A Heckuva good night

Last night Steve’s IT department had a cookout/potluck at one of the nicest parks in Fargo.  The weather was gorgeous (lately we have had too many days in the 90s with humidity so high that your glasses fog over).  The mosquitoes are still a horrible nuisance but there was enough breeze to slow them down a bit.  The park rents out various types of bikes and surreys and the boys have always wanted to try one.  It seemed like a perfect night (and school had started that day) so I let them try.  They each took a “banana peel” bike and explored the park via bike path.  They had a blast and I just love this picture of them.

 

Fried, mashed, baked or au gratin

 

We spent a very hot afternoon in Barnesville, MN at Potato Days.  I didn’t realize it but the Barnesville area is touted as one of the best potato producing areas in the country.  The festival dates back to the 1930s and includes potato picking and peeling contests, horse drawn wagon rides, a strong man competition and even a pageant called Little Miss Tator Tot.  It’s definitely small town America!  They serve potatoes in any way you could imagine-potato dumplings, potato soup, potato pancakes and lefse.  Lefse (for all of you non-North Dakotans) is a Norwegian pastry made of potatoes, flour, butter and cream.  It is delicious with butter and sugar.

There was also a mashed potato eating contest for the kids.  Most of them decided to use their hands.

 

             

I love this boy’s expression… “what have I done?”  I am not sure if he wanted to give up or throw up.

 

They also had a mashed potato sculpting contest for kids and adults.  They had 30 minutes to complete their sculptures.  The kids’ table had a lot of snowmen at the end of the 30 minutes but the adults were pretty creative.

  

 

            

                 

   

Pretty amazing what you can do with potatoes!

A tribute to the fading summer

Summers in Fargo probably come to an end earlier than your summers.  While the afternoon sun is still hot and the winds were calm I wanted to take a few pictures that will brighten my days during the winter ahead.  I love to photograph flowers but it seems to be equal parts inspiration and talent-and I’m still lacking in one of those. I was pretty happy with how these turned out though.

    

    

 

      

A beautiful garden

The temperature this past weekend was so nice we decided to take an afternoon trip.  Recently I saw a story on the news about Rainbow Garden in Mayville, ND.  Mayville is less than 2 hours from Fargo and I am always looking for a place to take some pictures so we decided to check it out.

The garden has 7 themes (like English garden and Children’s Playhouse), volunteers tend to the garden and they encourage visitors to cut and take flowers home with them.

 

 

                              Tons of butterflies everywhere!

 

There were rocking chairs, swings and hammocks for anyone who wanted to stop and enjoy the surroundings.

 

                                   Tic tac toe on the lawn.

 

         

                There were sculptures throughout the gardens.

       

 

Some colors were very vibrant….

 

 

and some were more muted…

 

but this picture is my favorite!

Oh, what a glorious day

Today was Braxton’s school registration day.  You know, find out who your teacher is, fill out reams of forms, say hi to the guys you haven’t seen since school let out.  The (wonderful) PTA here pre buys all the school supplies, boxes them up and you pay them a fixed (and reduced) price for everything.  It saves you from having to visit 4 stores to find the exact 32 box of crayons listed…lol.  I do actually love to shop for school supplies but I still get to do that for Cayden.

 

I got off track a bit…the glorious part of the day was when I got to LABEL ALL OF THE SCHOOL SUPPLIES!!!!

I lovingly took her out of the drawer, dusted her off and put her to work!

 

                                 ( my good and faithful friend)

I didn’t think my day could get any better until I read a class memo that said each and every marker, pen, pencil and crayon needed to be labeled.

 

 

Boy was I blessed or what?!

Brothers and Friends (more Texas fun)

Cayden and Braxton are completely different kids. They have completely different interests and spend most of their time either playing separately or trying to convince each other to do what they want them to do…leads to a fair amount of arguing…lol.

I was a little concerned how this would all play out in Texas. They only had each other so I knew it would go really good or really bad. I must say that they did really well. They found ways to have fun together…however, when you combine the hot Texas sun and a water hose you really can’t go wrong.

(this one is for you Tina…this moment is why John needs a brother)

we miss y’all :)

“B” for Brax