North Shore

The day before Dave's birthday, we went up to the North Shore here in MN. We heard it's definitely something we should see while we lived here. We were definitely hoping for a lot more fall colors, but it was still fun to get out and see something new.

The only time we took some pictures was at a lighthouse and a waterfall.

This lighthouse-- the split rock lighthouse-- is on Lake Superior. It's pretty, but you have to pay like 8 bucks a pop to get in! We didn't pay. Shocker.

Lake Superior.

There were lots of aspen trees around. I love aspens-- there are way too many pictures of them in this post.

Miles was diggin' Mr. Shirtless:

Some of the little bit of color. I was amazed at how little color there was.

Gooseberry Falls:

Notice anything about this aspen?

It has mushrooms growing out of it!

Pretty cool, right? I thought so.

M-I-L-E-S

That spells MILES, which is defined as: the sweetest, happiest, dog gone pleasure of a kid we could have ever hoped for or dreamed of.

This was on Dave's birthday-- Miles licking the whipped cream. Or trying, anyway. Did you know Miles is tongue tied? Licking is kind of a toughie, as will be french kissing. We'll just have to tell him to steer clear of the ol' french kiss.

Get ready for a whole bunch of Miles stories.

The day before Dave's birthday we went out for a DAM adventure. In one of the public bathrooms of the day, Dave came out with a funny story and I wish I could have been there. This is how the story goes: as Miles was peering into the urinal, he said, "Holy Moly! The urinal is dirty!" Then he looked around and said, "The bathroom is dirty!" We're not really sure where he got "holy moly" as we tend to be bad parents and say things more like "holy crap," but I'll take it!

It blows my mind at how much Miles is into music. And he listens. Hard core. He points out different instruments like piano, trumpet, guitar, violin, drums, and "bunny (funny) piano" which is a xylophone. For example, this very minute, I have the Sesame Street Radio playing on Pandora. We just heard "You are my sunshine" and Miles said "Mom, I taking your sunshine away?" I was like, "well, hello Mr. I-listen-to-everything-down-to-music-lyrics, NO you don't take my sunshine away!" By the way, this whole encounter was under a teasing pretense. He specifically said he was taking my sunshine away because the song says not to. Miles loooooves to tease about silly things. He thinks it's so funny and cracks himself up. This morning at breakfast, he was teasing about his name... "my name is P! Nooo! That's a letter. My name is cheese! Noooo, that's food! My name is guitar! Nooo, that's crazy!" He loves it and particularly appreciates my participation, which I always give. I love watching himself crack himself up.

A couple nights ago, I put Miles' underwear on his head when getting him ready for bed. It was covering his eyes so he didn't know what was on his head, but he thought it was hilarious something was on his head. I asked him what it was and he took it off, saw it was his underwear and came unglued with hysterical laughter. He got right in my face, pointed his finger at me and said "Silly mom!" through his excellent laugh. It was a good one.

Lately, when Miles will get hurt he'll immediately say, "I'm OK!" even when he's not and then he'll cry. Also when I tell him to do something he says, "OK mom, I will, I will." Or when I tell him not to do something he says, "Sorry, sorry. I will not. I will not again. It was accilent (accident)." He says thank you for everything. Literally, everything. If you say "bless you" after a sneeze, you are guaranteed a "taytoo" from Miles. If I step over a car he strategically parked in the middle of the kitchen, I can count on "taytoo, mom" from Miles. Such a ridiculously good kid.

Last Miles story: A few days ago, we had a super long learning time where I was trying to get him to find a word that started with [insert lower case letter here] out of three different words. We had to talk a lot about the beginning and the start of the word since he'd see the chosen letter in the middle of a word and think he was in like a dirty shirt. So one of the times I was explaining 'beginning,' Miles rattled off the following:

M: Like our blag!

A: Our flag?

M: Yeah, at the baseball game! And then the man sings the song!

