Fun with E and O

While Charlie and Angie were in the Chicago area for some sight-seeing and an un-conference which Charlie attended, Ethan and Owen spent a few days in Northfield with Grandma Dar and Grandpa Dean. On Sunday, we made a prisoner exchange (we got the prisoners). We spent the next few days watching the antics of these two stinkers, playing, playing, playing, and laughing over their many interesting tales. 

Nothing like a board game (or two) at 7:00 a.m. to start the day. These boys are Candy Land wizards; they each beat me to the yummy candy finish line with considerable glee.

E and O invented some new games this weekend, including lacrosse-tennis. Keep your eye on the ball, Ethan!

Dang, I thought I had pictures of the motorcycle races in the First Lutheran parking lot, but I must have imagined taking them. Bikes became motorcycles, mail delivery trucks, garbage trucks, police cars, fire engines, and lots of other helpful vehicles when these boys went for a ride.

Speaking of being helpful, Ethan collected twigs in a big bucket, poured them in the wheelbarrow, and carted them around for three days. On Tuesday, he unloaded the wheelbarrow on the First Lutheran lawn. I guess they didn't have enough of their own.

Despite cloudy weather, the rain stayed away on Sunday and Monday, so there was time to go to the blue park to walk on the balance beam wall...

...and to turn the play equipment into a fire station and firetruck. Ethan sounded the alarm while Owen rushed to get in the firetruck.

Hard-working community helpers work up an appetite. E and O ate lunch in the sun room at the little table. They wished their cousins had been in town to fill the other chairs.

They worked some science into their busy day, too, hypothesizing that eating blueberries would make their eyes bluer. After experimenting, they concluded that it works 50% of the time.

We were lucky to have some visitors while E and O were with us.  When Gpappy's friend Mark dropped him off after playing golf, Gpappy and Mark were put to work to do some repairs on Owen's bike. The little guys watched closely so they'll be able do their own bicycle fix-ups in the future.

A special Guest Reader paid a visit, too. Mary giggled as much as E and O did while reading A Pig Parade is a Terrible Idea. Well...it IS a terrible idea! Read the book and you'll know why, if you can't already guess. Snuffling, a dislike for majorette uniforms, and a preference for country music are some hints.

When Charlie and Angie returned home on Tuesday, the boys had lots to tell about, including the fun they'd had with Mary. Ethan was especially excited to share that Mary had suggested the boys come to her house sometime for beer and ice cream. That got a huge laugh from everyone, even Ethan, who realized that it must have been something besides beer that she'd offered to give them. He was close. It was root beer + ice cream = root beer floats!

Like all little kids, Ethan loves playing with old cell phones, especially the flip kind that can hang on his waistband to look even more official when he's a policeman.  He's developed a bad habit, however.... texting while riding his bike. Uh-oh!

The pig parade book inspired Owen to join a marching band. He put on his batting helmet and used his grabber toy as a trumpet. Louis Armstrong, playing the blues.

We had a Skype session with Hannah and Vivian on Sunday evening. It was great to hear Hannah's pride and excitement about riding her bike without training wheels! Evan showed us a video of Hannah speeding along with a big grin on her face. When Vivi got a turn to talk, she shared that she puts her face in the water at the pool. So many new accomplishments!

More relatives

After searching for Kirsch, Schmitz, and Fuchs family members in cemeteries in Stearns County a few weeks ago, Dad/Larry/Gpappy has been perusing Ancestry.com to find out more information about some of those Fuchs. Er...folks. He located this picture posted on a site by one of Duane Nathe's daughters. It was startling for me to realize that I knew and had conversations with four of the six people in this picture, taken in 1923. FYI: The conversations took place well after 1923!

The occasion was the wedding of Meinulf Nathe and Anna Schmitz Nathe. Anna is one of Grandma Kirsch's sisters. After Meinulf's death, she lived with Duane Nathe's family in Hopkins.

                

The other people are Helen Schmitz Brockman, GK's other sister; one of her brothers, Greg Schmitz; Meinwald's sister Clara Nathe; and finally, Grandma Martha Schmitz Kirsch--age 22 in this photo.  

Helen lived in San Diego, and I have clear memories of visiting her when my family lived in California three summers while I was a teenager. In early August when Grandpa Charlie's summer math institute classes in Santa Clara ended, we'd drive to L.A. for a day at Disneyland, and then go see Aunt Helen in San Diego. 

GK had one more brother, Greg, who for some reason wasn't in the photo. He was only 12 years old in 1923, so I suppose he was off tying tin cans on the Model-T.

The weekend, in brief

Annie was here for the weekend with Westy and Miles while Tanner was "up North" for a golf weekend with some friends. On Saturday, Annie and the boys went with Dave and Doreen to a birthday celebration for Great Grandma Helen, who is 91 years young. They returned to St. Peter in time for supper at Charlie and Angie's. 

Afterward, the boys decided it would be fun to play outside with super-soakers, which led to some (what else?) super-soaking. Here are a couple of pictures I grabbed from Annie's Vine Video. 

