Traditions

Every year when the weather finally gets warm enough to walk around without a jacket, the kids and I take a trip to Canal Park in Downtown Duluth and walk along the Lakewalk.  And every year when we go past the beach Kira says, "I want to go in," and every year I think to myself, "God, she's nuts.  There was ice out there just a few weeks ago!"  and at first I argue and tell her no, it's too cold, she'll get hypothermia, the water is only 45 degrees blah blah blah...  And then eventually I relent and say, "Go ahead," in a I'm-calling-your-bluff kind of way.  And every year she does it.  It honestly surprises me every single time.  (What does that say about me?)  To illustrate how much of a surprise it is to me every year: ever since she was a toddler and ran in with her diaper on, I have not once thought to bring a change of clothes along.  Not. Once.

This year she went in wearing shorts and a fleece pullover.  After the initial shock she got used to it and swam around for about 20 minutes.  When she got out I felt her leg and she was FREEZING.  I made her roller-blade up the Lakewalk to dry off.  

Beach Day

Kira and I had what she has dubbed the "best day of the summer" today.  It has been so blazingly hot lately that we decided to see if Lake Superior is swimmable.  Usually it is so cold that you can't even stand to wade up to your ankles, but sometimes, for some reason, it feels relatively warm and it is super fun to swim in it.  Today was a warm-water day.  It was glorious.  It was really windy so there was surf.  I didn't take my camera along but I looked for some comparable pictures online of the kind of surf we were in today.  

It wasn't this big.  This isn't even Lake Superior.  I'm pretty sure it's the ocean.
That's a big wave.  I would never go in that.  

This actually is Duluth, and it is not far from where we were swimming, but the waves weren't this big either.  

This is more like what we were dealing with.  

The bottom picture is the same Park Point beach we were at today, but there were lots of people there, and I want to say that the waves were even a little bigger.  They were big enough to be exhilarating, with a few waves big enough so smack you hard on the back of the head and rip your feet out from under you, but not big enough to be terrifying.  My life-long recurring nightmare is to be swimming and suddenly be faced with a wave like the one in the top picture, but also one of my favorite activities is swimming in surf.  I can see how surfers get addicted to waiting for the next great wave.

When I was a kid and we lived in Australia, we decided to go to the beach one day because it was punishingly hot.  We lived about an hour or so from the coast so we got in the van, complete with barf-bucket/sand castle bucket for me/my sister Beth, and headed to the beach.  We drove around and saw beaches so packed with people there wasn't even room to put your towel down.  We kept driving.  Finally we came across a beautiful beach with white sand and big surf and it was practically empty.  We stopped and spent the day swimming and playing in the sand.  Later we learned that that beach is notorious for it's deadly riptides and sharks.  Oh well.  It wasn't crowded and we survivied.  Win win.

I wish I was a camel

Okay everyone.  I think I'm back for good now.  I have been gone on and off for about three weeks at Rainy Lake having fun swimming and kayaking and eating whatever the hell struck my fancy, but now I'm home for at least a few weeks, so hopefully I can get back to regular life for a while which includes blogging and not eating 10,000 calories a day. (Highlight of the trip: kayaking to an island and exploring and swimming around. Lowlight:  I accidentally ate a spiderweb.)

I can't think of anything to tell you about right off the top of my head now because I'm so unbelievably HOT.  I think I might right now, at this very moment be suffering from brain damage because my gray matter is literally being cooked.  I read recently that camels are adapted to the desert in a bunch of clever ways, one of which is that their body absorbs heat and stores it and it doesn't go to their brain because there is some kind of barrier and insulation that keeps their brain nice and cool no matter how how hot their bodies get.  I wish I had that because I'm so hot I can barely think, yet my saddlebags, which hold a large portion of my cellulite, are cool.  Why can't my fat absorb the heat and leave my vital organs out of it?  I have never in my life wished so bad that I was a camel.

Last fall Mitch and I thought we were sooooooooo smaaaaarrrt because we got new super duper insulation blown into the walls of our house.  God, we were so smug about that; bragging about it, saying obnoxious things to people like, "Oh, you don't have blown-in insulation???  Weeee do.  You need to get it.  Seriously, you really need to get it."   Now it is 9:30 at night, and it is 75 degrees outside but it is still 85 in the house!  And now I know that you are thinking, "Oh, you don't have air conditioning???  Weeee do.  You need to get it.  Seriously, you really need to get it."  Well, we don't have it because normally Duluth has only about five or six days that are unbearably hot.  This year it's been much hotter which I usually like, but not when my brain gets hot.  I may go swimming in Lake Superior tomorrow.  If I live until then.