I was seriously shocked and awed. He was talking about the Mariners game we went to that we have literally never spoken of since, and how at the beginning of the game, they have our flag and the National Anthem sung. Dang. Moral of the story: Miles likely remembers what I look like naked from the time I let him take a shower with me when he was like 2 1/2 and every naughty thing I ever said and every time I was ever grouchy. No pressure.

Old Man Dave

Dave turned 28. That's getting close to 30.

His birthday was on Sunday, so he basically went to church, ate everything he ever wanted that I cooked and worked on fellowship (job) applications till the wee hours of the morning. Not a super exciting birthday, but it happened, and Dave is indeed 28. He's a great dad, great husband and we love him to a thousand little shards of pieces.

Raspberry Pickin'

We went raspberry pickin' last weekend. It was really quite fun, and a fantastic family activity. When we got back to the car Miles said, "That was bun (fun)."

It was in Afton, MN right on someone's property by their house. It was quite picturesque and the weather was perfect. Dave had the car door open for a minute before he got out of the car and when he turned to get out the folk's dog was right there and gave Dave a good startle. That was bun, too. We drove around the area a bit after our pickin' adventures and it was really lovely out there. Very pretty.

My dudes are pretty cute, if I do say so myself.

Up North

We went "up North" to some cabins on a lake (one of the 10,000 in Minnesota) for the MHA program's annual "fishing" trip. Maybe a handful of students fish; the rest are too drunk to do so. It was fun, though, and I was so glad that Miles is older and will sleep anywhere these days. Last year's fishing trip night sleep was so sucktacular, I actually climbed in the play pen Miles wouldn't sleep in. This year was way better and the weather was great!

Here are some pictures from the super pretty night. FYI, these pictures needed no editing. It was just that pretty.

Those little black blurs are the mosquitoes.

The next day we did a little paddle boating and a little water playing. I'd call it a success. And that's that.

A DAM Good Time

We hit up the Minnesota State Fair again this year. It was a buck more than last year to get in! Jerks. Anyway, like I said, it was a DAM good time.

Miles with cookie all over his face.

It was so funny watching Miles try to figure out what to do in these. This was his first time putting his face in this sort of contraption and he was pretty confused, enamored and delighted.

He got the hang of it, though.

Something we didn't take part in last year:

The horse show. I totally felt complete with my fair experience because of this horse show. It started off with trailer races, which was fun to watch, but the highlight was this drill team or whatever they called it. These girls and these horses did some pretty neat stuff and formations, etc. It was a great fair experience. Miles thought it was so fantastic and was so enthusiastic and excited the whole time. He loved clapping with the crowd and was overflowing with the greatest kid cheer I've seen lately.

This year's crowd. A lot like last year.

I tried to mess around with some slow shutter pictures. They are scattered throughout this post. There is camera shake in all of them. I don't have a tripod. I want one. My birthday is 10/30. See you then.

I took quite a few pictures of these chairlift/bucket type things. Every time I'd stop to take a picture Dave would ask me what I was seeing that he wasn't. But I just liked it-- the sky, the American flags, the people-- it seemed so fair-y to me.

Fair-y.

Fair-y.

Fair-y. No? Am I alone?

Also fair-y.

We totally didn't dish out the 3 bucks for Miles to go on a kiddie ride that he no doubt would have enjoyed immensely. But no worries, we let him sit in this coin op bus, which received no coins from us and it was just as much of a success. Win win!

And last, but not least, the grandstand show of the night was Weezer! We didn't have tickets, but we sat right outside the grandstand and listened to the whole show. They put on an awesome show and we were pretty bummed we weren't actually, legitimately in attendance. They played all their old hits plus a Radiohead cover and a Foster the People cover. Both excellent.

Please enjoy this video of Miles rocking out to Weezer. Do take note of all the following:

a) his sweet moves

b) air drums

c) air guitar

d) that a garage band is likely in my future

Enjoy:

Miles + Weezer = DAM good time from DAM FAM on Vimeo.