Grandma Kathy came with us to the beach! After I dropped the Devious Snail off at camp and drove back home, we clamored into the van for a peaceful night at the secret beach. The kidlets swam, of course, and found some sea glass. Grandma enjoyed sitting on a rock…

It has been a hot and dry summer, and while we are faring a little better than a lot of other nearby places, it is still alarmingly dry. When we got two big thunderstorms within days of each other it was pretty glorious to watch the rain, and best of…

Grandma Kathy spent the weekend with us! It was lovely to have her. She brought us lettuce from her garden and took special care to take each kidlet out to do something special with her. Mr. TOF went to have a rueben sandwich and ice cream, and the Devious Snail…

We took Cousin Alex to the Secret Beach to swim, jump off the rock, and look for sea glass. The water happened to be delightful, so there was much fun splashing about and jumping.

On our way home from our trip to North Dakota, we picked up my nephew and brought him to Camp Aunt Rachel. It was a fun filled week that included a lot of LEGOS, water, and the traditional trip to the Timber Twister Alpine coaster, which is always thrilling. One…

It had been a ridiculously long time since we had visited my parents because of the pandemic. It was an exciting weekend filled with cousins, sugar, fresh air, bike riding, pie, prairie trail walks and runs, gopher hunting and other sources of goodness. (The Devious Snail may have stayed up…

I was alone at the beach! The Banana was napping. Dr. Peds and the Devious Snail were working and then cooked on the grill at our neighbor’s house. I waited for Mr. TOF to get back from baseball practice before I left for the beach, but he ended up being…

The kidlets have alway loved classic playground equipment, which has become very rare these days. The last twisty slide and merry-go-round were removed from one of their favorite local parks a few years ago, and they are always complaining. Whenever playground equipment has been replaced at our local parks, they…

It’s baseball, baseball, baseball every day around here, and Mr. TOF literally loves every second of it. In addition to some great pitching and hitting, he made a super sweet double play the other night which was actually really beautiful to watch. It was kind of like grace in motion,…

The big kids and I were in North Dakota over the weekend to see Grandma Robbie and Grandpa Ron. We brought bikes. The Banana even had bicycle earrings on for her bike ride to town. We picked up YaYa and her bicycle from college on our way, and the Devious…