Green is the new black

At the end of May, we got a week long visit by E's sister and her family.  We hit up Kalahari water park which was an hour away and all around that a good time that week.  The girls all had matching Irish step dancing costumes which we, of course, had to take photos of.  And E searched through his closet to help his nephew find something to wear to be included in the photos.  It was pretty warm that day, so I wasn't going to put Fish in his heavy Irish corduroy outfit.

We spent that entire evening outside and my kids came away with about 7-8 bug bites each once it was time to go to bed.  Those poor kids have my bug-scent.  I am ALWAYS the one that comes away with all the bug bites -- E never receives a single one while I get about 10.  Poor kids have a long road to hoe for later summers.

Prost!

Playing a little catch up with some photos that were too cute NOT to share.  We went with our neighbors to the Hofbrauhaus in Cleveland a couple of weekends back.  E had been there during my & the kids' trip to Iowa and had witnessed the house polka band first hand.  He thought that Finn would have an incredible time dancing to the music.  He was right.

Fish thinks that a beer bigger than his head is just wrong. 

This photo encapsulates the very essence of how Finn makes friends. 

The one thing that I will say about my kids is that I have instilled dancing in their veins.  It pumps through them with every beat of their heart.  And they will dance to anything that has a beat.  I always joke that Fish will dance to a commercial, but it's the truth.  CNN is running promos for a new special on the 70s and Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust" is featured.  It is so annoying (and over the top cute) because the only time that it seems to play is while we are laying in bed trying to fall asleep.  The moment that the beat comes on -- you know, the "bomp bomp bomp clap", Fish will sit up and start scooting his butt to the beat.

The great part about the Hofbrauhaus was that they actually ENCOURAGE you to dance on the tables...  Okay, so most adults were dancing on the benches.  Benches... Tables... Tomato... Tomatoe...

Ride a raft with ol' Huck Finn

Last Iowa post -- promise!  One of our last days there, we went to Dubuque and went to the National Riverboat Museum.  It was pretty well geared towards kids and they had a great time!  Unfortunately for me, I didn't get to see much of the museum as I was just chasing after them single-mom-style!  It wouldn't have been that bad as it was during the school year, but we chose the one day that there were five field trip classes there. 

They had a huge section there dedicated to Mark Twain and steamboats.  There was a little 3-sided room that had mirrors on two sides and a river scene on the back.  The floor was half-cut logs that were tied together like a raft.  And the logs must have been on some air tubes because they bounced around when you stepped on them.  I really tried to get Finn up there, but she refused because she was scared that she couldn't maintain her balance.  Darn it anyways.

The museum also hosted a small aquaramine.  The biggest tank was the "main channel" tank, which included a lot of fish that were bigger than my kids.  Catfish, gars, sturgeon were all in there.  It was pretty neat!

And our final Iowa photo comes courtesy of a hat that Mimi bought for Finn.  Fish thought that it was a riot to put the hat on and swing the hair around.  He wore that hat for at least a day, much really through Finn for a loop.  She would want the hat the minute that he put it on his head and not a second before.  And that poinsettia plant's dirt got seriously abused by Fish.  He found it half way through our trip and just wouldn't leave that poor dirt alone.

Rivers and Windmills

While in Iowa, we also attended a confirmation party for a cousin of mine.  They live on a bluff overlooking the great Mississippi River.  It is a gorgeous view to say the least!  They had a sandbox under their deck and some of the kids found the water spigot and wanted to play in the "mud".  Finn & Fish weren't as impressed with squishing the wet sand as I would have thought.  But they didn't mind standing in it.

This is their backyard -- breathtaking.

 Can you see Finn?  She is wearing an orange shirt and standing at the base of the windmill for size perspective.

We also visited Iowa's wind farm that is about 15 miles away from my parents' house.  There are a total of 17 windmills sitting out in the wide-open farmland of Iowa.  It's also breathtaking.  I love the fact that Iowa is pretty progressive in a lot of ways.

