Visitors

Before Grandpa, Grandma and Kirsten got here, Eli and Evan made a treasure hunt for them. The prize was this long list of things to do while they were here:

And here are pictures of us doing some of those things:

This would be #2: Have a shore lunch.

This is at the Norseman Festival. I know Eli's head is cut off, but I love the picture.


We completed everything on their list except for Movie Night. What a fun, fun time.

Aunt Kirst

Photo of the Week

Dad was happy to catch a nice walleye.

Oops!
He was all posed for the picture when the fish decided to fight back and stab Dad's hand with his sharp fin.

Everything under control now.

Do we look alike? I've heard we do my whole life.
I often find myself saying things Mom would say or sharing her mannerisms...
...but if I ever catch a glimpse of anyone in the mirror, it's Dad.
Either way, they are both wonderful people to take after.

Pokeyness Explained

Evan can be quite the pokey little puppy. I have a hard time being patient. The other day I apologized after getting impatient. I told him that sometimes it's frustrating when he goes really slow. He explained it all when he said, "I know, but there are a lot of interesting things that I look at."
Quite true.

Flying Super E!

I love hearing Eli pick up new phrases and language skills.

Today he, Evan and I were playing badminton. I must have been in La-La Land, because Eli got my attention and said, "Knock out of it!" (A cross between 'Snap out of it' and 'Knock it off.')

When something suddenly makes sense to him, he says, "Oh, no matter such and such happened!" (Translation: No wonder such and such happened!"

Sometimes I'll slip in a correction such as, "Yeah, no wonder it happened!" But usually I let it go. I guess it's because I'm not so anxious to see this kind of innocence move on either.

Goggles

As evidenced by the following photos, the boys were pretty pleased with the new goggles Grandpa bought for them.


Here Evan is fast asleep. This is how I found him when I checked on him before I went to bed.

Evan's Feet

I have to say, I don't understand Evan's thing with feet. He has been known to wear anywhere from 3 to 8 pairs of socks at a time. He sometimes wears unmatched socks. When I asked him why he wears 2 different socks, he said, "It's more fancy."

Here are his feet in all their bowling glory:


And this is how I found him yesterday:
Eli reports that Evan told him he didn't notice the 2 different shoes. When I mentioned it to Evan, he said, "My socks match!"

Visitors

We had a great time with Conrad and Deb Brenneman and their boys, Tyler, Isaac and Cedric. We fished as much as possible, had a pajama party and swam at the rec center. All 5 boys even had a sleepover upstairs one night. Cedric positioned himself right between Eli and Evan on a mattress on the floor. Eli and Evan were in their heaven. They have always had a special connection to this family of boys. We were thankful for their visit and for a chance to reconnect with this special family.



Evan saying goodbye to Ceddy.
P.S. It's not uncommon for Eli to have a meltdown of sadness after saying goodbye to friends or family from Indiana. I successfully helped him avoid this by reminding Eli that Grandma and Grandpa would be here in 4 short days. :)

A Chain of Events

Sunday afternoon we decided to go out on the boat with the Brennemans. It took us awhile to actually make it out the door.

Finally we left. Deb and I were in the van with a load of boys. We made it 30 seconds away from the house before realizing that Eli and Evan did not have something they needed. So we turned around and I ran into the house to get the forgotten things. Then we headed out again.

A few minutes down the highway, the red car we were following stopped suddenly right on the road. A young woman jumped out of the driver's side and started running as fast as she could down the road as we passed the car. Then we saw a man jump out of the passenger side and begin chasing her. Deb said, "He's after her!" I pulled off the road saying, "What do I do?! What do I do?!" Deb (much braver than I) said, "Turn around!" No other cars were around. I turned around and flew back to where the man had caught up with the woman. He had her by then. I drove up to them, laying on the horn, my panicked mind checking for a gun in his hands. He let go of her and we quickly asked her if she wanted a ride. She did, so she jumped in the van as he started back toward the abandoned car. I drove back into town as fast as I could because I was afraid he would follow us. She was crying and shaking and saying he was crazy. She didn't want to go to the police station, but wanted to use the phone. So I took her to our house.