Uncle/Daddy Charlie was the official bucket filler.

Here are three of the squirts, squirting.

Today it's almost chilly outside, but until a few minutes ago when a few claps of thunder led to a downpour, the sky was blue and filled with puffy white clouds. This morning we decided a walk around the Gustavus campus would be a good idea, starting with the Sesquicentennial Plaza to see the new landscaping.

The boys marched in a parade past the tornado sculpture.

Then they met out on the prairie, 

 

...pausing for a brotherly photo against the beautiful summer sky.

 

We happened to come across a toad lounging on a rock...

 

...and a lion on the prowl.

       Where there's a lion prowling on the prairie, 

a jungle can't be too far away, can it?

Miles and Westy stopped back at our house for a snack, then took off for Grandpa Dave and Grandma Doreen's house for raspberry picking and lunch. Thanks for visiting this weekend A, M, and W!

We're hoping for a FaceTime or Skype session with Vivi and Hannah later today so. Hint, hint!

Here's what we've been doing the last few days

Monday was tee-ball day. We went to Otown to watch the white team play the red team. We were cheering for the white team, especially for player #7 and the coach.

 Miles on third base

Miles, bringing it home

The spectators had great seats. As you can see, Westy is an old pro at this tee-ball watching thing.

After tee-ball, we enjoyed Jimmy John's sandwiches, fruit, and chips with Annie, Tanner, Miles and Westy.  A fun summer evening.

This morning, it was all business at our house as Jeremy from Mankato Landshapes rode up and down in a cherry picker, wielding a chain saw with great skill as he trimmed and sawed and dodged falling limbs from our ash trees. 

We invited Ethan and Owen to watch the event from a safe location inside our garage. Grandpa poured himself a cup of coffee, and took a front row seat with Owen.

 

Ethan was mesmerized watching the limbs fall. He and Owen discovered some little ice cream sandwiches in the garage freezer, which they thought would make a good treat. My apologies to Angie and Charlie for letting the boys have an 8:45 a.m. snack of ice cream. Hey, it was hot out! 

 

Here, Ethan is explaining something about the fine art of tree trimming.

 

These boys always learn from what they observe, so it wasn't long before they picked up a couple of small push brooms and turned them into extended chain saws. After trimming some imaginary limbs in the garage, they went for the real thing out on the patio. The linden tree looked much better after their artistry was applied.

It got pretty hot and mosquito-y out there, so we went in the house to cool off and play for a little while before E and O left.

The tree "worker men" finished up around 4:30 with the last of the clean-up and grinding. The ash trees are trimmed, and although we'll have less shade in the front yard, there is a greater likelihood of not having to use our homeowner's insurance to pay for repairing roof damage to our house or Mary and Darrel's next time it storms.

Nice weather for ducks

This rainy morning in MN and NC eventually slowed down so kiddos could go out to play.  Vivi and Hannah showed off their new swimsuits, and did some puddle-jumping in their rain boots. Thanks for the picture, ESPD.

Miles and Westy went to the park to feed the ducks. It looks like they delivered new feathers to their quacking friends, too. I swiped these pics from your Vine video, Tanner. : o )

 

Baseball was the game of the afternoon when Charlie, E, and O continued their BroWeekend. Angie, we hope you're having fun with your mom and sister!

 

We got in a little Skype session with Hannah and Vivi. The chicas showed off their new swimsuits and Hannah modeled her brand-new first grade backpack. E and O played some ball for their cousins.

E and O pronounced supper to be "stinky" --specifically the Parmesan cheese. I have to agree about that, but it still tasted good! Ha ha!

Stearns County cemetery tour

In the two years Don and Janet have lived in MN, we've made attempts to get together at least every other month. Sometimes it's at our house or theirs, other times dinner in the Twin Cities area, a visit to a museum or art gallery, a play, or some other event. Today's get-together started out with lunch at Granite City Brewery in St. Cloud, followed by a tour of Stearns County church cemeteries. 

My grandparents lived in Rosoe. Grandma Bene grew up there and went to high school in Paynesville. There is a connection somewhere on the Nathe family tree between Ray Nathe (Janet's dad) and Duane Nathe (my mom's cousin). We'll leave that unresolved for now, but it's interesting enough to know that Janet's relatives and mine lived so close together at one time. Janet dad's family (the Nathe, Winter, and Schoenborn families, among others) settled in the area , and her dad lived in Melrose for a short time as a child. 

Dad/Larry/Gpappy is the genealogy researcher for his family and mine, and he's far more interested in the historical context of relatives in past generations than I am. I appreciate his interest, but "recent" relatives like my grandparents --Marcus and Martha Kirsch-- and their parents have more meaning to me.  Every time she visited us in Spring Valley when I was a kid, Grandma Kirsch and my mom caught up on all the news from Stearns County about people with German names like Schmitz, Fuchs (sorry), Mehr, Sauer, Nathe, Muggli, and Backes. There were no Johnsons, Olsons, or Larsons in my family, and there appear to be none buried anywhere in Stearns County, either! I've never seen so many German names, a disproportionate number of them being "Fuchs", by the way. Who knew there were so many?

