Life is funny sometimes

After a few months of stress for me wondering when the right person would come to our door to look at our house and buy it. Life has taken a diiferent turn for us here in the Alexander household. The housing market here is just not going to allow us to sell the house and move to Oregon so we have takent he house off the market and Dennis has accepted a new postion here in Minnesota.

He will start Monday morning with Inetium. You will have to get all the exciting things from him as I just know he will be working with Sharepoint once more and it is something he loves to do. That is all i care about he is excited to start and work with these people. His old boss from best Buy is excited for him too as it is a great chance for him to work with other experts in Sharepoint. (Dad just nod your head yes when he talks about it as it has all gone over my head)

So before it has really begun our adventure is over and yet it has just begun. Denis and I are very excited to keep our home that we have done so much to and we have brought 2 children home from the hospital here. And potty trained 2 children here also! As we consider when #3 will get potty trained it is good to know here is where we will stay.

So now I need to get school things ready and sign them up here in ELk River again and we need to think of a great many things but they too will get done. Just not right this minute, as we are headed for a weekend with my brother Jim and his wife. Their son Dominic will be there and I will have picture when I return. Jim wrote me and promised me wood for a fire and good food and some home made wine that he made. Life is good I tell you. And Sunday the kids and I are headed to the cabin to fish some more and more camp fires. Really a week of peace and quiet awaits me and it is just what the doctor has ordered. So till next week be safe and be happy!

Getting so big

I do not know when it happened but my baby girl has become a big girl. She can drink out of her own cup now as long as you do not put too much in there at a time. We give her a tippy yet most of the time but she does get a big cup if we are sitting with her where she can not run with it. Since her favortie pass time is still dumping the cup if no one is watching.

Riding a horse

Mini and Matthew saw this horse at Grandma and Papa's house to. Not knowing it was coming home with us they played all day with the thing. Of course they had to see if you can fit 2 children onto a one seat horse! Silly children I tell you! They must come from me!

Amari

Amari found the side table at Grandma and Grandpa's house when I went for Dad's birthday. He was so cute under there. He figured out how to getout but it took him awhile to get there.

Dennis and I at Bennihanas. We had so much fun with our group!
Kent and Tia at dinner
Maria and Kevin at dinner
Our table mates that sat with us
All of us together. Maria the film you see is the smoke from the grill. So mine is no better then yours. But the night was so much fun and was so nice to get out with a group of adults. Our baby sitter had 8 kids at home and she did great then kids had a blast and we got 3 1/2 hours of laughing and good food!

Mini in the doghouse

Mini was being oh so bad in Costco the one day and Dennis saw a doghouse they were trying to sell. He stuck her in there for her time out. Wouldn't you know it but the girl likes to be in the doghouse.

Tubing with Tia and Kent

Yes this is Matthew and Dennis out on a tube! Matthew loved it till they fell of! But he laughed and waved and wanted to go faster!


Samantha out on the tube!
Dennis and Matthew after they got back in the boat from tubing. It wore Matthew out and he was all ready to go back to shore when he was done here. He slept hard that night!




Stephen on the tube, he did really good! And went way longer then I thought he would with how fast we went!


When we got close to the landing. The older kids wanted to swim in to shore. So I jumped in to swim to. Matthew wanted to swim to so he rode on my back and I swam us into shore. We had a blast out on the boat and tubes with Kent and Tia and the kids! We are trying to plan another outing yet this summer.

Dennis made us breakfast

Matthew and Dennis eating the berry and jello salad I made. The kids love this stuff! Of course Mini does it is food!

Then Dennis made us waffles for breakfast! Kevin and Maria were here too so it was a special day.



It gets all over don't you know!

More kid time

The kids got to spend time with the neighbor girls again as we had them Thur and Fri last week! They had a blast chalking and get it wet and making paint out of it. And then not sure what got into me but I baked 5 different kinds of cookies, with 8 children in my kitchen!

