Oxbow Park

DH and I had most of the afternoon free yesterday, so we made a little excursion to Oxbow Park. It's a nice county park with hiking trails, a campground, and a little zoo also. I had taken the kids there a few times in the past, but DH had never been there as he informed me on the drive over. It was a beautiful day for such a trip and we enjoyed looking at the animals at the zoo, the log cabin, and doing the little hiking loop by the river. I'm sure Jeanelle over at Midlife by Farmlight will get a chuckle out of the calf being a zoo exhibit. Where else can we citified folk scratch a calf's ears?? Anyway, my last picture is of a mysterious 8 foot tall week with a red stalk. There were several growing around the river and it was new to me. If anyone knows what it is, let me know. This was kind of the start of DH and I trying to get in the habit of regular exercise. He's chaperoning the kid's youth group trip to New Orleans later this month and will be doing a lot of walking, so he needs to get in shape for that. Both of us have some extra winter poundage to lose, so there's no time like the present to start working on it.

Red, White, and Blue

Happy Fourth of July!! Here's some red, white and blue from my flowers. From the top: red Asian lily, red dianthus, white goat's beard bush (top) and white hosta flowers, some kind of white volunteer flower, blue clematis, and blue sweet William. You can see the rain drops on the flowers in the pictures I took today. They needed a nice little drink, but I hope it will dry off later today. We are going to a friends house for a BBQ and then downtown to watch the fireworks display. In the mean time I'm catching up on some household chores. Hope you are enjoying your day too!!

Jewel Box Bank

Here's a few pictures of the Jewel Box bank on the town square in Owatonna Minnesota. I was exploring for a while the other day when TB had a baseball game there and actually had my camera with me for a change. This bank was completed in 1908, had subsequent additions and renovations, and was designed by Louis Sullivan a teacher of Frank Lloyd Wright. These buildings are pretty rare, but coincidentally our bank when we lived in Grinnell Iowa was very similar. Here's a link that shows pictures of both of those and some others too. Here's another one with a slide show and more information that you probably want. Enjoy!

My Trip to "The Cities"

True Minnesotans usually refer to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area as "The Cities" and that's where I had some summer highlights a couple of weeks ago. SD was doing her freshmen orientation for college and since I've been through it all before with CS, I decided to skip most of the parent stuff and head off on my own. While she was having her orientation, I visited several prime locations, some new for me and some that I had visited in the past. Pictured above is the Weisman Art Museum, a wacky building with some wacky art inside. I don't "get" a lot of it. To me, a picture of a cardboard box with other pictures glued onto it (some upside down) isn't really art. Neither is a Petunia that is supposedly a new life form because some scientist put some of his own DNA in it. (An entire room was devoted to this "Etunia") It has a fun gift shop though where I bought a couple of buttons for my daughter's collection that she puts on her purse. On the right, there is a picture up the river where you can see the wreckage of the 35W bridge laid out and the new bridge in the background. I guess the new bridge lights up in different colors at night, but haven't seen that yet.Here's a picture of the stone arch bridge. "A gently S-curving bridge was built by railway baron James J. Hill in 1883 to speed his trains across the Mississippi River. Now beautifully restored, the bridge provides serene transit for walkers, joggers and anybody who wants the best possible view of St. Anthony Falls, whose churning power first made Minneapolis a milling capital." You can see more of the Falls in the picture looking towards downtown. Lastly here is a picture of the Prospect Part Water Tower. It was referred to as a "witch's hat" water tower and was built in 1913 on the highest natural land area in Minneapolis. My son goes by it on the bus every day on his way to work and wondered what it was, so we ventured by while I was there.

It helped that the weather was perfect while I was there. CS and I went and saw the movie UP and then ate at an outdoor restaurant and walked in the St. Anthony Falls area that evening. I thought while I was there that it might be my only vacation this summer and even though it was only a couple of days, it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed spending the time with my kids too. I almost forgot because I don't have pictures, but I also went to Glad Creations, a famous Minneapolis quilt shop and Engebritson's, a Scandinavian shop of epic proportions. I bought a little something at both shops, but could have spent a lot of money if I had it.

Summer...not lazy or hazy!

