Minnesota is Heaven, But Virginia is Home

Pictures of both Annika and Josiah with goats. Enjoy.

We have just returned from the annual harvest fair. We managed to get our stuff together and be out there by about 10:30, because as we all know: Vikings vs. Packers . And there's no way Hans is missing that. He tried to pretend that he pulled a muscle as he was putting Annika into her carseat , but I still forced him to go to the harvest fair. I mean, what could be better on a sunny Sunday morning? A harvest fair full of screaming kids, cotton candy and crafts. Crafts , people! What red-blooded American male would want to watch football over spending the day looking at overpriced crafts with their families? We'll see how his back turns out. Something tells me that when Brett Favre makes that much anticipated touchdown, he'll be jumping up and down in rage. Make no mistake, that touchdown will be made. Josiah just said "Look at all those silly Vikings, they have food on their heads!!" I'll just leave it up to you to imagine what Hans said to that on...

Time for odds and ends: I just finished reading Susan Minot's book Evening. It is going to go up to that special shelf reserved for my favorite books. The ones that I no sooner finish reading than I want to turn right back to the front and start over again. The kind of book that stays on my mind for days afterwards. The kind of book that I will read wherever and whenever I can snatch five minutes. I seriously found myself making bogus trips to the bathroom just so I could read for another few minutes without interruption. If you get a chance, dear readers, take a look at it. It chronicles the end of a woman's life and her remembrances of a weekend wedding in her past. It's hard for me to describe how Susan Minot unfolds this story. Evening was recently made into a movie. I went to the theater in Newport all by myself (a first) to see it. The movie had gained some notoriety because a great deal of it was shot in and around Newport. I did enjoy the movie. It has an absolutely...

I'm almost certified ready to be acceptable for an overseas move. Honestly, I don't remember going through all of this for our move to Japan. Hans spent a good chunk of last week getting checked over, blood drawn, shots, dental checks, eye exams (he came home after having his eyes dilated with those goofy old geezer black eyeglasses...). He sat down with someone at the clinic to talk about our overseas medical screening. This person told him that I and the kids wouldn't have to come in for a screening, they'd just check our records and OK our paperwork that way. Great, wonderful! Except SO not true. We had an appointment, we thought, with the same guy today at 1:00. Turns out the appointment was with a preventive medicine corpsman who said that I needed to get three shots. I had to endure the ladies in the immunization clinic giving me grief because I don't have a shot record. I mean, c'mon . I'm 33. I don't have one anymore...can't even re...

Summer season is finally ending which means that at last, AT LAST, there is available parking on the street near our house. All summer long Hans and I would play "shuffle the cars" every morning and afternoon. This was not really because there wasn't anywhere to park...it was more me and my insane need to keep our neighbors happy with us. As I've mentioned before, parking spots are guarded with a territoriality that I find partly amusing, partly disgusting. I have personally witnessed one of our neighbors out on the street screaming at someone who had the nerve to park in front of her house. On a public street. Anyway, summer season is winding down, which is good for any number of reasons. Not the least of which is that my blood pressure while driving should now stay at a normal level. Tourists drive me UP the wall. God bless them for wanting to see Newport. I think it's a wonderful place to visit and I feel blessed to have lived here not once, but twice...

Climbing trees at Brenton Point Brothers are soooo weird!

Mommy at Brenton Point Headless Mommy 2 Headless Aunt Kathy Aunt Kathy and Plate Mommy and Sissy having pudding I have to teach him never to take a picture of me from below chin level (Kathy didn't know what I was talking about when I spoke of the "Kuehl weak chin/jaw") Josiah's Yogurt

For another post, I know, I know. Where does the time go? There actually isn't much to catch up on here in Newport. My Aunt Kathy left yesterday afternoon after a five day stay with us. She came in on the red-eye from San Francisco, bless her heart, and she flew into Providence. Many thanks to her for being considerate and not making us drive her back and forth to Boston at ungodly hours of the day. I think she had a pretty good time. She visited the Breakers, went to the playground with me and the kids, had a visit to the JFK Presidential Library and had a picnic with us at Brenton Point. And now, a public service announcement: OK, folks, just so all of you know, if anyone is planning a visit to us, you need to (a) get arrangements made; and (b) call and OK dates with us. Actually, please do (B) before you do (A). We are doing a partial pack-out on October 15 th , so the window of us having all of our belongings here is getting smaller every day. Please don't plan on...

