Friends & Family week part 2: the Hunekes come to town

Yes, our darling godson and his parents (whom we happen to like too) came to visit over the weekend. Greta had a love/hate relationship with "Nakan" (Nathan in gretalese)...she loved playing with him as long as it didn't involve her toys. Ugh. We have alot to learn about sharing. We flew kites, played in the park, rode the train around the lake and hit the zoo with Nakan... Good times. Check out these cuties....

Friends & Family week: part 1 State Fair '08

We were fortunate enough to welcome Aunt Ann and Uncle Ken to town to join us for our 2nd annual trip to the MN State Fair. Even though the skies were somewhat ominous, we managed to have alot of fun at the fair. Greta loved the animals, particularly the "bebe caoww" (that's baby cow for those of you that don't speak gretalese). We saw other fun stuff too...like the butter busts of the dairy queens...but mostly we ate. Well, most of us ate. Greta slept while the big peeps ate. We guided my Aunt & Uncle through the fair favorites: cheesecurds, leftsa, walleye on a stick, fried snickers on a stick...my uncle even sprung for ostrich on a stick (not a whole ostrich of course). Enjoy a few pics of our fun at the fair! PS..you can see Greta's new cute handmade apron with matching tablecloth and napkins that Aunt Ann brought her...she began cooking immediately...mama is feeling very hopeful about this.......

Goodbye Great-Grandma Verna

The 3 of us spent this last week in Peoria, IL celebrating the life and marking the death of Eleanor's grandma H on Tuesday. Feeling Great-grandma's passing was imminent, we drove down to IL on Monday night...the drive was relatively uneventful save some backseat poses from you know who. Great Grandma H died Tuesday morning with Eleanor's dad and aunt at her side. We were sad we didn't make it to her bedside in time to say goodbye, but we are relishing a wonderful weekend spent with her in March and count that as both a happy memory and our time to say goodbye to Great Grandma. Amidst our sadness, we did enjoy the unexpected opportunity to reunite GBoo with Granny & Gramps (these seem to be the names sticking to Bamagramma and Bamagramps). Eleanor's cousins also have munckins close to GBoo's age so the 3 of them had a ball playing together. Here are a few pics from our week together and one from our last happy time with GreatGrandma H in March.

Family Fun

After we returned from camping, Gboo and mama enjoyed having daddy around for much of last week. We made a trip to the aquarium where Greta got VERY excited about the SHAAACK. She has a sea creatures puzzle set...and daddy has taught her how to stage a shark attack complete with the jaws theme song. So seeing the real thing- swimming very close to her head- was quite exciting.

This afternoon we walked down to our neighborhood park and indulged another one of Greta's new interests: flying kites. Gboo has been talking about kites non-stop for the last 2 weeks so the preacher ran out and picked up a kickin' plastic kite for our family to fly. This was round 2 for the kite...the 1st attempt ended with Gboo in tears and a frustrated daddy. But today all the pieces came together nicely...a sunny day, a nice summer breeze, a well-rested baby....and the kite flying was a smashing success!

Enjoy a few photos of our last few days together!

Gboo goes camping!

Yes, indeedy. Gboo was quite the little camper! We drove down and camped outside Lanesboro for a part of Tyler's vacation this week. Gboo did great and ended up sleeping with mama in her sleeping bag because it got down to 45 degrees Sunday night! Monday morning we got up, had daddy's eggs and bacon and then we hit the Root River State Trail on our bikes. 20 miles later we were tired, and with the prospect of rain, we decided to pack up and head home. Enjoy a few pics from our first family camping trip!

Funny story from the trip: in our efforts to find a G-rated (pun intended) way to express our, errr, frustration, we came up with "Oh Phooey." Our little parrot soon made this phrase her own....in a little different form...."oh fob-ey." We have struck upon a new favorite.

G-boo tube

a few more videos of G for your viewing pleasure. One from July 4th, one from G's time alone with daddy while mom was on ASP, and some bath footage I believe. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1zBdPpgvos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOvv1Xoe1R8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZIR73UOSS4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k_tUc7zKa4

How can it be August?

The heat index definitely points to August, but we're scratching our heads wondering how it is that this summer is flying by so quickly. Just a quick posting...thought the world should see Gboo in this cute little Bamagramma number. Sorry the pics are a tad blurry....she's on the move and it's hard to get her to stay still long enough to capture a cute shot! Towel, toothbrush and potty are new this week in G's vocab (mommy is encouraged by all the potty talk! We even have a little potty sitting going on....woohoo!!).

Stay tuned...next week the family is going camping for a few days for our vacation! Some hilarity is bound to crop up on our first camping trip with munchkin baby. Plus we have visits from my Aunt & Uncle and friends from Atlanta happening towards the end of the month too. We're going to get the MOST out of August.

PS You'll notice we've made another attempt to tame the mullet....we'll see how long this haircut lasts!