Froggie friends and fairy houses

The end of the school year and our summer so far has been so full of activity and travel.  Everyone finished school with flying colors.  Joel loved his first year in seminary and received top marks for his work.  I managed to not just survive our first year here but really enjoyed our first year homeschooling.  Since the school year ended Joel has traveled three different weeks for work (we are so thankful for his job - contracting with his former boss/company), I've sent the big girls to three different VBSs, and we've traveled to Illinois and North Carolina for family reunions.  We are looking forward to having about of month with minimum travel now to actually rest before school starts again!  

We are still liking our apartment and love having our backyard - Elsa still considers it a "wonderful and wild" despite its tiny size and my continued attempts to "tame" it into a submissive garden.  Two frogs have frequented our backyard despite Tabitha Twitchit's watchful eye - a four inch brown toad and this little tree frog.  The tree frog has been caught and released so many times I'm surprised he still sticks around!

We think the frogs like our yard because they are friends with the fairies who live at the base of the poplar tree in our yard.  Elsa has taken it upon herself to do regular house cleaning and yard work for them.

New china from GG...

...means it is time for another tea party with a neighbor:

Beatrice was very eager to get in on the action,

So I set up her own place with her cheerios and she was very happy to be by the Big Girls:

To Grandma's house

We spent about a week at my grandma's house near Chicago.  My parents drove the big girls up and we followed with the baby (the minivan's transmission is about dead and we're selling it for parts :(  we're getting used to just having the car, but it can get tight on long trips with all three in the back, so it was great to let the big girls ride with Oma and Opa!).  Anyway, I was glad the girls actually remembered being at GG's house two years ago!  This time GG got our one of her "junk jars" - a giant pickle jar full of odds and ends that had been collected over the years - from antique toys to broken bit of jewelry and all sorts of other knicknacks that intrigued the girls as they asked about each piece. 

GG got the girls into the kitchen again.  This time Elsa could help a bit more and was in charge of the pancakes.

Nora took care of the bananas.

Beatrice didn't help cook but she happily ate or tried to eat most of what we put in front of her.  Grandma tries to get a picture of each grandkid and great-grand in Great-Grandpa's highchair:

Four generations:

And a few more of Beatrice and Great Grandma because I'll never have too many:

Family reunion

While at GG's house we saw a lot of cousins and we all met up a few times for a reunion that weekend.  Aunt Colleen showed up to GG's house with little pools, squirt guns, and other water toys and immediately became Favorite Person Number 1.  

I really enjoyed getting to see my extended family and introducing the girls to many of them for the first time.

Beatrice warmed up to Aunt Colleen pretty quickly:

And how many Banisters does it take to cut a watermelon?

More cousins and more pools!

GG and her siblings:

Now as "See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil... smell no evil?"  Ha!

Visiting the boat

While we were at GG's house we made a day trip into Chicago.  We swung through Lincoln Park Zoo (visiting the reptile house, of course) before visiting Navy Pier, where my family used to run public cruises and charters on tall ships.  One of the ships is still there under a new owner, and we got to go aboard to show the girls where I used to work with Oma and Opa.  It was a pretty chilly day for summer, but we managed to get a nice family photo before the girls wanted to go inside again.

Frog babies

My mother had a few days with the girls in June, and she sent them home with two buckets of tadpoles!

We enlarged their habitat, did a quick study of a frog's lifecycle, and soon became completely enthralled with watching them grow legs.

Elsa's mothering instincts come out best when a reptile or amphibian is involved.  She was out there first thing every morning to sing to them and make sure they were not too hot.

She was completely delighted when we had our first frog!

And soon there was another!

And then even more!  The singing must have worked!

Strawberries

Strawberry season snuck up on us in May, but we were able to get out once with some friends to go picking.  Even though we went early in the morning, it go so hot so soon that we were content to just buy from the farmers markets and stores for the rest of the season, especially for the kids and baby!