Spider Island

Are you afraid of spiders?  If you said no, I can predict that you are sitting somewhere in a civilized, not-all-that-natural environment right now and there is virtually no danger of a spider the size of your hand running across your lap.  And you're a liar.  Spiders are scary.  And creepy.  And fast.  Yuck.

(Thank you to someone on Flickr for the photo of the gross spider.)

Amy has the most adorable little cabin on a perfect spot on a perfect lake.  For three months out of the year it is paradise.  Except for all the spiders.  Whenever I go out there I try to convince myself that:
A) they don't want to attack me, and if I leave them alone, they will leave me alone,
B) They are good because they eat bugs that bite me,
C) They are fascinating creatures, what with the spinning of webs and all.

It never works.  For one thing, they are EVERYWHERE.  Sure, they don't want to attack me, but say you are walking to the outhouse a little way into the woods; unless you make a conscious effort to blur your eyes, look only where you are going, and don't look at the buildings that have spider-web thatched roofs, you WILL see a frighteningly fast, DISGUSTING spider scurrying out of your way.

My dad said he saw a spider out back behind the shed that was as big as a small woman's hand and it was moving slowly because it was carrying an egg sac the size of a marble.  Just writing that sentence makes me want to throw up.  When my dad told that to my mom and me we both almost gagged.  I don't know what's worse: a spider that moves faster than lightning, or a spider that is slow because it is carrying a web-backpack full of millions more spiders.  When my dad saw our reaction he said, "They are good!  They eat bugs!" and my mom said what women have been saying for generations, "I'd rather have the other bugs."

Spiders are kind of interesting.  On TV.  Or on the opposite side of a pane of glass.  And only then when you chant, "She's just like Charlotte! She's just like Charlotte! She's just like Charlotte!" to yourself in a frantic cadence while doing Lamaze breathing.

I watched some fat-bodied non-giant spiders outside the sauna spinning webs.  It wasn't the worst thing in the world.  But if they were on the inside of the sauna, instead of the outside, I would have freaked out and smooshed them.  And then I'd be totally grossed out by how much their disgusting fat bodies squished.

Kira has always liked to tell me I'm a sissy when it comes to the spiders.  She acts all tough and even goes so far as to hold and play with Daddy Long Legs.  Gross.  Well, not this past week.  Amy and I were at the fire pit, and Kira came down from changing out of her swimming suit and she was frantically trying not to be frantic.  She was laughing a forced laugh that would have been screaming if she wasn't so stubborn and determined.  She had the curled up body of a spider on her towel and she said, "I caught this spider crawling ACROSS MY FACE!"  The spider was huge.  She said she noticed it and then did the international bug dance which flung him off of her, and then saw the spider trying to crawl away across my bed so she smashed it with my book.  I am so happy she had the wherewithal to smash it after she brushed it off her face.  It saved me from a sleepless night of wondering when the spider was going to crawl up my body and lay eggs in my mouth.  When all spread out with the legs and huge body, that spider was probably the size of the top of a coffee cup.  Kira was freaked out.  Amy and I (who are both terrified of spiders so our reassurance doesn't count for much) tried to tell her to forget about it.  Amy said, "Kira, in a ten foot square space anywhere on this island there are probably a thousand spiders.  They won't hurt you."  to which Kira replied with, "Yes, but they are not ON MY FACE!"  to which Amy and I said, "Touche," and we all sat there and shuddered for about an hour.   

I've been gone

The kids and I took a little mini-vacation up to Rainy Lake for the last several days.  Kira and I stayed with Amy at her cabin, and Sam stayed in town with my parents so he could drive them around wherever their little hearts desired.  I have lots to catch up on around here so this isn't really a real post.  A real one will follow soon.

I learned something about myself while I was gone.  I have absolutely no self-discipline when I am away from home.  I ate food that I would NEVER eat at home (re: Top the Tater and chips were at the base of my vacation food pyramid.) and I didn't really wash (I was swimming. Who needs soap when you have lake water?) and I wasn't even really good about brushing my teeth. (Can't worry about tooth decay and spiders at the same time.) More to come...

Kira's Summer Project

Kira came running into the house this evening and said, "GET THE CAR! I KNOW WHERE SOME TURTLE EGGS ARE!" and she made me drive down to the river and dig up a snapping turtle nest with her on the roadside.  This has been her dream for years.  Every year we watch big snappers come out of the river and dig up the shoulder of the road and lay eggs.  Then, by the next day the raccoons have gotten every single nest.

