Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Bye bye beard

Even before summer began, David left Minneapolis, hearth and kin, to do physical labor with his brother-in-law, JB and his bees. He spent his days caring for and moving bee boxes from sun up to sun down. It was a time for him to leave the academic world and it's trappings and live as a man of the earth. In other words, he grew a beard. After enough grief from his wife his cut it...

...in stages.
Full, bushy beard.

Goatee.

 Mustache/Creepy.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Train Museum


Not too long ago we went to the Minnesota Transportation Museum Jackson Roundhouse.  David was yearning for an outing and he loves trains.  It was a good time. (Warning:  even with Museum Passes from the library it wasn't cheap.) 

The best thing about this museum is that you can actually touch, handle, sit on, push buttons, and really interact with the artifacts.  It also offers train rides.

Enoch, David, Calvin, and Taran coming down from the engine they road in.

Emma and Willa hanging out.  Willa loves trains as much as any of her brothers did.

All of the ghosty Martin kids inside a fancy train car.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Madison, day 3

Madison Days continued at a park with an art fair and great food.

Addie and Enoch eating kettle corn.

But the absolute favorite past time in Madison with my family is just hanging out and doing
 whatever feels right at the time...

even if it's wearing a cat suit,
Calvin
making chains of clover,
Emma and Elizabeth.
 
eating Scotcheroos,

The whole gang gathered around Kirsti's kitchen island counter.


trying the on hats and glasses in the women's section,
Calvin and Enoch in Souix Falls JCPenny looking fly.

meeting up with far flung family members,
Aunt Elaine came in from Utah to attend a family history convention in Sioux Falls.
or in Kirsti's case, literally hanging.
Kirsti, because she can, shimmies, hangs and makes her descent on a park swing set pole.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Madison, day 2

Madison, SD is a town an hour outside of Sioux Falls where my sister lives with her bee keeping husband. It is a small town upholds all those stereotypes country singers croon about. We arrived just in time to join the Madison Days festivities.

The first one... The Children's Fun Run
Willa, Addie, and Oliver (aka Ov-i-ler)


Raquel and Taran


Henry and Calvin


Kirsti, Enoch #50, Emma #48 (too old to run, but she was planning to help Willa) and JB #999, in the back.
The run went well.  All of the children finished and were greeted at the end with muffins, fruit, and juice.

Guess who finished last?

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Madison over 3 Days

It just snowed here in Minneapolis, the first snow of the season, so to celebrate I'll post our summer trip to Madison, South Dakota. Because it was too much fun to contain in one post, I'll put it up over this week. Enjoy the pictures of the warm weather...

One the way because getting there is half the fun...

...we went to Dairy Queen.

Emma contemplates her Peanut Buster Parfait next to Willa in an ice cream goatee.


Calvin with a satisfied smile.

...and met up with the Jolly Green Giant.


Monday, November 14, 2011

Day of the Dead

We followed up Halloween with the Mexican holiday, Dia de Muertos, or Day of the Dead. Emma's school hosted the party as a way to highlight the culture of a large part of the children who attend her school.

There were traditional Aztec dancers.

Ofrenda: a table full of flowers, fruits, candies, and food to welcome the beloved dead.
Emma holds up Willa, who wouldn't/couldn't leave the sugar skulls alone.

And calacas, or skull masks.
Enoch holds up his creation.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Halloween 2011

It came and went too quickly this year. It's the best night of the year. It's Halloween. We celebrated the usual way: costumes, candy, Monster House.

Enoch wanted to be the grim reaper.  This is what we came up with: graduation robe, pvc pipe, card board, foil and face paint.
Enoch the ham.

Willa was a Love Bug.
Her kitty balloon was from our church Halloween party
and she had already started in on her favorite treat, lollipops.

Calvin chose to be a knight again.  He only wanted the hat and shield.  He really wanted a pumpkin bucket, so we made one out of an ice cream bucket.

Taran also wanted to do a costume repeat.  He went out as Indiana Jones.