Okay, I'm including this blog entry for myself, so you can stop reading any time. I want to have a photo record of some of the places we went today in the blog book I'll print at the end of the year. 

Our first stop was St. Agnes Catholic Church in Roscoe. Grandma Bene and Grandpa Charlie were married there at a ceremony with a lot of "Catholic rigmarole", according to my Grandma Reps. I have a letter in her own handwriting that attests to her concern about my dad's conversion.

                       

Marcus Kirsch, my grandfather, died a few months before I was born. 

GK died on the 4th of July in 1993, 20 years ago.

Marcus's parents (my great-grandparents):

Maggie (her nickname)and Michel Kirsch.

My grandfather Marcus owned the grain elevator in Roscoe in the 1940's.

Stearns County baseball has always been a big deal. Roscoe has fewer than 110 residents, but they have a baseball field, as they did when (big) Uncle Mike played in the '50s, and Marcus "Stub" did before him.

The next stop was St. Margaret's Church cemetery in Lake Henry. GK grew up in Lake Henry. Her parents:  Peter Schmitz and Eva Fuchs Schmitz.

 

 GK's Fuchs grandparents: Quirin Fuchs (can you imagine?) 

and Anna Mehr Fuchs.

When were locating Janet's relatives in a beautiful little cemetery in Spring Hill, I took this non-ancestor photo, mostly for Evan.

As we were leaving St. Peter and Paul's Cemetery in Richmond (filled with Backes ancestors), we saw this monument.... no kidding!

On a completely different topic, but one that has special meaning for Teresa and me, Larry/Dad and I drove through Eden Valley on the way home. I sent Teresa a text after taking the photo below...

"We blazed through town trying to get away from the gang of Eden Valley-Watkins English teachers who spotted us as we drove past the lumber yard. I could hear them screaming for our heads." 

If the message made it through cyberspace, I'm sure Teresa was laughing her ass off when she read it. She had I had a near-fatal encounter with the EV-W teaching staff on an unseasonably hot late November day a number of years ago when we were hired to do a day-long staff development workshop on writing. The heat might have been responsible, because our presence didn't sit well with a number of the teachers. Or maybe it was because the district language arts committee failed to tell them that writing was going to be a part of the curriculum. It was ugly. You had to be there, but trust me, we're lucky to have escaped. 

Back to the purpose of visiting Stearns County... Don and Janet, if you read this, thanks for meeting us today and exploring the area.

Hurray for the red, white, and blue

I haven't figured out yet if last weekend was considered the official 4th of July weekend, or if we're in the midst of it now. The vote is split on the issue, and so were the members of our family. Split by location, that is-- in MN, WI, and NC.

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Early in the week we had a brief visit from E and O, who came to play while their mommy got a haircut. The weather was great and it was breezy enough to keep the mosquitoes away from tender little-boy skin, so being outside was fun.

Ethan, riding Gpappy's motorcycle

O and E, helping Gpappy pick up sticks

E and O playing lazy-man's ring toss

Snacks and relaxation

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A few days later, Miles and Westy were "Livin' the Dream" at the Tommy Bartlett water show with Grandpa Dave, Grandma Doreen, Uncle Will, and Auntie Anne. Here they look more like the incredible shrinking boys-- maybe that's the dream they're livin'? Thanks for the photo, Tanner and Annie.

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The 4th of July brought warm and breezy weather, perfect for a parade. Angie ran in the Freedom Fun Run with Grandpa Dean and Uncle Josh. Grandma Dar, Charlie, Gpappy, E, O, and I watched them speed by from our usual vantage point in the 1st Lutheran Church parking lot. Then we headed to MN Square for the kiddie run (I have no pictures, so I hope someone else will share theirs.), followed by the traditional St. Peter 4th of July parade.

Charlie and Uncle Josh found a shady spot.

Angie, E, O, and D & D claimed a prime candy-catching location. Owen and Ethan had made a pact with Miles that they'd get parade candy for him and Westy, too. They did a great job of it, and were especially proud of getting a lot of little Tootsie Rolls so Uncle Tanner could have some of his favorites.

Afterwards, we had a great brats-from-Schmidt's cookout at CP and APP's. Perfect 4th of July lunch!

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In NC, the chicas were dressed in patriotic colors to start their Independence Day.

Later, they enjoyed sparklers before going to campus to watch the fireworks display. Thanks for the pictures, Elisabeth.

It's Saturday evening, and I don't know where the day has gone. I spent much of it inside staying cool and avoiding the mosquito swarms that nearly drove me crazy yesterday when I planted a few new hostas and attempted to get ahead of the weeds. I'll try again tomorrow to fend off mosquitoes long enough to empty one last bag of mulch and to throw curses at the bunnies who stand up on their hind legs, grab onto coneflower stems with their front paws, and bend the flowers down so they can devour them. Rascally rabbits!