When she was about nine, she found some eggs and put them in her pocket and ran home to bury them.  Surprise surprise, they never hatched after the half a mile jog in her hot, dirty pocket.  I think Kira must have gotten this nest on the same day that it was laid.

We took about half a dozen eggs and then re-covered the rest. Right now they are in a bucket full of road sand, on the top of her bookshelf.  If they hatch, it will be in three months.  Then I'll have a house full of snapping turtles.  My dream.

Snuggly!

Shady Lady

Other than the yard sale I wrote about in the last post, we spent the weekend at the lake because it was so HOT.  The cabin is Kira's absolute favorite place in the entire world.  When we were driving up to the Falls on Friday, we got a few miles from home and I said to Kira, "Do you have your swimsuit?" and she didn't so we turned around and went back so she could get it.  Saturday evening we went out to the cabin and Kira said, "I forgot my suit at Grandma's.  Oh well," and then jumped in the water with all her clothes on because nothing is going to keep her out of the water.

Sam, Mitch and his brother, Mat worked on the silly little boat Mat got a few years ago that they call "The Shady Lady."

I mostly enjoyed watching Mitch work on the boat while lying on his stomach on the dock.  Look at his feet:

He would have been a fantastic ballerina.

Iowa State Fair

A couple days ago the kids, my aunt and I went to the Iowa State Fair.  Kira was so excited that on the drive there that she said, "If there are bunnies to hold, can I hold some bunnies???!!!"  The kids were dying to go on enough rides to make them nauseous, and my aunt and I wanted to have some fair food and see farm animals.  After we checked out the fairgrounds for a while the kids headed to the Midway to go on rides and get an eyeful of carnie, (as there were carnies-a-plenty) and Auntie and I went in search of deep fried food on sticks, and animals.  We started the smorgasbord off with corn dogs and then took a stroll through the cow barn.  Normally I would not eat a fried, breaded wiener at all, (yes I would) much less eat it while walking through a barn among livestock; but much like parades make it okay to eat candy off the road, fairs make it okay (and even fun!) to eat carcinogens in a room full of poop.

I had to squeeze through a crowd of people NOT TOUCHING this bull to get this picture. (He didn't look dangerous enough to rate having a sign, but he did have an enormous scrotum which is unfortunately being covered by the sign in this picture.  It was impressive.)

Then we headed to the sheep barn which had a very special kind of stink.  All the sheep were shorn for showing and apparently female sheep are better for showing because everywhere I looked, this is what I saw:

Vaginas here!  Vaginas there!  Vaginas EVERYWHERE!

In order to get out of the sheep barn I had to avert my gaze from the vaginas and concentrate on the sheep that were covered, for "cleanliness."

KKK-Kleanliness

Next we went to the bird and bunny barn and unfortunately there were no bunnies to hold, only pigeons.  And you couldn't hold them.  Pigeon people are touchy about people touching their pigeons.  They had the pigeon show that day and here are some of the winners:

fatass

(Get it?  There's nothing even in there! (That's the joke))
\

This guy didn't win anything, but I liked him and his freaky legs:

"Get ta steppin'!"

Then we met up with the kids and walked through the games because there's nothing a kid likes more than to get financially assaulted by gregarious people with prison tats!

"What?  You mean not one single ring went on one single bottle?  What are the chances?!?"

"I totally think it's worth three dollars for you to try to walk up the rickety ladder to see if you can get a toy worth 50 cents that you don't even want.  Totally."

Then we went to the booths to see if I could get my picture with Michele Bachmann but she wasn't at her booth.  She had other crazies passing out literature for her.  We saw a few minutes of some outhouse races.  I had never heard of this before.  People put outhouses on wheels and push them down the track.  The tricky part is that there has to be a person inside the outhouse and he (or she!) has to be going to the bathroom during the race.*  Pressure!

I also saw Angelica Huston on a rascal scooter, a cow made of butter, and a pretty good one-man-band.

Then it was getting hot so we went home.  It was fun!


*I'm pretty sure that isn't true.

