Memorial Day Weekend at the Lake and a Tornado

We celebrated Memorial Day weekend with Grandpa and Grandma Brenda at the cabin on Lake Charlotte. Saturday's weather was beautiful and so was the first half of Sunday.


Mary Kate was fascinated with all the boats on the lake and every time she saw one, proclaimed "Boat!" and pointed at it until she made sure everyone saw it.

When she wasn't spotting boats, she was playing in the sand.

Ethan's favorite thing to do was drive the pontoon boat and pedal the paddleboat around the bay.

Saturday night, we had an early campfire complete with everyone's favorite treat...smores.

A big storm rolled into Wright county late in the afternoon and we had to seek shelter at Aunt Kate's house next door. About an hour after turning on the local weather, we learned about the tornado that struck Hugo, about 3 miles north of our house. We made several calls to neighbors and decided to drive home Sunday night. Despite some large hail and possible siding damage, our home is fine. In Hugo over 50 homes were completely destroyed and another 150 severely damaged. A family from our church lost their 2 year old son, Nathaniel, and their daughter, Annika, is fighting for her life. Please pray for the Prindle family and all of the residents in Hugo affected by the tornado.

We have been busy this week collecting donations from friends and neighbors to help the hundreds of families who lost everything in the storm. Tomorrow we are driving a van load of donated items to the fire department. Ethan has been very involved in helping collect the donations and has had some great ideas for ways to help the kids. He decided to use some of his piggy bank savings to purchase new pajamas and books for kids who need them.

Finally, Mary Kate's party!

Everyone at our house is healthy, hooray, so we were able to have Mary Kate's birthday party with friends on Friday. She celebrated with Ethan, Laura, Nate, and Jack. It was nice enough outside to play on the swingset for a while, followed by lunch, presents, and cupcakes.

Mary Kate's new favorite way to swing.

Opening presents with the ever-eager-to-help-open-presents Ethan and Laura.

Blowing out the candles.

Friday was also Jack's 2 year birthday, so we lit some candles for him, too.

And Nate gets some practice for his upcoming one year birthday. He gives a thumbs up on the whipped cream frosting.

Mary Kate Turns Two!! And Happy Mother's Day!

Today we celebrated Mary Kate's second birthday and Mother's Day. What a great day!!


On Wednesday, a package arrived from Nana, Aunt Lauren, and cousin Zachary. Inside, Mary Kate was thrilled to find a ballerina dress, sparkly shoes, necklaces, two summer outfits, and even a magic wand. Mom tried the wand, but it's magic apparently does not clean the house or do the laundry.


We had a birthday party planned for Saturday morning, but on Friday afternoon, Ethan's eyes started producing uber-huge amounts of nasty green gunk. A 4:45 pm visit to our pediatrician produced a diagnosis of croup, which kind of surprised us, since no one had a cough. E's throat was very red and inflamed, the doc said, and sure enough, Friday night, the coughing started.

Needless to say, we postponed the party and will reschedule when both kids are healthy.

Ethan and Mom spent Saturday hanging out and applying warm washcloths and eyedrops. Thankfully, the eye drop prescription put a fairly quick end to the eye goop. Mary Kate and Dad ran some errands in the morning and we all relaxed in the afternoon. Not the party day we had planned, but a good day despite the croup. Mary Kate's little eyes started goop production Saturday evening, and we started her on the eyedrops, too. Both kids were asleep by 6:30 pm.


This morning, Mary Kate woke up at 5:45 am and Ethan was up at 6 am. Dad made a doughnut run and we enjoyed breakfast together and Mother's Day gifts before Mom headed off to church (alone, since this is her week to volunteer at the Information desk for both services.) Here's our Mother's Day picture...Mom with two goopy eyed, but still happy kids.



Mom arrived home to find that Dad and the kids had made a wonderful lunch of grilled steak, shrimp, salad, and corn on the cob. The kids devoured the corn on the cob!



Grandpa Grilz and Grandma Brenda arrived just in time to have a bit of lunch with the birthday girl. Then Ethan performed a harmonica "birthday concert" for Mary Kate, which was very sweet. Mary Kate opened her gifts and then we all enjoyed some Elmo birthday cake and ice cream. When we were singing the Happy Birthday Song, she joined in by singing "Happy me!" She knew exactly what to do when it came time to blow out the candles and enjoyed the whole song and cake thing very much.




Next, we headed outside for some pictures and play time. Mom and Dad planted Mom's new hydrangea (it's an annual tradition that Mom receives a new perennial on Mother's Day) and Mom planted her impatiens in the window boxes.




Mary Kate decided she'd like to drive the John Deere today for the first time. She couldn't reach the pedals, so Ethan was the gas/brake man and she steered. Excellent teamwork! We were so busy video taping (and making sure no crashes occurred!) that we didn't get a picture of the driving.


Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful Mom's out there. We hope you had a beautiful day.