Dan is the fastest man in Brandon*!

Dan ran a 5k a couple weeks back and won!
*The high school cross-country team was not allowed to participate and the guy who got second was recovering from an injury. While winning a race is something to be proud of, we can’t have our favorite ginger pastor friend getting too cocky.

A greeting from our little guy:

That plant often has at least a couple dozen bees on it so we spend a lot of time explaining bees to Oskar. Little things, like no touch and don't pet it like a puppy. He does pretty well and spends a lot of time waving and saying 'hi.'

Monday was going to be so productive. After 3.5 months of living here we were going to get our licenses switched and get new plates for our car. We arrived at the DMV with many papers and a sleeping chomper in hand. After a no-nonsense discussion with the DMV lady I discovered that to switch my license I need my current license, birth certificate, social security card, marriage license, and two pieces of mail. Seriously? Don’t you think that to receive my current license I have already proved who I am? I don’t really want to switch it over anyway, it’s just a hassle that I need to pay for with my time and money. Oh, and what about the license plates? Can I get those at the Department of Motor Vehicles? No, no I can’t. I need to go to the courthouse for that. Obviously.

I'd like to thank all of you who participated in the lively children's sheets discussion on Facebook. We clearly have the big problems of this world under control. Some of you may be wondering why I'm looking for bedding when my child is still under 2. We never got a crib. With the travelling around and not knowing what was coming next, it was cheaper and easier to get a pack'n'play. While convenient, it does have a bit of a downside. It is about 4-6" shorter than a standard crib and my kid is a bit on the tall side for his age. Observe:

Dude needs more room. We are skipping the toddler bed because I don't want to spend money on such a temporary thing. He still often sleeps in a ball and is rarely this stretched out so I don't think he is uncomfortable, but he will be soon. I did find some bedding I'm happy with (colorful tiny monsters) and we picked up a headboard at an antique store today. I texted a picture of it to my parents. My dad said it looks a little rustic, and my mom told me to watch out for splinters. It's an old gate, and it needs a bit of work, but it was cheap and I'm excited to see what comes of it. Next month I will be able to get Oskar's room painted and hopefully get it set up for real. I've waited because I want to sand the walls a bit and there is a possibility of lead paint a couple layers down. Dan's sister is moving out some time in October so then he'll be able to sleep in the spare room while I fix his up and be free from danger.

At MOPS last week we took a personality quiz/strengths inventory type thing and although it turned up no surprises, it was still fun to do. It listed restlessness, impatience, stubbornness and bluntness as my natural limitations. To this I replied that being stubborn is not a limitation.

We picked up some free grapes at church a couple weeks ago. They looked like sweet red grapes. They definitely weren't. They were very sour, with big seeds and yellow flesh. Very interesting- like a grape/cherry hybrid. I could hardly put them back so I decided it was time to make some jelly. I had never made jelly before and the whole process was very much an "I don't know if this is right, let's see what happens" experience. I also went from, "I don't think this will make very much, we probably won't need to actually can it" to "Ahhh.... crap.... I think we need to can this... how do we do that?" I say 'we'- Dan was my taste tester and hot jar clean-up guy. I definitely made jelly- and I even sealed the jars correctly! The jelly is sweet enough, but still has a sour-ish after taste. I never should have doubted myself- once I got the food mill assembled correctly on the first try there was no stopping me!

Before

During

After

Dunzo!!! One for the fridge, three for the cupboard.

Last weekend we all went out with a group from our church to volunteer at the 20th Annual Buddy Walk that promotes acceptance and inclusion of those with Down syndrome. It was a fun morning- despite the bug bites that turned into baseball-sized welts. We stood along the path holding signs featuring some of the kids with Down syndrome. Oskar said 'hi' like a pro to people as they passed us and we helped some take pictures with their signs.

Oskar flies down the slide in his giant t-shirt.

I mowed the lawn the other day and despite taking precautions, I ran out of gas. The left front of our yard has a 2'x10' mohawk. Very trendy.