The Fair

Hi!  Sorry I've been away, but I was out ridin' my bike.  Not the whole time of course.  I went to a county fair for a while and saw two of my favorite things:  The 4H barn and baby animals.  I love the 4H barn because kids can enter ANYTHING and compete with someone else for it, and if it's obscure enough that nobody else entered anything, you win!  There's no, "Oh, nobody else entered anything like that so there's no competition, sorry kid!"  If some kid wants to enter his noodle version of the Millennium Falcon; done.  It's on display in the 4H barn.  The later in the summer the fair is, the better the 4H barn.  Boredom makes for some crazy projects.  I've tried to get Kira to enter some of her art into a fair but they don't have a category called, "half-assed stuff you made in two minutes from garbage you found on the counter."

like this

or this

or especially this

I also love the animal barns at fairs.  There weren't a lot of chickens at this one, but I saw more than my fair share of goats.  There is a new breed of goat on the scene (new to me, anyway) called Lamanche goats and they have no big floppy ears.  It looks like someone ripped their ears off and they look ugly and pathetic until you realize that they are supposed to look like that. And then they just look ugly.

Oh don't bother with the fancy pose.  You don't look nice.

We also saw some baby pygmy goats, better known (to me) as "house goats."

Look what Mitch won't let me get.

Mitch still says no to inviting one into our family and loving it like a child.  I've tried to explain to him how I need to hear the clippity clop of little hooves on the kitchen floor but he isn't fazed.  There is nothing I would love more than taking a bike ride with my mini-goat in the basket.  I hear they can be litter trained, and everyone knows that all goats eat are cans so how could I go wrong?  Could there be a better pet???

I'm Back! (and classier than ever)

I'm back from my little vacation.  It was up at Rainy Lake in International Falls.  My kids have been there for two weeks with their grandma and I was starting to miss them.  Unfortunately for me the weather turned from hotter than Satan's bung to "seasonal" which in Minnesota means cold.

On one of the cold days we went in to town and shopped around the tourist shops.  I found a scented lotion that I loved.  It was super expensive, but I thought it smelled so good, it was worth it.  I put some on my hands from the tester and had Kira smell it.  I said,  "Doesn't that smell great!?"  She said, "Oh yeah." and she sniffed it and thought about it and then said,  "It smells just like an outhouse after Febreeze is sprayed in it."  Which she genuinely thinks is a good smell.  Later I picked up an Enquirer and read all about how great Prince William is at Polo.  Then I went outside to watch Kira swim and she played with a dead perch for about a half hour until a seagull came and stole it from her. Kira put up a good fight and I eventually had to step in and referee the scuffle which mostly consisted of yelling, "IT'S A DEAD FISH, JUST LET HIM HAVE IT!" Then I thought to myself, I bet Prince William has never known the joys of playing with a dead perch, getting in a fight with a seagull, or smelling the wonderful smell of an outhouse after it's been sprayed with Febreeze; and then I thought, "OH MY GOD! WE'RE REDNECKS!" which probably isn't coming as a surprise to some of you (okay, all of you), but I guess I never really thought of us as  rednecks.

Stop laughing.

And I'm the worse kind of redneck.  I'm the redneck who looks at other rednecks and feels superior.  For example, when I saw a woman who looked to be about 50, in a Miller Lite tank top with an especially mullety mullet, drinking a beer at 10:15 in the morning, I snottily thought to myself, "Wow. Nice life, fashion plate." All the while I'm walking around town in mom shorts that nicely showcase the surprisingly long hair, peeling skin and scabbed over mosquito bites that make up my shins this and every summer, while my daughter and her cousin are having farting contests and guessing what each other ate the night before based on the subtle hues and undertones of their intestinal gas.

We need to go to finishing school.  Is there still such a thing as finishing school?  (There is! Yay!  I wonder if they have scholarships because mama don't have the scratch, know what I'm sayin'! I spent all my money on outhouse/Febreeze lotion.)

Oh well.  Being a redneck has it's benefits.  At one point while we were at the lake Kira said, "I'm goin' fishin'," and she grabbed a big tube, tied a minnow bucket to it, slapped on some goggles and spent the next half hour with her head under the water, looking for crayfish under rocks.

Because, Dagum!  Them's good eatin'!

Just kidding.  We didn't eat them.  (she didn't catch enough.)  I think teaching Kira to act like a lady may be a hopeless case.  When I tell her to shape up and mind her manners she puts on a fake British accent and calls me "Mumsie."

I might as well cut her hair into a mullet and get her a Miller Lite tank top.  Why fight it?

Hi Bye

Hi!  I'm posting today to let the three of you know that I am going on a little vay-cay and probably won't be writing anything this week. What do you mean, "What do YOU need a vacation from?"  Shut up!  Be nice!  I have stress!

