Stinky AND Stinkin' Awesome. . .

. . . to steal a phrase from a friend. Perry, the corpse flower, was both stinky and stinkin' awesome.

On Sunday, we drove down to Gustavus Adolphus University to visit the biggest flower that I have ever seen! Perry began to bloom and give off his repulsive odor on Thursday and the green house where lives was open for viewing until Sunday. This is only the second time we have had a corpse flower bloom in Minnesota, so we just had to go see it for ourselves.

Here are some pics:

Here are the girls before we went in. I don't think they knew what they were in for.

And, the girls inside:

That gives you a pretty good view of the size as well. The bulb is filling the pot. It is getting so large, that the pot is buckling. You will see in the next picture, that it has grown to be over six feet tall. It is quite a bit taller than Jer!

So long Perry - I hope you live to bloom again!

Summer Fun

Girls Weekend

Another fun weekend in Viroqua has come and gone. We had a great time at the farmer's market and 'Crazy Days' and even had a FABULOUS Mexican dinner at a new restaurant.

We also had some fun at the house. The girls were 'bathing beauties'.

Of course, they had their special yogurt breakfast

Mighty was banished to, I mean escaped to, the deck for most of the weekend.

We did join her for some relaxation. I managed to get one picture of Sandy smiling. I don't think she knew I was taking a picture.

If she knew I was coming with the camera, she would have done something like this:

Gram had time for a smile and so did the girls

Lots of fun, but way to short. Next summer, we need a week!

4th of July 2010

I had dreams of taking the greatest pictures of my girls on the 4th of July, in their newly created t-shirts, with awesome fireworks behind them. Of course I had dreams of 'the perfect family picture' of all of us with red, white & blue on. I had dreams of me posting a video of Lucy reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Here is what I have in real life:

"Mom, I have something on my head."

"Mom, Ellen has something on her head."

"Hey mom, my friends came over to watch fireworks. We want to pose for a picture."

"Sure hon, Lucy and I will be in a fireworks picture."

We are still working on the Pledge of Allegiance too.

4 ways we are getting ready for the 4th

Lucy and I are getting festive nails
We are going to a friends birthday party
Red, White, and delicious!

We're getting a little creative