Our house is well-off the main road, but if you're looking, you can see the parking lot from the road. I took her into the house and stood at the window watching while she used the phone. Eventually, I saw his car heading our way down the highway. My heart was pounding so hard- I was afraid that enraged man would pull into our drive. I was prepared to take the phone from her and call 911. But he didn't. The girl wasn't able to get a hold of her friend, so she asked if we could take her to Balmertown. I agreed to, but said that if I saw his car when I pulled out from behind the building in front of our house, I was going straight to the police station.

I went to where the guys were with the boat. We left the van there and Kendall and I took the girl to Balmertown in the truck. (The poor little guys that witnessed all of this. And apparently, Deb and the boys also saw the red car coming down the highway while they were waiting in the van for her to make her call. Deb told the boys to stay in the van and said that she would get out and talk to the man if he pulled into our driveway, which they were not too happy about.)

Anyway, by the time Kendall and I got back to the boat after dropping the girl off at a friend's house (still shaken), the sky was getting dark. We started out in the boat, but soon turned back when the clouds and lightning seemed to be moving in our direction. We got off the boat, then it started raining and the wind picked up. We jumped in the van to get out of the rain. It started hailing as the men and Tyler were still wrestling with the boat in the wind. They ran for cover. All of the sudden, HUGE hail started falling. It was insane! And very loud in the van. Deb and I just kept looking at each other- laughing, but also wondering how bad this storm was going to get. (I had recently told them about last summer's tornado close to here when people were killed and a family's boat flipped while they were in it.) Eventually, the storm calmed, but we couldn't help but wonder what we would have done if we had been caught out in the middle of the lake.

If everything had gone according to plan, we would have been much farther from shore when the sky got dark. We would have been far from shelter and would have been stuck somewhere in the hail storm.

If everything had gone according to plan, no car would have been around when the girl we picked up was getting chased down the highway. Who knows what would have happened... Was he going to hurt her or was he only trying to get his car keys back?

I'm glad things didn't go according to plan that day. The chain of events ended up being a good thing.

Who knows what it all means. I have a hard time when people have a pat answer: everything worked out in a certain situation because "God was in control." I believe that God is in control, but what about when something doesn't work out? Or when it works out horribly? Does that mean that he isn't in control in that circumstance?

It would be interesting to hear people's thoughts on this. In any case, I am very thankful for this particular chain of events. I think God liked it and used it and I think he was in control.

By the way, the next day at the rec center I saw the same girl. Then I walked out to the lobby and saw the guy. I wouldn't have recognized him for sure, except that he kept looking at me. Later, Eli and 2 of the Brenneman boys said they recognized him in the locker room. The red car was in the parking lot.

It was a creepy feeling to see him again and apparently be recognized. It's hard to be anonymous in a small town. Praying for peace.

Seamstress

Eli's pajama pants are ridiculously short. So we cut them off into shorts. Here he helps me hem them. He's pretty good! He used a sewing machine at school when he made a ribbon shirt for his Ojibway class.

Camping

We went camping this past weekend with lots of other people. So many kids. They had a blast. We're at an easy stage in this way right now. Our kids are pretty content to be off playing and seldom have problems with their friends that need our intervention. And we don't have to be watching their every move. Because so many of our friends have littler kids, I realize how nice we have it right now.

Unfortunately, I took hardly any pictures at all. But I did hijack Wendy's facebook album from the weekend and posted it on my wall.

This is our New Fancy Camper. Yes, it is old. Yes, it is obnoxious. Yes, it is embarrassing. But we like it. We got it for $20. It was going to be more, but the previous owner (Kendall's co-worker) decided to give us a break "because we're young and when she was young no one gave her a break!" Kendall and I have put some work into it. Kendall ripped out the disgusting stove and an even more disgusting toilet. (Replaced with a 5-gallon bucket when necessary.) The good news is that it stays dry inside. The bad news is that it doesn't stay clean inside. A drive down the dusty gravel road showed us that it apparently is not airtight. It does pretty well at keeping the mosquitoes out, but I'm not convinced it could actually keep a determined bear out. (Which, yes, was spotted Saturday morning very, very near to camp. They didn't tell me because they thought I wouldn't stay a second night. Puh-lease. Kendall was the one who decided to sleep with the chainsaw inside the camper after that.)


