Home Sweet Cloquet

I'm back with a few photos of some our favorite spaces in our new house! I'll post more some later, these were all the rooms that I had the energy to clean today. You know how it is! Don't even say that you don't.

And yes I did run outside across the street in my bare feet dodging the bees living in our front steps to take some of these. YOLO, bees!

Featured in these pics are the dining room, the living room, the sun room, and the pool across the street. Ya pool!!! We love the pool. We also love built-ins, which this house has a lot of. Ya built-ins!!!!!

You remember that this is an old house. Over a hundred years old. That's a century!! Right? I enjoy pondering how many generations of families have lived here and done work to make it their own. There were a lot of updates done in the 60's (can you say WOOD PANELING! in our loft and basement) and quite a few updates done in the last decade or so. And now we get to do some of our own! Of course, despite the updates, this old home didn't come without it's issues. We've got some water problems in our basement to figure out, first off. More items on the list include replacing the outer siding (and however many windows we can afford to at this point), taking down the blue wallpaper in the sunroom/Paisley's play zone (paint? or a different fun wallpaper?), and re-doing the bathroom. 

Oh, and getting rid of those bees. 

But, we're project people. You know? At least I think we are. And we're excited that there's opportunities to make this place our own.

Plus, we love the neighborhood. It reminds me of that old movie, Now and Then. Remember that one? Mostly just because there's a graveyard down the street. Dear Johnny! 

Man I love that movie. 

And I love our new home, I do, despite the stinky basement and that one weird cupboard in our kitchen that for some reason smells like sour milk.

What do I do about that, by the way? Bleach it? A cupboard bleach bath?

Anyway. I hate sour milk. So let me know if you have smelly cupboard advice.

See you next time!

Trip number two.

So! I'm working on preparing a post with photos of the new place but don't have all my ducks quite in a row yet. They just keep wandering all around and I just can't get them to stand still. C'MON, ducks. So in the meantime, here are some pictures from our recent 1 1/2 week trip out to North Dakota!

The first few days we were out visiting Brian's sister Beth in Hettinger, ND. She had a garage to build and lots of delicious vegetables to be eaten from her garden. Paisley loved picking all the veggies and eating them fresh out of the dirt, but had to be coerced and bribed into eating the same veggies as soon as they were cleaned and cut up on her plate at the kitchen table. Typical, child.

Brian's parents were out there with us, and we had a grand ol' time exploring Hettinger and the nearby towns and the nearby playgrounds and the blow up pool in Beth's yard. We ate lots of tasty fresh veggies and salads and Paisley supervised all the garage building with a heavy hand.

Other destinations on our adventure were Cavalier, ND where the hubs was standing in a dear friend's wedding and Detroit Lakes, MN to stop at Castaway Club, a camp that we will be frequently involved with through Brian's work. It was all a blast and so fun and simply marvelous, except for the very darkly looming fact that I developed some horrible case of the stomach flu amidst it all.

And that's why there are tons of pictures in Hettinger, two pictures from the wedding, and only one picture from Castaway which features Paisley rolling in the grass. Something about having to spend most of your time in the bathroom makes trying to take lots of beautiful and lasting pictures seem super unimportant.

So now we're back! My stomach no longer hates my guts (pun INtended, heh heh heh), our bags are unpacked, and the cats did indeed survive our longer than usual absence. Hallelujah, praise be.

Thanks for reading folks! Tune in next time, and all that.

Even though the mayflies were bad

Well, so here I am! Attempting to get back on the blogging train. Choo choo, chugga chugga. Let's start with a few quick updates.

We moved! The hubs got a job as a Young Life area director in Cloquet, MN. While it was hard to leave our beloved Minneapolis and all our special people there, Cloquet is a super fun and beautiful town surrounded by tall gorgeous trees and just minutes away from Lake Superior, Duluth, and the super awesome Jay Cooke State Park. Plus, to say we are excited about Brian's new career path would be a pretty large understatement.

We have moved to a home that is over one hundred years old, so we are now officially "old house people." It's big, it's beautiful, and it's going to be a lot of work. We love it. Anybody know how to work a radiator?

