Välkommen!

The last few weeks have held adventures for us, ranging from the normal to decidedly unusual. :)  Normal things, like McKinley toting books all around the house and reading them, out loud, to herself (this was in her bedroom, but she really does tote them ALL AROUND the house...)  By reading, I mean making up stories from her imagination.  She is not currently *actually* reading chapter books.  Haha.

A sort of normal adventure - Caleb decided he wanted a desk to display some more Lego creations; I said he could have anything that he could make for free. :)  So he got to work sorting through random pieces of wood in our garage and basement, and has diligently done a lot of sawing and hammering.  He is still working on attaching a third shelf, then he will sand and paint it.  He is begging for spray paint but I have not said yes yet. Lol.  I help mostly by being dead weight to keep his project in place while he hammers.  Yay for dead weight! (Ella, Rachel, and McKinley were taking photos for us.)

 Caleb saying "OH, my back!"

 Next side!

 Plus McKinley took her very first selfie.   Ha!

A not-so-normal adventure was mine and Ella's second trip out to Lindsborg, Kansas to meet my parents for the Swedish Genealogy Workshop.  Ella was in charge of photography this trip and took some great landscape shots out of her car window:

Corn.

 Trees.

 Road.

 More corn.

 Lots of cows, mooooo.

 Selfie.

 Steering wheel.

 Mom.

 Wheat.

 Big machine.

 Välkommen to Lindsborg!

 

 Hemsloyd. (And Ella, this is the only one I commandeered the camera for.)

 Hotel doors.

Beautiful sunset (through the windshield) coming home!

It was a great trip, I learned a lot and Ella played a lot of games on the phone and grandpa's ipad.  Not all news is good news - the Swedes on this trip were able to help me translate some of the words in records that we found...and my 3rd great grandma took her own life at age 49, less than one year after her daughter came to America.  Her own mother was unwed and we aren't even sure yet who the father was or if she was even raised by her mother... it is still so fascinating to put together all of the puzzle pieces of the everyday people who were part of my life story.  I think she would have been surprised to know that generations later, her descendants would be looking to see where she lived and what she did.  If only she could have seen the hundreds of happy, successful people that came from her 6 children! I hope she sees us now and knows that we appreciate her life and sacrifices.

I loved visiting with my parents and having time together - it was great!

A normal adventure that was super thrilling to Caleb:  very, VERY stretchy cheese in his lasagna.  He requested the photo!

An unusual phenomenon: the super-blood-moon-eclipse-thing!  I don't have a fancy camera but it was a cool view from our backyard.

And another decidedly unusual adventure: I came home from a morning jog on Saturday to 4 excited, nervous, and kind-of scared kids.  There was a creepy noise in the garage - a bird, a bat, or something ELSE squawking in there.  I bravely opened the door to listen; determined it was a bird and NOT a bat, then opened the garage door to be able to see not a wild bird caught indoors...but a very lost pet bird sitting on our shelf.

It was happy to see us, and the kids gave it a carrot to eat.  I thought it would stay put, so I went inside to post this picture on our neighborhood page, to see if the owner was close by.  Shortly after I clicked "post," the kids ran in to tell me the bird had flown away.  So I deleted my post.  We tried to follow him but to no avail.  About an hour and a half later, someone rang the doorbell to ask if I was home - it was the bird's owner!  Someone had seen the post briefly, seen another post that she had written about the lost bird, and connected the 2 of us together.  The power of social media, right?  I was sad that I  no longer had her bird, but we pointed her in the right direction.  Later we texted, and sure enough, the bird (named Victor Frankl) was found and safely back home.  Crazy!

Lastly, two silly adventures this week - Rachel had "crazy hair / mismatch" day at school, and Gordo demonstrated his "superdog" pose, which he does often because he likes belly rubs.  Fun times!