I actually kind of already started the vacation.  I went up to International Falls over the weekend because it was supposed to be murderously hot all weekend, which it was, but it doesn't really matter how hot it is if you can jump in a lake.  So I went up north, did lots of swimming, went to see the latest Harry Potter, picked (and ate) enough blueberries to give me a good case of the squirts, caught a baby duck etc. etc.  I didn't bring my camera because I forgot it, otherwise I would have had some great pictures.

I took my two year old niece to the lake with me one day and we floated around on a tube for about an hour.  She yelled "AHOY!" to every boat that went past and she kept calling all the other kids "mateys."  At one point on our tube she stuck her face over the side and filled her mouth with water.  Then she wrenched my mouth open by pushing up on my nose and prying my lower teeth down with her mutant baby-strength and iron determination and then she spit her mouthful of water into my mouth.  Why did she do that?  I don't know.  She did it twice.  The second time she lost the water in her mouth in the struggle we had while I tried to prevent her from grabbing my face and forcing my mouth open, but she is determined so she got it open and then discovered she didn't have any water left in her mouth, so she just spit what she had into my mouth.  Patooey.  Delightful.  After that she laid on my legs, repeatedly filled her mouth with water and spent a lot of time spitting it out on my legs.  I kind of liked that.

See you in a few days!

A Summer Day

Today I woke up to a beautiful day and I was feeling good.  No vertigo!  Yay!  The kids and I went to Lester Park to play in the river for the afternoon.

The Lester river runs behind our house and today we drove closer to the mouth of the river to see the waterfalls and swim in the pools.  The picture above is Kira jumping off the rocks into the waterfall pool.  She jumped from higher than this too but I was too scared to take a picture because no mother wants photographic evidence of her baby getting seriously injured "... And this is the picture of the exact moment Kira broke both her legs and knocked out all her front teeth"; but I should have because I have never seen a happier face on a person in my life.  Oh, and no broken legs or teeth.  

She's a daredevil.  Sam and I thought she was nuts.  After that we moved down the river to a quieter spot and  discovered hundreds and hundreds of crayfish.  They were all over the place.  I told the kids that I want to take a camp stove down there and have a crayfish boil.  They think that sounds gross.  

This little guy, and about 40 others just like him kept crawling up to my feet that were soaking in the water.  

Sam caught this teeny guy and put it in Kira's goggles.  Cute huh?

The kids walking down the river.

Kira climbed up this rock and when she got to the top she said, "It's too hot!  It's too hot!
So Sam splashed water on her until she could get down.  What a guy!

It was a great day!  I love Duluth!

Summer begins

Summer is getting off to an ominous start, what with the forty degree temperatures and my baby girl catching what sounds to me like it must be tuberculosis.  We were supposed to leave on a girl's road trip yesterday to tropical Des Moines, IA.

 But when I woke Kira up (AFTER I showered and packed for us both) she croaked, "I think I might have strep throat."  Ugh.  We went to get a strep culture instead and then she spent the day laying low, and I spent the day feeling sorry for her.  BORING.

Our Weekend In Pictures

Mitch did some landscaping.  There was grunting involved, and possibly a hernia.  I should have taken this picture with a person in it.  It's bigger than you think.  If I wrapped my arms around this trunk they wouldn't even come close to touching.

I watched a squirrel gorge himself on seeds from my squirrel-proof feeder.

Kira tried to catch the squirrel with this grabber and came closer than you think she could.  Now it's sitting by the front door, ready for the next time she wants to try.

My bird annoyed the crap out of me by flying all over the place like a total shithead so I clipped her wings and gave her a shower which I thought would bring her down a peg or two but it didn't.  I brought her outside, (BECAUSE I DIDN'T THINK SHE COULD FLY, THAT'S WHY!) and she flew away.  I think she was just as surprised as I was.  She flew into the tippy top of this tree:

and I couldn't find her for hours and hours, but I could hear her squawking so I told Kira I'd take her out for ice cream if she could get the stupid bird down.  There was a lot of shaking of branches, and eventually she came down.  Now the bird is back, safe and sound.  I wonder what she thought of being outside, so high up in a tree?  I really wonder.  I think she liked it and now harassing Mitch by stuffing her head up his nose is not going to be enough for her.  (she really likes Mitch)

I also got two bags of these because I had a coupon for buy one get one free.  Did you know that if you eat the better part of a bag of pita chips you might get diarrhea?  I didn't either.