I'll show pics of the new place soon! But first I have to take some. So for now I'll play a little bit of catch-up, and show some photos from our family vacation in June. Because that was a long time ago.

We went and stayed at a lakeside cabin resort with my mom, brother and sister in a town called Hackensack in northern MN. Yes, Hackensack is the actual name of an actual town, it's really quite endearing.

Boats! Lakes! Beaches! Fishing! Swimming! Water slides! Excellent food! Delicious drinks! Games! Laughter! Great discussion! Mayflies as far as the eye can see and the foot can crunch! Need I go on?

No I think that's good.

Alright, pictures coming at you right now!

And now we have a short series of "surprised face." As I mentioned in my last post, "surprised face" is a big deal these days.


And with that, I bid you adieu.

hi elephant

Well, I guess I haven't blogged since April? We'll just address that elephant immediately. Hi elephant. Nice to see you. You're looking good, have you been working out?

People would nicely say hey, you haven't blogged for awhile. And I'd be like, well, I guess you're right. And then later someone would more bluntly say, you need to blog again. And I'd be like, well, I guess I do. And then my hubs would say BLOG. YOU SHOULD BLOG. BLOG ABOUT THAT! BLOG ABOUT ANYTHING, DO IT, DO IT RIGHT NOW.

And now it's July? Well, I guess you're right about that too. But now we're in one of these situations where too much time has passed, too many pictures have been unshared, and I'm so completely behind that I need to start over. You know, one of those kinds of things?

The past few months have been a whirlwind of crazy. We had some trips, some sicknesses, some parties, some haircuts. For everyone, haircuts!! And we were rained out of a picnic, but we had a blast. And we saw kittens at a mini farm, but Paisley tried to sit on them. And we rode on a pontoon, and Paisley kissed the fish we caught. And then there was the time I forgot to order decaf at Starbucks and I nearly leapt out of my skin that night while trying to fall asleep. Because caffeine is not my friend. It's not even my frenemy.

Oh, and we're moving. So there's also that? Selling a house while also attempting to buy a new one in a city that is two hours away has been slowly sucking the life out of me. Inch by inch. Centimeter by centimeter. All friends and frenemies and extremely caffeinated iced lattes aside.

But we're making it, we are! Moving next week, and then the fun of arranging a new house starts. I'm thinking my blog inspiration will come rolling right back right around then. Because new house! And because honestly I shouldn't let this happen again. When I signed onto blogger today I could barely remember what to do in order to start a new blog post. I was all, "Wait, HOW DO I BLOG POST???"

The two loves of my life, right there. Doing "surprised face." It's a big hit around here.

I'll be back dudes. Don't even worry about it.

Brown grass and orange chacos

These pics are from last week on a lovely day that reached the low seventies. Swinging, sandboxing, hanging out at the bottom of the slide, swinging, sandboxing, and saying hello to the neighbor's plastic owl that sits on top of a pole near their driveway.

Thats what we like to do outside when it hits seventy degrees.




That weekend I promptly headed to a big garage sale and bought the girl some summer appropriate shoes. Because brown boots can only get you so far in life.

AND! I think later this week it's supposed to hit 80 at some point! Now just think about that. Eighty degrees. What a world. We'll whip those new sandals right out.


Never mind about the 5" of snow that fell last night and currently covers the yard. Never mind about that.

Wednesday stuff.

Paisley and Pinkerton watching as Daddy leaves for work.

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She's just like me because she savors her food, making her desserts last as long as humanly possible. She wants eating her favorite things to be AN EXPERIENCE. I so get it. I remember one back seat car ride home from my grandma's house many years ago with the goal of making my single Andes' mint last for the entire two hour car ride. And I was successful. The other day at the grocery store when Paisley got her free cookie, she held on to her very last bite for a good fifteen minutes, giving it a little lick every so often.