Matthew and Sage used the cooler as a horse and rode into the sunset together. And Mini sat on the counter and the older ones helped peal chocolate kisses and put them on the cookies for me. We had a great time and the days passed quickly!

The addition to the shed

The "shed" is way bigger then the cabin I want to point out and has taken on a life of its own I think. Dad worked on it 2 summers ago I think it was to get it ready and last summer the boys came in and poured cement. And lots of it to! But it lets Dad park the 4 wheeler out of the rain. It also lets his work on projects up there. Like the boat ramp you see in a picture there.

I want to point out how handy I am as I helped cut and hang some of the tin with him! Ok I held it while he hammered and cut. A carpenter I am not!

sites from the trail

This is a shot coming into the cabin from the mail box. Which mind you is a 1 mile walk in yet to the cabin. It is the road that leads to our driveway. Many a time deer will run out in front of you. I had said 2 miles but Maria reminded me it is 1 mile out 1 mile back home.


I saw this birch tree on the road too and I liked the look of it. It really is beautiful up there.


The ferns on the bridal trail in the clearing were in fine form. I love the look of so many together. Not that we took the 4 wheeler on that trail mind you!


Here is the whole clearing. Back by the tree is where Ernie used to sit to hunt deer and Maria sat there too.

4 wheeler rides

Maria and I took the kids out for a ride. Of course they all loved it and we went touring. On our return we found out we went to places we were not allowed to ride any more! OOPPS!! No one saw us and no one caught us so it must be alright though!
Mini and Amari of course were so dang cute on the ride. They held hands and rode quiet the whole time. Mini stayed awake I am not sure how as she kept looking at the sky like it would give her answers to the worlds hard questions. If she figures out the answers I sure hope she shares the thoughts with me!

bouncing before going to cabin

This is out of order I know but these were on the big camera. The kids got to go over to the neighbors house before we left Tuday night and jump. Mini ran around going jump jump all night after this. My kids were hot sweaty and tired so I knew they would sleep on the trip to the cabin.

Matthew and Mini had a blast in there and so much work for the little ones to jump all over in there. I too got in to jump a bit.
Lots of kids lots of bouncing and falling. So much fun to be had by all!!


Mini and Sage swang together and just relaxed and let the big kids jump jump for awhile. Till it was there turn once more!

new pictures of my fires

yes I know you have seen pictures of the fire but I downloaded my other cameras pictures. So here are some more. The last is the wood pile that we got the wood for the fire from and that we kept adding to so we could burn more brush. This was on Sat night so our pile was down again till the next morning when we went and got some more.

The draw of a nice fire

You know I was thinking about the cabin and really the draw of the fire gets you everytime. We got there Tuesday night lit the fire Wed morning and it did nto go out till after I left Sunday afternoon. And each night after the kids were tucked into bed Maria and I sat at the fire to talk.


We had a few of these and talked some more and put more wood on and watched our fire.

But 5 days of fire and beer leads to trips to town for ice cream and this! It really was a nice trip up. Not a lot fo fishing but lots of sitting by the fire and eating good food. And talking and walking with the kids. And the kids and I and Maria and Grandpa haul 16 loads of wood while there to burn on our fire. And with that we had as big of a pile of wood waiting for the next trip as I had when I got there. SO we did go through lots of wood. And you know something I can not wait till the next trip!

So this is it from this camera. I need to download the other one. As I have more pictures on there. I need to plan my next trip up as I did not get much fishing in this trip. I did catch 2 northerns though and as long as I got to go out once it was worth the trip.

more pictures

Here is Matthew and Grandpa hanging out at the fire. Matthew had lots of stories for us and he tried to convince us he too was a big enough boy for a beer. He knows that a beer would be so very good by the fire since we all sat around it and had some each night.
Maria and I were surprised that sitting at the fire also let our cell phones work. So she was texting Kevin here.