You can see how much the wind was blowing by looking at Finn's hair whipping in the wind.

This photo contains 16 of the 17 windmills.  Some are a lot smaller on the horizon, but if you enlarge the photo, we will find all of them.  The 17th is actually just out of shot on the left -- that was the windmill that we stopped to take photos at.

It's a nice day for a....

White Wedding!  While in Iowa, the family hit up a cousin's wedding.  It was a hot ticket with Finn.  She was so excited about the wedding.  She was talking about it for weeks.  She would tell me about what she was going to wear "when she gets married", what Fish was going to wear, how she was going to dance.  Girlfriend had wedding fever by the time that the wedding arrived.  And the wedding didn't fail to impress the little girl.

Cory came with his two boys and my parents came with us as well.

My grandparents were there and Cory and I were able to get a photograph of them with our kids.

I also tried to snap a photo of Mimi and Papa with all their grandkids.  Getting four kids to all look and smile at the same time while at a reception -- practically impossible.

After we ate and drank, we went to the park that was right next door.  The kids let out a lot of steam there and I ruined my heels walking through the grass and mulch (Ugh!).  Once we heard the music start, we corralled the kids and went back inside to from serious dancing.  There is one thing that me and my kids know how to do -- and that's dance!  There was a little intimidation going on at the beginning -- but once she started to feel comfortable, holy hell.  The girl would just run up to a random little girl, grab both of her hands, and start trying to dance with her.  Most of the little girls were not interested -- at all.  It almost broke my heart watching her get rejected time and time again.  But she didn't give a hoot.  Once one little girl would let go of her hands and turn away, she just ran to another one and tried to find a new dance partner.

Don't let these photos fool you...  NEITHER one of my kids wanted to dance with me.  I had visions of dancing the night away with both of my kids.  But Fish didn't want to be held at all.  He wanted to stand in the middle of the dance floor and dance by himself.  And Finn didn't want to dance with an old lady -- she wanted to dance with a friend.  In fact, most of my night was simply trying to keep my eyes peeled for her to make sure that she didn't head towards one of the two exits in the place.  One of her favorite things to do was to run into the big group of adults dancing in the middle of the floor and come out the other side.  Both kids were definitely in their element while dancing.

One of my favorites of the night... The light just happened to fall on her face perfectly.

And going along with the wedding theme, my cousin Kaitlyn had her senior prom while we were back.  It's tradition that the prom attendee gets all dudded up and makes the rounds amongst their family.  And Mimi's house was one of the stopping point.  Finn was in awe of her beautiful dress.

A Long Time Ago.... In a galaxy far away...

It feels like forever and a day that I have written here.  I have had such great intentions of doing so in the past couple of weeks, but haven't had time to go through my photos.  Two weeks ago, we arrived back from Iowa and we were in Iowa for three weeks before that.  This week, E's family is visiting for the week, so I need to get something up before I'm almost 10-12 weeks behind.  I have plenty of photos from the last couple of weeks, so I guess I'll be playing catch up.

Our first weekend in Iowa, we had an Easter egg hunt put on by my family.  They were super wonderful and waited three weeks (I think) so that my kids could participate in the hunt.  And we all know that Finn is a HUGE Egg hunter.  So she was super duper excited about this.  And she didn't stop until all the eggs were picked up.  My family tends to do things overboard sometimes --in fact, Owen (my bro's kid who is Finn's age) used a five-gallon bucket as his basket.  And he filled it!

I love being home -- my home-home, the place that will always be my home regardless of where I live.  My family is really close and really large -- so there is always someone to catch up with and someone to laugh with.  Fish didn't really get into the egg-picking as he does at home.  I think there was too much other strange things for him to pay more attention to.  But he did help out Owen for a hot minute.

Fish is also quite the bag-boy.  Mimi bought some purses for Finn to play with and carry around.  They were a huge hit (as are some of her other ones at home) and he wore the two purses around in style (and in his jammies).