I think I was made for summer.

Walter has been dreaming of the day when he can where tennis shoes outside again and run fast on the sidewalk. He asks about when he can, when it will be warm again, and when summer is daily. The other day he told me this out of the blue. I'm not sure where he's heard this before, but it reminds me how he listens to and catches everything!

Since I, too, am dreaming of summer, here are a few photos from my grandparents home island and their neighbors, the Hindu's.

Below are pictures of the Hindu temple being built on Kauai. They import each piece of granite from India and hand carve every piece. The photo of the tools are all the tools the carvers use, pretty amazing!

To Happiness

My wonderful grandfather, Charles A. Armstrong, passed away on Saturday at 4:40 a.m. in Kauai. I was blessed to be able to be with him the last ten days of his life, as I left on Friday afternoon to return home. Our good-bye has been playing over and over in my head since I left. He was so weak and had barely spoken any words for the better part of my time there. When I went to say good-bye, he lifted his arm to hug me and told me he loved me in the sweetest, truest voice. Its hard not to hop on a plane and get back to my grandma and parents. They are all in my heart.

My grandpa was such a powerful, loving presence. He held my grandma on a pedestal (rightfully so!) and showed his family nothing but love and acceptance. He was smart man but more than that, he was a true artist.

Their neighbors are a Hindu monastery and temple. The guru who founded this monastery searched all over the world to find where to put this temple and found the foothills of Mount Waialeale on Kauai to be the perfect setting. My grandparents also searched high and low to find the right place to build their home and around the same time that the Hindu's began building their temple, my grandparents began building their home, about a 1/4 of a mile away. I could go on about the amazing hand carved temple, but what I also keep coming back to is how my grandpa found such a powerful place to live. The energy and beauty there is quite something. I was able to visit the temple when I was there and one of the monks talked about how the guru encouraged all monks to do something creative with their hands in addition to their studies. It struck me as I having been working on getting back into some art of my own and then I thought about my grandpa and his woodworking. He made us wooden toys (that my boys still play with) along with many other wonderful things. Most recently he became a master of the lathe, turning bowls to perfection.

My grandpa loved to see you smile and believed deeply in the power of positive thinking. We enjoyed many wonderful times together and special meals together as a family. At nearly all of these, he would raise his glass and toast "To Happiness."

To my Grandpa, to Happiness!

I am a Razorback!

In honor of Jer's cousin who is a Razorback and our time living in AR, we received a fun gift from Jeremy's aunt and uncle this year...matching Razorback gear! Owen is quite proud of the fact that he lived in Little Rock for a while and tells me he remembers swimming in the pool in his lady bug quite a bit. (Could it be that he's seen this photo a few times???)

Walter is just extremely proud of his shirt. Though we all enjoy sporting them here and there, he often turns into a Razorback hog when he puts his on. (A darn cute hog, that is.)

Mom, there is no more soap!

A few days ago Walter decided he wanted a bath. I got him all set up and in addition to his bath toys, he decided he also wanted to play with the two brand new, full, bottles of kids soap I had just bought. I told him that was fine, but not to open them until I was in there and ready to help clean him up. Well, you can see where this is going...about 5 minutes later he yelled this to me. He had dumped both large bottles out into his bath and was squeaky clean.

Christmas was lovely. We had all sorts of celebrations with lots of family and enjoyed some time with some great friends, too. Best of all, was having the boys off school and Jer off work for two full weeks. It was perfect! There was lots of ice fishing, sledding, game playing and too many gifts. We are certainly lucky.

My highlight was going up to International Falls and spending time with my grandma. As you may recall, she was diagnosed with ALS last year and it is certainly harsh. It was wonderful to have some time hearing her talk about her old work (something she always used to want to talk about!), giving her a good foot bath and massage, and so great to see her banging out some "Roll Out the Barrel" on the piano. She is so sweet, it was hard to leave her.

First Fish of the Winter

The boys and I went ice fishing on Lake Nokomis yesterday and today. We were skunked yesterday, but today Walter came up big by nailing our first fish of the year. It was a 4 inch perch caught on the north side of the Lake. Hopefully it is the first of many that we are going to catch this winter.

I am a zipper master.

Walter has been working feverishly on the zipper frame at school. He has worked so hard on it that he now zips his own winter coat and even has Owen requesting his assistance to zip his coat. Yesterday he wanted to zip my coat for me and told me this.

