Skiing!

We've had some pretty good snow lately and with Uncle James in town a trip to the ski hill seemed like a good idea. Elsa and Nora have asked a few times in the past if they could try it out, so a family trip was in order.

All three girls did a great job trying out skis on the bunny hill.  After about two hours, it was time to head home.  I told Elsa it was time to take one last run and her response was perfect,"When can we come back? "

Here's a few clips from the hill...

Dance Recital and Thanksgiving/Birthday

Two weeks ago Nora had her fall dance recital and she did a great job as usual.  We did manage to get a picture of her in costume at the end and also got photo bombed by santa (who has poor dance form in case you were wondering).  If you can get her to repeat any of those moves while she's at home, good luck.

We also had Jenna's 6th birthday party, a bit early much to her delight, and Thanksgiving together on Friday.  Jenna was so happy to have everyone come down, she even enjoyed the BBQ smoked turkey we made for dinner.  Thanks to everyone for making it a great day for Jenna and the whole family.

Halloween, Pumpkin Fest

Time for another photo unloading.

First up is Pumpkin Fest.  As usual it was a great time having everyone up there.  The beta test for DC Bingo showed a few flaws in trusting the contestants to play honestly.  Version 2.0 will address some of these issues.

Up next are the Halloween costumes.  The twins were both Harry Potter characters and Jenna went as a Viking from 'How to Train Your Dragon.'  They got a little bit of time at Grandma Weiland's house and also a little bit of time in our neighborhood.

Some small updates

We were busy this weekend getting items checked off the to do list.  We were tired of everyone plummeting down the stairwell so we finally gave in and put in a railing...to code no less.  Other improvements included a woodshed/guest bedroom (if you don't have reservations for Pumpkin Fest you may have to use it as a guest bedroom).  With this weekend approaching quickly I'll put together a short list of what we could use for food and such.  See you on Friday everyone, I'm off to print bingo cards.

Door County Bingo

Alright, I've dragged my feet long enough.  Here is the link for the potential bingo squares.  If anyone has any problems accessing it just leave a comment and I'll try to figure it out.

Have fun!


DC Bingo

Triathlon for Everyone!

Just last weekend we had the whole family take part in the Door County Triathlon.  For Elsa and Nora it was their second year and Jenna raced for the first time.  If you haven't heard yet (she's been telling everyone) Jenna placed second in her age group!  She was so excited just to race, and then to find out afterwards that she was second was "The best day ever."  Here are some of the finisher photos from the race:

If you want to hear some funny stuff, ask Jenna to tell you all about her big day.  She's been a riot to us lately, not so much to Elsa and Nora who have to listen to all of it though.

Finland trip

For anyone who is tired of seeing drywall updates, this post will be a nice break.  

Melissa and I had a great time in Finland over the weekend.  We spent two days exploring downtown Helsinki and had a short day trip over to Estonia.  We walked most of the harbor area, ate good food, then tried to figure out how to go sleep when the sun is still out at 11 pm.  With summer solstice just a few days past, the sun really only set from 11:30 pm until about 3 am.  Waking up in the middle of the night was very odd to say the least.  

Here's a picture taken at 11:15 pm as we were headed back to the hotel...

On a nearby island we saw lots of traditional Finnish buildings, which despite being around 200 years old were still straighter than the farmhouse.  

  

Our cruise over to Estonia was the most interesting.  It was a decent sized cruise ship with two decks to ferry cars across and about four decks above that. Here is a picture of the ship...

What follows is my best effort to describe what an Estonian cruise is like...

Take 2500 people.  Give about 2000 of them a pack of cigarettes each and make sure they finish them before you reach Estonia.  Somehow create a mystical ventilation system that pipes stale cigarette smoke to most of the ship's interior.  Have about 1250 of them go without deodorant for the day.  Get 20 of them to sing Karaoke in Finnish.  Two hours later drop them off in Estonia where they can purchase alcohol and cigarettes duty free.  Once that's complete, get at least 100 of them so sauced that they can't stand up on the return trip and you've got yourself a cruise.  

