Aaaaww-OOOooo...

a little culture never hurt anybody

wounded vets video

Caught this at the end of the news yesterday and thought it was cool.  Prosthetic limb technology has come a long way. It's amazing what these guys can do.  Go Vets!

blessed braggy mom

Nate and I went to conferences for Michael, Adrienne, and Nicky yesterday.  They're all doing really well.  We walked out feeling pretty proud of our little brood.  Not that we expected to breed numskull troublemakers, given the mousy nerd I was and the smarty Nate was in school.  They're bright and talented and we're blessed.

houseful of sickies

All 6 of us have had to wrangle with a cold and cough bug in the last 2 weeks.  Michael's mostly over it.  Mine's not too bad.  The rest of the people in this house are still a bit gross.  Moms are supposed to be super compassionate and all, but hearing coughing every 5 seconds for weeks and weeks grates on the nerves.  Some less than nurturing things may have been said recently, like Please get your sorry barking carcass out of here and leave me alone.  I would rather deal with colds than a pukefest, though, or full on influenza, so I'll quit whining now.  Here's a fun picture of a squirrel chillin' on our deck.

And cold bugs be darned, we made it to Red Wing on Saturday for our annual fall family leaf looking.  'Cept it's been so windy that what's left wasn't real impressive.  Nice warm weather, though.  This year we rode the Trolley for a tour about the town.  The guide liked to talk about alcohol.  Good family fun.  Oh, and there's a rumor that Al Capone and some other thugs used to hang out at an island by Red Wing.  I've heard the same about Coney Island in Waconia.  Those mobsters really got around.  I think I saw one in Target last week.

Michael acted like a teenager most of the time.  I suppose as each of the kids succumbs to teen-dom in the coming years, they might prefer to skip these family excursions.  Nothing doing, pal.

bad news bearer

Really enjoying these temps in the 80's this week, but it could get pretty ugly in just a couple months.  When I was at the dentist recently, the hygienist told me another patient had said we were in for an even worse winter than last year.  &*%$#.  So to put off doing dishes just now, I looked into it and came up with this website:

OFFICIAL 2011-2012 WINTER FORECAST

There's some speculation involved, of course, so here's hoping things change.

warm October orchard day

Went to a couple orchards yesterday, along with 1/3 of all Minnesotans.  Guess we all had the same idea since it's been gorgeous outside.

The first one we went to charged for every little thing, so we went to another one where the kids could jump off hay bales for free.

Their hay rides were a lot cheaper too...