Yesterday was the winter concert at Sunny Hollow. Owen sang "I've Been Working on the Railroad" and "The Snowflake Song". Walter sang "Shoefly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy" and "Over the River and Through the Woods" (well, he sang about every 5th word that is). After, there was a family lunch with pizza and cookies. Owen ate six, yes six, pieces of pizza...maybe he will be eating us out of house and home as a teen after all!

Today, the boys are with Joanne & Al. They were going to see Puss In Boots at the Old Log Theatre and also to the Arboretum to see the gingerbread houses on display. Tomorrow we are going to Mother Goose's Nutcracker at the Southern with Auntie Kindi. How fun to be a great kid and take advantage of this great city!

This sounds like Grover.

We were listening to a Louis Armstrong Christmas song and Owen told me this. Funny, funny!

So again, here we are with a long break since my last post. I've been having issues with storage space on my computer, apparently I take too many photos with my sweet camera of my completely adorable boys. I have been working with the Apple store to come up with an alternative and I think I have it under control now. Only time will tell...but I think I'm going to start saving for another computer now, just in case!

There is a lot to catch up on, so I will start with the crazy fun weekend we just had! We started with an impromptu trip to the Timberwolves game on Friday and made it home just as the first flakes started to fall. The snow continued to fall and kept on falling until past 6 p.m. on Saturday. We ended up getting more than 17 inches of snow and are still digging paths out and around our house. It was such fun! We were locked in our house for the weekend, only going out to shovel, sled and play in the snow. Inside, we spent quite a bit of time in front of the fire, making cookies, playing games and watching movies. It was wonderful and the final cherry was having Monday a snow day! Tuesday after a day of school for the boys and yoga and groceries for me, I couldn't just come back home after three straight days here, so the boys and I hit up a movie to get out a little more.

Six.

Six years ago our adventure in parenthood started. What a wonderful and interesting adventure it has been! We are so blessed to have Owen. He is beyond words.

Can we go sledding?

We got our first snow on Saturday and Owen has asked this every day, possibly every hour, since. He has been out sledding for a good hour everyday.

Today we received the boys school photos. It is so fun to see them and have the boys tell me all about their classmates. I have to say they turned out quite well! If you want to see Owen's previous years photos they are here 2009, 2008.

I like when daddy sings, though.

I was singing along with Walter yesterday and he asked me to stop because I didn't have a good singing voice. He then told me this. I think I need to get his hearing checked.

After seeing President Obama in Indonesia and hearing his trip might be cut short because of a volcanic eruption, Owen became quite interested in volcanoes this week. We made a home made volcano here one night and spend a good half hour watching youtube videos of eruptions another night. He then told me he did his first research at school and he was going to write a report on it. Today he brought home this:

In case you can't read his writing, the occasional backwards letter, and phonetic spellings here is the translation:

"When I went to Hawaii I went over a dead volcano. Hot lava is made from hot rocks."

Maybe it doesn't quite knock your socks off, but it sure did mine! He is officially a kid. No more baby, no more toddler, no more preschooler. He is a kindergartner at its finest.

JJ Classic

Intermat put on a pre-season wrestling tournament a couple weeks ago. There was quite a bit of hype surrounding it in our house and continues to be lots of wrestling talk. When the boys ask Jeremy about previous wrestling matches, Walter always asks if it was at the JJ Classic.

It was the first time Intermat has ever put on a tournament and though there was quite a bit of nerves surrounding it, it went beautifully. They have been receiving accolades from those who attended and are already thinking about how to improve it next year. The boys loved wrestling on the mats, taping and rolling up the mats, and having the freedom to run between the head table, the stands, and Owen even helped stop a few matches.

All I want for Christmas is my...

How cute is that smile!?

I am voting for the Vikings.

Owen was asking me about my 'I Voted' sticker and who I voted for, etc. After I answered a few questions, Walter chimed in to tell us this.

My other quote could easily be "Are you ever going to do a blog again?" Jer's been asking me this for a while. Yes, my answer is yes...I just was taking a bit of a break I guess.

Halloween was a huge success this year. The boys were Robin Hood and Little John. We went to the park & rec's party at Minnehaha Falls with Sunny Hollow on Saturday, got to go to a neighborhood Halloween party and capped it all off with some major trick or treating up and down the streets. We went again with our neighbor friend Aiden and she and Owen led the pack of kids eager to fill their bags with treats. Walter held his own and stayed out the entire time this year and we have the candy to prove it.

I almost forgot about starting the celebrating off with a special delivery from my mom. My dad swung by on Thursday on his way to North Dakota with some cupcakes and gifts for the boys. We had a great time decorating and eating them. Now that I'm writing all this out, I think the candy will need to disappear sooner than later...