Dorisa grates her hand in the Cheese Grater

I blame the small, delicious piece of Parmesan. That's probably all you need to know about that.

Dan and Oskar play the guitar.

It has been relatively crazy around here with the start of the school year. This is somewhat odd because we have no school-aged kids, but all the church programming of course starts up around this time so that has kept Dan busy. He was installed at Brandon Lutheran last week and at Split Rock Lutheran (the country church) yesterday. Both installations went well and the Associate to the Bishop did a very nice job with the services. As far as behavior went, Oskar did much better at the Brandon installation. At Split Rock we were in the service for about 5 minutes. His attitude during the service ranged from super cute, when all the kids came up for the blessing of the back packs and he shouted 'hi,' to freaking out because after he shouted 'hi' to all the kids he was invited up as well and the pressure of being in front was too much, even though he had been running around up there for the previous half hour. For all of you out there wondering, toddlers don't make sense. I tried to keep him outside during the service because it is a small country church and my kid is super loud but dude wanted to be inside running around. Again, this was weird.

I love this picture.

Work is going well, and after a tiny lull, things are picking back up again. I'm still really enjoying the flexibility and since I've been doing it for a while now, I feel like I kind of know what I'm doing. The only thing that throws me off is when we work on a place in a weird county that I'm unfamiliar with. I also don't like when we do condos. They are the worst, but luckily because we are in Sioux Falls and the surrounding area, this doesn't come up much. I have been working a little more at home now which is nice but I desperately need a desk and office chair. I have them all picked out, just need a place to put them. Currently our house is full though and our basement isn't really use-able, so I'll have to wait.

They had some really neat old farm equipment hanging about. And as always, Oskar needs to know what is going on in the bird bath,

I went to a MOPS meeting a couple weeks ago and a potluck last Friday. Holy moly do a lot of those women have a lot of kids. I would say 75% of them have at least 3 kids and it wasn't uncommon to have 5. It is cheaper to have kids here than in the cities though, so it kind of makes sense. I'm pretty sure I was the only one there with only one kid. It seems like a nice group of women- full of different types of people so that's nice. Oskar had a fit being left in the nursery, which again makes no sense because it is at the church. I honestly don't think he knows what to do when he is surrounded by kids his age because usually he is running around the church with 4-10 year olds. At the pot luck he was playing with a 3 year old for a while, but I think that is the youngest kid he's been interested in at church.

Many of you saw on Facebook that we went apple picking. Oskar LOVES apples and had a great time. We went out to a Split Rock member's house and they have apple trees and puppies, and all sorts of room for Oskar to run. He was thoroughly exhausted after this adventure. This was also nice because we had the opportunity to sit down and actually get to know some people. Contrary to popular belief, meeting everyone at the church in 3 minute conversations is not the most effective way to get to know people. Just an observation- I know this is surprising.

RUN!

If you don't know or care about handbells you can skip this paragraph because you will not understand it. I have joined 2 choirs here. One is at the church- 3 octaves, pretty easy music, but the selections have been very good, so that's cool. The biggest struggle I had here was on the night I also had to watch Oskar so I was holding him and trying to play my bells with one hand. Even at E4/F4 this was a bit of a struggle. The other choir is the community choir in Sioux Falls and they play much more difficult music and I think there are even like 5 people under 30. This is great. The music wouldn't seem that hard except they do the thing where the bass doesn't play the notes in the chromatic order. UGH. So difficult. I play E3, A3, and D4 (Eb3, Ab3,and Db3). Not only is it hard to sight read this because you're looking all about, but then we get into a key signature with a lot of sharps and all of a sudden I have to look for D#3, G#3, C#3 and D#4. There is one song where I'm playing 7 bells, and not like 4 bells with an accidental here and there. Actually playing 7 bass bells. I had to bring my book home and circle my notes. It was just too weird and difficult to find all of them. I should probably just try growing more arms.

Just chillin'.