Adele's Sleep Over In Madison

Adele rode up with Didi to Madison this weekend to give a surprise visit to Owen.  She loves any opportunity to get one on one time.  She was a champ on her 4 hour drive up there, writing in her journal, eating snacks and talking Didi's ears off.  Here is a pick of Adele and Owen getting some movie time in.

Movie night & snuggle time with Owen

Getting ready at Didi & Papi's House

Pajama Day at School

Early Halloween Party

We went with some new Mpls friends to an Oktoberfest party and a Halloween party this past weekend.  I was awarded 'Best Costume' at the Halloween party (not the Oktoberfest party, which turns out, was not a costume party). This could become my go to costume, considering it is my favorite funny movie of all time.

World Travelers

A couple nice pictures of Didi and Papi on their big trip overseas with the ISU Alumni Association tours.  Here they are in Athens and Cypress.  They also went to Israel and will finish up their trip in Istanbul before heading back Friday, flying into Minneapolis.

Rhodes, Greece

Rhodes, Greece

Acropolis of Athens, Greece 

Limassol, Cyprus

Papi Walking Veda to School

A few days before they took off for their big cruise.

Buddies

Ok, well maybe not very often, but when they are buddies, it's pretty damn cute.  BTW, they are now able to officially share clothes.  

Releasing the Butterflies

Veda received a butterfly kit for her birthday from Ryan.  She was able to grow them from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly.  Today it was time to release them into the wild (and frankly we were getting tired of feeding them in their net in the kitchen).  Pretty fun project for the kids to watch over the course of 3-4 weeks.

Fun Times at Home Depot

I started taking the girls to the monthly Home Depot workshops (first Saturday of each month).  Pretty impressive ordeal that HD puts together.  Several hundred kids and some very cool, kid friendly projects. This week, they got to make a Fire Department rescue plane and then when they were done, they got to paint it (the color of their choice - or at least whatever dad could mix together with red, white, yellow and black).  Afterwards, they got to tour a fire truck outside, sit in the back and front seats and hold on to the hoses.  Pretty good little Saturday morning activity.

A Serious Cleaner

One of Winston's favorite 'toys' is our dust-buster, well, at least until it turns on, then he runs like a scared little animal.  Today, after his normal eating routine, where he finishes, then throws all of his food to the floor, he ran to the dust-buster and got it turned on. Scared him at first, but then he had a blast vacuuming up all his food.  I guess throwing food is forgivable if you are willing to clean up afterwards.

Re-Tell Day at School

This past Friday, Veda's class had a Re-Tell session where the parents were invited to class while the kid's talked through their stories.  They had made little posters and stick figures to act out the play.  The stories were Rosie's Walk, Three Billy Goats Gruff and Henny Penny.  As you can see, Veda is in a pretty large Kindergarten class this year with Miss Williams, lots of kids at Kenny Elementary...

Picture Day at School

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Vancouver 2013

This past weekend, we took a little trip up to Vancouver with Kel & Chris for a weekend getaway.  It was also the 3rd time Kathy & I have been to the Vancouver International Film Festival.  We were able to take in a couple movies, one starring Robert Redford, called 'All is Lost' and another about big oil in Africa, called 'Big Men', produced by Brad Pitt.  Lots of eating out at nice restaurants, shopping and wandering around the city, despite some pretty rainy weather.  Always nice to get away for a few days and glad we could share one of our favorite cities with Kel & Chris.

Oktoberfest in Mpls

Adele's Entourage

Adele has been spending a lot of time with her 'friends' and her 'sweeties' lately at home.  It's lead to some high maintenance behavior, which can be challenging whenever nap time, sleep time or travel time happen.  She travels with a minimum of 8 animals (anywhere from small beanie babies to large breed dogs).  Lately, she's been carrying a backpack and 2 purses, just to help transport.

Minnehaha Falls

Impromptu photo shoot by Uncle Ryan at Minnehaha Falls.  Kathy deemed the walk down to the waterfall area as 'too dangerous' but I think she's probably happy with the end result.  At least I only got a few eye rolls during the process...