Here is the catcher for the baseball game:


Here are the outfielders:


Everyone else left Sunday afternoon/evening. We decided to stay longer. Though they had great fun, the boys really hadn't gotten much attention from us. We knew that if we headed home, we would quickly get busy cleaning up.

After everyone left, I decided that if I was staying an extra night, I definitely needed to wash my hair. So I braved the leech-infested lake to get clean (less dirty). Of course after that, we went to the nearby sand pit that the kids all begged to go to several times a day. (Much better photos on facebook.)

We were glad we stayed. At least until Monday morning when we all woke up with a (grouchy) bang. I won't name any names, but someone was freaking out because he had to pee and the floor was cold and he wanted my socks that his brother was wearing. Then someone else freaked out because when I sat up to scold the little grouchy guy, I pulled the warm covers off of him. Then I freaked out because couldn't he see that I was taking care of a "situation" and can't he just handle the cold air for a couple minutes? Wow. By then the chainsaw was totally useless because any lurking bear got completely freaked out by this loud and grouchy camper and high-tailed it out of there.
Oh well. All's well, even though it didn't end well.

Visitors

Karissa and Rylan were here for a few days. We had a great time. Lots of fishing and yummy food! We also got eaten by mosquitoes. The bugs decided to show up in full force right when our visitors arrived.

One evening we made sushi. Well, mostly Karissa made it, but we all enjoyed it. Even the boys had some.

A special treat for Kendall and me was that we got to go away overnight by ourselves! That, unfortunately, is a rare occurrence. So we tried out the Fancy New Camper. Unfortunately, it didn't yet have curtains. I guess it didn't really matter since we were out in the middle of nowhere. But when Kendall lit the lantern and we sat in there playing cards, I could feel the bears watching us.

Also on that little camping excursion, we went out in the canoe. We took it way across a long lake. I kept watching some clouds getting closer. We heard very distant thunder a few times, but didn't see any lightning. But at about 10:00pm we decided to head back to camp. All of the sudden, the wind picked up. It was crazy! And rather scary. The wind was against us, pushing us back and toward the shore we were paddling along- very far from our campsite. We were paddling like crazy. I've never paddled so hard. We couldn't even stop for a bit or we would have lost so much ground. (water)
The wind was noisy and the waves rather big. Kendall yelled up to me, "Pull the front end over!" Then he didn't say anything for awhile and we were both just working to keep the canoe going forward. All I could hear repeating in my mind was a panicked, "Pull the front end over!" Oh no! This must be bad if Kendall's scared too! Now I was scared! Eventually, he started talking again and I realized that he wasn't panicking. It was just the yelled instructions playing over and over in my mind that were panicky. It made me realize how much I rely on him for our well-being in the bush and to know what's going on. And I suppose that carries over to other areas in life. Good thing he's a wise and trustworthy bushman!

Canada Day

July 1 is Canada Day. We spent much of the day out on the lake with friends. We canoed to a nice place for a fire and just relaxed with everyone. In the evening we met up with other friends on the lake to watch the fireworks. Hopefully it helped to make up for Kendall's un-exciting birthday the day before.

This was a first. We sat on shore and the kids played in the canoe nearby. It made them seem so much older! Here Evan gets a free ride.


I thought this was a cute scene. The younger kids sit and talk while the older ones paddle the canoe. Unfortunately, when I snuck up behind the little ones, I heard Evan talking not so nice to his buddies. We'll keep working on him...

Birthday Boy

Unfortunately for Kendall, his birthday fell on the day after the craziness of Bible School and hosting a youth group. Needless to say, he didn't have a big birthday bash. Besides, he had to work- a day trip to a reserve.

I did manage to buy him a giant cinnamon roll for breakfast. Here is the birthday boy's picture:
Oops.


Oops again.


Eli overcompensates for his troubled family members.



Maybe it's just too early in the morning.


Blow out the candles instead.

Vacation Bible School

The kids loved VBS. Of course they had the Siloam youth group here, which they were so excited about. And, even more exciting, 3 cousins were along.

Here Eli is helping to knot a blanket during VBS craft time. The kids knotted blankets for the local women's shelter.


Here Evan serves a snack his group helped prepare for everyone.