Killing Spree

Spring has finally arrived in Northern Minnesota.  I think.  I bought flowers today anyway, and planted them and if we get anymore frost and it kills them all I will be peeved.  While I was outside just now planting away with all my little bird friends, I was swarmed with mosquitoes and gnats.  I took some time hunting them down (which wasn't hard because they were mostly in my nose and mouth) and killing them like a heartless mercenary which involved slapping myself about a million times a little harder than was probably necessary.  But I feel like it's worth it, especially this time of year because every mosquito I kill now can't go on to have a billion babies throughout the summer so it's like I'm making Duluth a more habitable place for humans.

I used to have a crippling fear of bugs, especially spiders and beetles, and a few years ago I had to make a conscious decision not to let them bother me so much or else I would go crazy and would never sleep again after waking up one time and seeing a wood tick crawling on my arm.  I desensitized myself by picking wood ticks off my dog with my bare fingers and making myself hold them slightly longer than absolutely necessary.  It worked!  I can sleep now even if I don't check my entire body for ticks before bed.  (Actually, I still do that, but if I forgot one night, I could still sleep)  I think I might need some more desensitizing therapy though, because I found a tick on the dog the yesterday and between picking it off of her and the three steps it would have taken me to throw it in the fire, I involuntarily spazzed out and threw it and I don't even know where it went.  I have worked to long and too hard to not be a spaz to have a setback now!

A bird hit my window while I was writing the last paragraph so I went outside to see if it was still there.  It was.  It was a robin and it was stunned so I held it while it recuperated, and it pooped on me FIVE times in about ten minutes.  Now I'm back by the window and I see a huge stain of poop right where it hit.  Who knew that birds got the trots?  Apparently they do.  Really.  I just looked it up on Google and if you notice a bird has diarrhea, you should feed it pound cake.

Okay, I'm going to go back outside now to plant more flowers, kill more mosquitoes, and look for more birds with diarrhea.

Lake Superior Zoo

We went to the zoo today and this is how hot it was:

Also, Lake Superior Zoo isn't the nicest.  That kangaroo might have been dead.

Chipmunk Fun

Today the kids were 1) outside, 2) not crying about being bored, and 3) quiet.  I suspected something was up so I went out to check.  Kira and Kolten, the neighbor kid, are trying to catch chipmunks.  They each have a bucket and they are standing quietly over a pile of seeds, waiting.

Every once in a while I'll hear the buckets slam down and then one of them will say, "DARNIT!" because the chipmunks can see that bucket coming from a mile away.  I wonder what they will do if they catch one?  Probably get bitten hard enough to bleed and then we'll have to try to capture the offending chipmunk to be tested for rabies, and if we can't catch the chipmunk the child who was bitten will be in for a series of rabies shots.  But it's worth it if it keeps them outside, busy and quiet, isn't it?  How many more days of summer vacation are there?

 The chipmunk says, "There's 29 days until school starts.  Actually, 29.5." 

Close Quarters

Sam and Kira and I came up to Rainy Lake to spend some time together at the cabin.  We've been together almost every minute (especially Kira and I.  Sam goes for long boat rides by himself.  I don't know why.)  Kira LOVES to fish.  She spends hours on the dock casting like this:

or simply gazing into the water looking for fish, like this:

She has caught a few small northern pike.  If you don't know about Northern Minnesota fish, northerns are slimy.  Kira is enthralled with their slime and said she would really like to scrape it off of all the fish she catches and save it in a jar. I think it's one of the stranger requests I've ever had to refuse.

Sam spends most of his time in the boat.  I think it is either because it is the only vehicle he is allowed to drive, or because Kira and I drive him nuts.  Probably both.

He went exploring to Big American island today.  Voyageur's National Park has a pamphlet with a scavenger hunt on it.  You can look for all kinds of neat things from the old gold mining days.  He didn't find any gold.  (I don't think.)

Tonight the three of us went out for burgers and while we were waiting for our food, out of the blue Kira said to us, "I'd like to make a doll and I'd use my real hair and eyelashes and my old baby teeth."  Can you imagine a more horrifying doll?  If it was up to her, her room would be filled with jars of fish slime and dolls made of real human parts and I don't even want to know what else.

While we were at dinner we saw a man with super-human calves.  They were unbelievable.  Here's a picture:

He was just a normal looking man, but then you look down and see those enormous calves.  I noticed because Kira was looking at him like this:

and was about to say something loud and inappropriate, which would make Sam make this face because everything we do is embarrassing.

Thankfully she kept her mouth shut.  

We had a nice dinner and when we got to the car we saw this sitting on the dash:

It's a chunk of Play-Doh Kira molded into a gun shape.  When we got in the car she said, "Hey Sam, hand me my piece."