Despite all that, Melissa and I had a great time in Estonia.  The old town has buildings that have been there since the 1500's.  The place has a very medieval look to it.  We also had a lunch in a very good restaurant that had this bit of taxidermy in the front window...

Those are all real mounts in there, not unlike Mexican frogs.

Here's a shot of the main square in Estonia...

It was a good way to take a break from the construction up north, thanks to Melissa for having a job with a global company.  I'll leave this with just a few other pictures from the trip.

2nd Floor almost done

It was a long week, but we are almost ready for furniture upstairs.  With some dad help we were able to finish drywall, prime and paint, trim out the windows, put down the laminate, wire up outlets and switches and install the cabinet.  The only things remaining are the carpet installation and reworking the stairs and railing.

And with the flooring installed...

It will be great to have the upstairs finished soon.  I know the girls are looking forward to moving into their new room.  I'll personally miss folding up the couch and chairs every morning so that we can use the living room.  More finished pictures to come after a short trip to Helsinki.

Progress update

We've been busy up north lately and are getting closer to the end.  We've drywalled the girls room and finished up the ceiling boards.  The rooms are really starting to take shape.  We won't start work on the two bathrooms until we have a chance to recharge a little bit.

Here's the picture from last fall:

And after last weekend:

We also have some kids who are fully into summer mode.  Here's a quick picture from Fleming's garage sale, where the girls gave us their best pitch to buy them a convertible:

We've gotten the girls set up in their new rooms at home, Jenna wasted no time at all giving it a test.  I went outside to cut the grass and came back in and she was asleep.

That's what we've been up to this crazy summer.  We should have some more pictures up next week.  Or next year, whenever...

T-ball starts in a few weeks

Jenna's summer T-ball league starts in just a few weeks and with the weather finally getting nicer it was time to get the gear.  It goes without saying that she was pretty excited after getting her glove and ball.  Three separate rounds of catch later she was still asking if we could throw a few more times.  She's already got the throwing mechanics down, we'll add fielding and batting later.

Woodland creatures...

Elsa and Nora have a school play coming up this Friday and we got the costumes finished up last weekend. We thought we'd post pictures while they were still intact. Elsa is going to be a bunny and Nora will be a squirrel.  Nora is not allowed to wear the costume around Sam however.

After the play, the next night is their first band concert.  They are very excited.  I'm not sure if all the songs, but I know On Wisconsin will be played.

Turkey season

We had another good weekend of progress at the farmhouse.  It's always fun spending 80% of your time shimming and then 20% hanging drywall. The framing is all finished in the attic and the drywall will be hung in one more trip up there.  Thanks to the dads for the extra hands.  Here's the view from the doorway looking North.

On the ride back I managed to do a little turkey hunting.  With about a half second notice a turkey managed to fly across the road 2' off the ground.  This was the result...

Good stuff.

So...we forgot we had a blog.

Alright so this is going to be another photo dump.  Apparently our last post was over 2 months ago, so there's a few pictures to catch everyone up on.  Lately things have been busy.  We had Elsa and Nora's birthday, the Daddy Daughter Dance and of course the construction up north.

Elsa and Nora wanted Minecraft decorations for their birthday so we did our best to decorate in 8-bit graphics.  If you aren't familiar with Minecraft just ask the girls, it's one of the few topics that they will actually talk about with other people.

The next week we had the 1st annual Daddy Daughter Dance at school.  Elsa and Nora had a good time with their friends and Jenna got to run around with her classmates and get tired out.  It was quite the scene.

Then of course we're back to construction season up north.  We're trying to get as much finished now before the Brookfield construction starts.  We got some good framing done last weekend and some of our electrical runs.  The next trip up we should have made some good progress towards getting drywall done.

If you haven't heard the details, we're going to be closing on our new place just about a month from now.  We'll be sure to have lots of pictures of our new house soon.  Also, if you know of someone in need of a powder blue toilet, I've got a line on one.  And tile, powder blue tile.  It's flying off the shelves over here, so put your order in now.  Here's the listing:
Click here to put a bid in...