I can't believe it's the last day of June and this is one of the first days I haven't had much on my plate. Today is just a regular day of doing laundry, grocery shopping, cooking a meal, and making sure everyone gets where they are supposed to be. I've also had time for reading blogs while the washer's going, looking at Facebook, and paying my bills on-line. A good day, and a nice change compared to the rest of our month. June has definitely been a month of ups and downs, crazy schedules, and a lot of work, little of it paid. When I've been an absent blogger for a week, I tend to do the asterisked checklist of what I've been doing. That might be a little hard for a month, but I'll give it a try (mostly for my own use as a journal) and then I promise to get back to what I hope might stand a chance of being an interesting blog.
*Graduation- SD made it through with flying colors
*Last day of school- I was so ready!
*Baseball games sprinkled throughout the month- Ups and downs there also, but mostly good although I've had to miss a few games.
*College orientation- SD got registered for fall classes and stayed overnight on campus.
*Brief "vacation"- While SD had orientation, I hung out with CS, slept on a cot at his house. We went to see "Up" which I loved, went to eat at an outdoor restaurant, and enjoyed part of the riverwalk in Minneapolis on a perfect MN evening. It was a nice break even though it made preparing for the
*graduation party a little more hectic. The party went well, the weather was still great, and we had a pretty good turn out.
*SD had her 18th birthday the day after her party. We didn't do much, but had a nice dinner and ate leftover graduation cake.
*Our "rent to own gone bad" people moved into another house leaving us with a house and no renter. We were fortunate to find new renters in a short time, but have practically killed ourselves getting the place cleaned and repaired. A learning experience.
*DH's parents both broke their hips in separate incidents on the same day and both had surgery the next day which happened to be their 62nd wedding anniversary. We spent one weekend at the hospital, they've moved to a nursing home now and are slowly recovering.
*My mom is still in a nursing home recovering from her broken neck, hopes to get home soon.
*Nephew's wedding in Iowa- was the shortest wedding in history, but it was nice and all of the cousins were there. On our way home from the wedding, we visited both nursing homes to see our parents.
Now sprinkle in a few car repairs, a sibling relationship that is difficult(mine), a poor financial outlook, I've had just a tiny bit of stress. It's funny how I've just been too busy to notice, but I'm tired and I hope to have some time to recoup before I start working at summer school next week. I'm thankful that my back has been somewhat better and none of us have had any health issues at least. Hopefully July will be a better and easier month and I hope to get back to blogging on a regular basis. Thanks for listening!!

Graduation!!

It has been quite a whirlwind of activity around here this past week. SD had her graduation on Friday night. They were able to have it outside and it was the only nice night we had all weekend. It got a little chilly towards the end, after 7!! speakers, but not too bad. The rest of the weekend was cold and rainy and windy, so I felt bad for those who were having their grad parties. Ours is next weekend, so I hope the weather will be nice. I feels a little surreal that she has finished high school, it may not sink in for awhile. She and I have a road trip to do her college orientation and get her registered for classes later this week, so it will probably start to feel real then.

*****

The rest of the week has been/will be filled with baseball games, end of the school year activities, house cleaning, and party preparation. It helped in a way to have the rainy weekend to get some of those inside projects done. I'll be infrequent with my blogging for the next week or so. I hope to spend more time with that this summer and get back to visiting and commenting on my favorite blogs.

A better fox picture

Here's some better pictures of Mrs. Fox. I did a lot of yard work over the weekend, so I heard her kits arguing again and saw her running around. Another neighbor said that there are 5 of them, so she probably has to spend quite a bit of time hunting food for them. The last picture shows her sauntering away. I didn't have the camera on zoom at all, I was pretty close to her and she didn't seem to mind.


I've got my yard looking pretty good and powerwashed the patio and patio furniture last night. We had a beautiful weekend, so I was able to get a lot done. Tonight we have a baseball game, so not much will happen at home. I spent a long time on the phone with my sister this morning. She had been to Iowa to see our mother and said she seems to be doing okay. Time will tell if she'll be able to return to her home. Today is SD's last day of high school. She graduates Friday night, but her party isn't until the 14th. They have an all night party for the grads, so I think I may have some of my friends over after graduation. I have a feeling I might be a little sad that night, we'll see.