild raspberries and thimble berries we were allowed to forage. I'm pretty sure our family cleared out all possible berries along the trail! Interestingly, we did not eat any gooseberries!

To close off the day, I took a quick tour of the Split Rock Lighthouse, which I've always wanted to see.

The next day, we crossed our favorite lift bridge to make a return trip to Park Point Beach. This was a favorite part of our previous trip (even for me!) and was again this time.  We even went back for a second day to watch the Tall Ships come in, which only happens every two years. Lucky for us, we were there!

We took a scenic drive back home, driving south through Wisconsin to visit Uncle Lynn & Aunt Tami in Menomonie, which is always a great--and delicious--time, and then discovered our new favorite drive--Highway 60 across the river from Wabasha, MN. (My kids had no idea what Grumpy Old Men the sign was referring to.) :)

I've always loved Duluth, and now we ALL have great memories of our time there.

There are still many, many things we haven't visited there, so we will have to go back again!

A brand new year!

Watch out world! We have a new 3rd grader . . . 

5th grader . . . 

and 7th grader!

And when the big kids are away, Rachel and Mom get to play!

Lucky

Teresa adopted a kitten named Lucky this summer. He was named that by his previous owners after he survived 5 days as a tiny baby without food.  (He disappeared here for a few days, too, and returned beat up, but still alive!)

Here is Lucky with his chalk portrait by Teresa. :)

Erupting Sidewalk Chalk

When it gets to be August, it's usually time to find something new to do around here. The girls and I tried out a Pinterest activity last week, and it turned out to be a lot of fun for them, thanks to our neighbor with extra corn starch in her pantry!
My kids know that anything with baking soda and vinegar is bound to be fun!

You can find the recipe for Erupting Sidewalk Chalk here.  Enjoy!

The Golden Hour

This was our spectacular pink and purple sunset with a double rainbow on August 11.

I love the golden hour as the sun's rays highlight our pasture and fields as it sets. If only it would last a whole hour!
The rainbow and lightly falling rain made this evening absolutely perfect!

Happy 90th Birthday, Grandpa!

We celebrated my Grandpa Kallas' 90th Birthday on his actual birthday, August 6.

All 12 children and most spouses and grandchildren and great-grandchildren were in attendance.

It was a wonderful celebration that lasted the entire weekend!

Lake Date

Last Saturday was our Lake Date with the Johnstons!

This year cousins Kinley, Anika and Brooklyn joined in the fun, too.

Construction

 There's been some construction happening in our backyard! Nathan created a couple of cute signs for the rabbits.

And he is currently working on a winter shelter for them, too.  Stay tuned!