Minnesota is Heaven, But Virginia is Home

Josiah and I were enjoying a beautiful, warm spring morning on the porch, he with his trains and me with a copy of NavyTimes. This issue of NavyTimes featured a large section of war casualties with pictures of each person. Page upon page. I was slowly looking through them when Josiah leaned over me, observed what I was looking at and said, "Mommy, look at all the kids". From the mouths of little children...

Josiah on the "Henry Longfellow" (the 3-1/2 minutes he actually behaved) Waiting for the boat Waiting for the boat Semi-behaving during the trip USS Constitution Boston skyline Tropical fish at the aquarium Ice cream time The view from the 10th floor prior to swimming (check out that hot pink bikini!)

Happy Memorial Day Weekend! Donna has a very nice post at http://dd4cottage.blogspot.com that lists many of our family members who have served over the years. To that list, I would add my Grandpa Thielhorn , who was in the Army during WWII. He always had a story to share about his times in Italy and North Africa...always stories about the good times, never about the bad, though he talked about being wounded in Italy and about trenchfoot . He talked so much about the fun times that as a child, I half-believed that war was nothing but laughs with one's buddies. I know better now, of course. Thank you to all of our service members, past and present and to the good women and men who stand behind them and support them in their endeavors! Hans and I decided that it was high time for a fieldtrip , so we went to Boston on Friday morning. We found a good hotel room in Cambridge, just across the river from downtown. Our first stop was the New England Aquarium. There were approximat...

My favorite pet Grandma K., Annie & Joe on the front porch Annie, contemplating the places a tricycle can take her Post birthday cake--don't think she actually ate any of it

Just an update, first. We have gotten one more mouse since my last post and that was a couple of nights ago. Here's hoping that Trapper Hans' plan has been successful. Hmmm . Well, we've had a lot of company recently. Tonight, we're feeling just a little lonely...Mom and Dad left this morning after a week-long visit. Genevieve and Goo were here for a few days before that. All in all, we've had ten continuous days of company, which is fine because it was good company, but that is rather a long time to have guests. We're lonely tonight, but we're also letting it all hang out! Not much to report about the visits. Gen had mostly cruddy weather while she was here. We're talking 44 degrees and constant rain. Miserable. Hard to believe that today it was 73 degrees and sunny. It's sort of weird how the sun came out the day after she left. Maybe she brings her own microclimate with her. We weren't able to get out and about too much since Fr...

We have mice. A lot of mice. A couple of weeks ago, I went to take some things down the bulkhead stairs into the basement. Imagine my happiness and pleasure at finding a dead mouse at the bottom of the stairs! Hans promptly disposed of the carcass, which was relatively fresh. He then proceeded to go out and get some traps and set them. He has become a little obsessive about the traps...checking them three times a day. We have some crafty mice, or possibly mice with very long tongues, because they keep licking the peanut butter from the traps without them snapping. This has irritated Hans and only served to make him even more obsessed with the traps. I think that it's the French blood in him...perhaps there were trappers in his family line. We philosophized about getting something stickier that would force the mouse to expend more effort and thus spend more time...then, SNAP! As soon as he got home from school yesterday, he got that gleam in his eye and climbed down to check...

Annie & Me in Bristol Joe & Me, also in Bristol Annie in the doll bed (made by Dad, circa 1979) Back in Bristol (I'm also bad at figuring out how to use pictures in Blogger!)

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, friends and women who have stood in the place of a mother! I hope that you all had a relaxing day. I hope that all of you had a meal cooked for you or got to sleep in. I hope that some of you got presents from your children or husbands. Hans started asking me what I wanted, gift-wise, about a week ago. Surprisingly, I was able to come up with a few things and suggested them. Then, I remembered that I have been asking for a DVD recorder for awhile and suggested that. And that, friends, is what I got. We drove over to Best Buy on Friday and picked one up. I am embarrassed to admit (but just in front of Sarah) that I am completely clueless as to how to get our home movies off of our camera. I have seriously been trying to transfer data since we got the camera almost three years ago. I figured that it would probably be easiest to just get a DVD recorder, play the movies directly off the camera, and record them. And v...

Does anyone else just love the way spring sort of...explodes? I'm thinking back to how our neighborhood looked a couple of weeks ago. A few daffodils and tulips nosing up here and there, buds on the trees, but the majority of the landscape was dull and brown. All of a sudden there are leaves on the trees. Daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, wisteria everywhere. I need to take a digital picture of our front garden. We have a Japanese maple that is the most gorgeous shade of crimson, and there are two other trees (I have no idea what they are) that are flowering and pink. One is extremely fluffy and pink and the other has sparse flowers, but they are so individually lovely nonetheless. I sat out on the porch swing and read during the kids' naps this afternoon. Gorgeous. Anyway. Not too much else going on. Yesterday I packed up the kids and took them to IKEA. It's up near Boston, about an hour's drive from Newport. Despite the fact that Josiah was 1/8th of an inch to...

So, I tried a bunch of last year's shorts on Josiah this morning, to see what still fit. I wasn't surprised that his 18-24 month shorts fit. I wasn't even that surprised that a few of the 12-18 month pairs fit. What surprised me is that the smallest pair still fit him: 6-12 month. This means that my skinny son is wearing clothes that are smaller than Annika's. Eeek! On another note, I know I hardly ever discuss what we watch on TV. Which is weird, because you all know that we watch a lot of TV in Hans De For's house. He insists upon it. Instead of encouraging us to eat fruits and vegetables and Omega-3 rich foods, he wants us to draw our daily RDA of goodness through TV watching. This is why we are all so weak and pale. I am sad to verify that "Gilmore Girls" is ending on May 15th. I kind of hoped Mom was kidding. We will all miss it very much, the wit and sharp retorts and Lorelai and Rory's ups and downs. Even Hans got drawn into this sho...

New outfit Annika tries her serious look Josiah and Grandma D. at Blithewold Mansion Super cute except for boogers and chapped noses! 1.3 seconds after cute shot was taken

I haven't blogged for about seventeen years. Sorry about that. So many of you blog so regularly, and I know I miss you when you don't blog for a couple of days. I hope no one (besides Jan) missed me too much. I'll try to do better. Where to begin? We have been busy. Hans has a paper due at school that has been taking up a lot of his free time. I've gotten spoiled over the last few months...having him leave at 8:00 a.m. and come home around 2:00. I'm going to get a big wake-up call when it's back to work as normal. Anyway, he's writing an enormous paper comparing American occupation of Japan to American occupation in Iraq. I hope he lets me read it. He has school until mid-June (I believe) and then he's pretty much free until school starts again in mid-August. We are busy planning some trips. Including...dum, dada dum (drum roll)...a trip for just US. We haven't decided just yet where we are going. Any suggestions? Josiah started presc...