Here is the ghastly crew minus Emma.  Sadly, she is growing up.  She decided she'd have more fun trick or treating with friends. Still not too old for candy though.

And Oscar!  He stayed home with me to pass out candy.
And daddy.

As always, when we get home, we dump the candy on the floor, turn on Monster House and eat and eat and eat and eat.
Score!

Calvin shows off a drink pouch.


Oscar chilling on the couch in the back.  Taran covers his ears in the front.

Monster House is the movie they choose every year.  They love it.  They fear it.
Happy Halloween!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Martin Moment

Calvin with a bubble beehive and bubble beard.






Because he can.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

A Sad Story

The older I get the less I identify with Annie and the more I understand Miss Hannigan.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Fall Camping by David

Towards the end of October we went to the Baker Near-Wilderness Settlement, not far from Minneapolis, where we "camped" in cabins, participated in many indoor and outdoor activities, enjoyed nature and each other not too far from supermarkets and other advances of our civilization just in case. We did forget the marshmallows! Good thing we could just go pick some up. What is camping without S'mores?


Enoch enjoys a fresh cup of hot chocolate available at every activity that took place at the lodge. That's roughin' it!
Friday night there was pumpkin carving. Pumpkins knives and spoons were all provided. Seeds were collected from all the pumpkins and toasted for eating. Yum! We couldn't agree on how to carve our pumpkin so we cut two faces.

Taran and Calvin pose by our pumpkin's "scary" face.


And now the happy face.

Archery was one of the favorite outdoor activities. Below, Emma poses with her "left-eyed" bow. Most of us are right eyed. The instructor asked us to put our hands out in front of our selves making a "pumpkin nose" (a triangle) and then to look at her nose through it. She would look at us looking through our hands and tell us what eye we favored.



Calvin was a crack shot; hardly missed. When they put out the animal targets (you can see the pile of parts in the background) those in Calvin's sites didn't survive.


Enoch was super friendly with everyone on the range but his family. He wasn't angry with us just avoidant. He asked all the other adults if he could shoot with them. Here, someone else's grandmother helps Enoch nock an arrow.

We cooked over an outdoor fire. For dinner Saturday night we had chicken and dumplings and peach-berry cobbler. Delicious.


That same night an expert on Lewis and Clark came to the camp with many artifacts. Emma holds up a replica of Lewis' log.


Enoch is wearing Native American sunglasses/goggles holding a baby doll clothed in animal skin. People really are clever no matter the time in history or place. The Lewis and Clark expert is in the checkered shirt.
I'm holding Oscar in our cabin in front of the dutch oven with left over peach-berry cobbler. The cabin was heated by a wood-burning stove (to the right). The stove gets very hot. We had to open the windows and the door Saturday night because we were sweating. There were 4 bunk beds per cabin (sleeping 8). We were given a jug of water, cooking utensils/pots and pans, matches, cleaning supplies, and all the wood we could burn. We brought our own food. There was no electricity in the cabins.
Despite how close we were to town, the cabins were near the wilderness. Saturday night, while I was cooling the sweltering cabin (see caption above for explanation) by letting in the freezing air, a chorus of coyotes were howling not far away. It was wonderful, spooky, powerful, thrilling all at the same time. I stood at the open door inhaling the frigid air and lost myself in their song.

This is us at the lodge just before we left for home Sunday afternoon. Willa is in her church attire. The rest of us changed clothes after our morning church services. We wouldn't have gone to church that day but it was the primary program (explanation of "primary" is at the very bottom of the webpage the link takes you to). The primary program is the one Sunday each year that the children put on a presentation speaking and singing for the main worship service. Lisa is in the primary presidency, I am a primary teacher, and Taran, Enoch, and Calvin all in primary had speaking parts--another reason we were glad this place was close to home.
This was a great trip!

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Martin Quote

Caught eating a cookie she had just stolen from the counter...

Willa:  This is not a cookie.
Mommy:  What is it?
Willa:  A cookie.