It's 7:40 a.m. We're watching Higglytown Heroes. They are visiting a canyon and singing a song, the chorus of which is: "A canyon is more than a hole". Good to know.

Hans & Josiah at Fort Adams Skirmish (the GAR won) Josiah's first lesson in digital photography Josiah's Try #15--not too bad (we rent him out for special events) Awaiting the birthday cake Hans (smiling!!!!) and his birthday cake Trying on hats at Fort Adams My son don't go for no butternut homespun forage cap, he's a Yankee! Go, 1st Minnesota! The new toddler transporter. Annika loves sitting in the front--no more looking at the back of Josiah's head. Josiah's seat is the bench just behind her. And no, there aren't two sets of nicely tanned legs attached to the handlebar, though the feet would be handy to hang bags from!

Sorry everyone. I am woefully behind on my posts... For example, I should have had a long post on Wednesday, and I didn't. Wednesday was Hans' 37 th birthday. I really meant to write something about how wonderful and amazing he is and how he gets a little better every year. I tried to make his birthday special...he surprised me on my birthday with that great spa package. I wanted to surprise him too. I tried to find a company that would rent us a Porsche for the day. Believe it or not, you can rent almost any car under the sun...but for a minimum of three days. I could have afforded one day, but not three. I tried to find a gun range so he could go shoot his gun for an afternoon, but I couldn't find one around Newport that was public. I guess those NRA types are very exclusive. I did manage to get him a really excellent cake. After the Red Velvet Cake Fiasco of 2005, I decided it would be wiser to just pay someone to make the cake. The kids and I found a very ...

Kill me now. Does anyone find this just a tad disturbing? I mean, don't the crying vegetables realize that they're about to die ? Maybe the party in the tummy goes on to become the party in the colon, which goes on to become the party in the lifting station. I don't know. This little ditty has actually been a little useful for us, because when Josiah won't eat his green beans, we make them "talk" and tell him they're crying because they want to go with his chicken fingers to the PARTY IN HIS TUMMY!!! YEAAA-AHHHH!!!

Have any of you parents out there watched "Yo Gabba Gabba" yet? It's on Nickelodeon. Check it out. It reminds me of some of the horrible, campy children's dreck that we watched in Japan. It's so awful you will laugh your heads off. Josiah and Annika love it. We have several episodes on our TiVO. They have seen the great inaugural episode, entitled "Eat" about 781 times. Here are some lyrics from one of the songs, charmingly illustrated in a very 1970s-ish way: Kitty is my friend Puppy is my friend Giraffe is my friend So I'll be nice to them Other friends include eagles and lobsters, excuse me, but I don't think I want my kids fraternizing with anything that has talons or big pinchy claws. Lobsters are for eating, not taking to the playground or having deep conversations about Polly Pockets with. I know that my children think eagles are nice and friendly because Grandma and Grandpa have pictures of them all over their kitchen walls, but hello...t...

Annika in pigtails at Mom & Dad's Lima-Bean Jedi (who hasn't wished a Jedi would come along and lightsaber all the lima beans?) My super-mature sister (almost mother of two) My husband knows me so well...I've ALWAYS wanted a Star Wars birthday cake!! Supper outdoors at Mom and Dad's. Eli grilled us buffalo steaks. Yummmmmm... Gen battling the Jedi

I can't believe that it's September already. As if on cue, the weather here has a slightly chilly cast and suddenly there are leaves on the ground. The smell of woodsmoke on the evening breeze and the sound of the school bus picking up kids in the early morning. I feel the strange need to shop for sweaters and college-ruled filler paper, yellow pencils and folders. It's supposed to get down into the low 50s tonight. I've really been holding my breath, hoping for a summer that holds on...I don't want to have to turn that boiler on again. I'm sure I've just been fooling myself to believe that we're going to escape Newport without filling the oil tank again! We have been making a little progress into the whole Germany thing. I spent a couple of days worrying about where we're going to live for the month of November. Our lease here is up at the end of October, which is fine. We will want to ship all of our furniture at the end of October anyway--...