She's just like the hubs because she has a certain spot for everything and says "uh-oh!" if one book is out of place. There is a very particular system for how she picks up her toys, organizes her little people, and arranges all her shoes in a perfect half moon around her. The hubs has special categories and orders for all his books and DVD's and whatever random things that may need to be organized. Ironically, he can barely stand to look at Paisley's bookcase because it's not organized to HIS particular preference.

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Her eyes are just like mine - the same squinty-ness when she smiles and when she's just woken up.

Her eyes are just like the hubs' - the same blue with the same special tiny brown spot just under the left pupil.

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It's so weird. That we made this little person, who is both of us, and yet very much herself.

Hashtag deepthoughtsonawednesday.

Here's a story.

Look! I managed to cut all of the snow out of this photo. We can pretend spring is here, even though there's another snow storm scheduled for tomorrow and Friday.

Whatever, I'm over it. Do what you want, Mother Nature!! You're dead to me.

Just kidding! Love you so much, you're sweet, send more spring pleeeeaaaaseee

So guess what. On Saturday I lost a pizza. A huge take-n-bake supreme pizza from Aldi. Huge! Delicious. And it was sad, sad! 

Here's how it went. The toddler and I were headed to Aldi for some canned tomatoes, and I spotted some hip looking teenagers walking out with one of those awesome looking pizzas. "What a great idea for lunch, Paisley!" I said, clearly influenced by their carefree pizza plans. I mean, I probably said that, as I was wrestling her stiff toddler legs into the cart.

A few minutes later we made our way back to the parking lot with a can of diced tomatoes and a huge pizza, which I put on top of the car so I could strap Paisley into her car seat. 

I thought to myself, "Don't forget the pizza on the top of your car."

"OK self!" I chuckled.

Then we drove home.

As I pulled into the garage a couple minutes later I realized that the pizza was not in my front seat, and that I had indeed forgotten it on top of my car mere seconds after reminding myself not to.

And I sat there in disbelief.

Then I got out and looked on top of the car. There was no pizza there.

"Mama?" Paisley called from the back seat.

I didn't answer her as I realized what had happened, and as I asked myself the question: am I the type of person who will drive up and down the streets looking for a lost pizza, or am I the kind to slink silently into my house and never breathe a word of this event to anyone?

Obviously I decided that I was the first type of person, and announced to Paisley that we were going to keep driving for a little bit. Luckily she was fine with that. Not that she had any say in the matter. Pizza is pizza! So we started slowly retracing our ride home from Aldi. Luckily we had taken the back roads and not the highway. I tensely scanned the road, longing for delicious melted cheese and raised crust to stuff in my mouth. 

And then, I saw the box! Quickly I pulled over and leaped out of the car, only to realize something was dreadfully wrong. The cardboard box was indeed there in the middle of the street, but the pizza, which had been wrapped in plastic, was gone.

Gone!

"Wait, what?" I mumbled to myself. Maybe it had flown out of the box into some unsuspecting yard. I drove up and down the street a couple of times, searching with pleading eyes, but it was to no avail.

Someone had come across a pizza in the middle of the street and they had asked themselves the question: am I the type of person who will take a random supreme pizza out of it's box from the road and feed it to my family? 

And obviously the answer to that question was a quick yes. I say quick because it couldn't have been more than two minutes that that pizza sat there. We live very close to Aldi. 

Not that I can blame them. Those pizza snatchers. That was a good pizza.

I'M ASSUMING.

Obviously after my forgetfulness I did NOT deserve to go back to Aldi and spend ANOTHER six dollars on a huge supreme delicious cheesy pizza. And so we drove home as I swallowed the lump in my throat, reminding myself that it was ridiculous to almost cry at the thought of having the leftover casserole in our fridge for lunch. After all, the hubs didn't even know my brilliant Aldi-pizza-for-lunch plan and so he would never know the difference if I just handed him some re-heated hot dish without a word on the subject.

But, as I'm an over-sharer in every sense of the word, I disclosed every single detail of the entire fiasco to him when the baby girl and I got home. 

As I just did in this post.

He looked a little disappointed. 

BUT he ate the hot dish without complaint like the good, kind husband that he is.

What a champ.

The end!