Warm Weather Yard Work

Great Aunt Steph and Great Grandma Gold arrives at our house in Marshfield Friday afternoon after a brief detour on Becker Road. Michaela and Danielle took most of that night warming up to them, showing off the house and sizing up the company. Danielle enjoyed the ripe raspberries, sent my Grandma Gold! In anticipation of their arrival I finally got the grill put together on Thursday night, now just to put it to use.

Saturday morning Christine and I went for a bike ride to a garage sale, only to forget and return tardy for the dirt delivery. Moving two yards of topsoil and yard work began shortly after breakfast. Dietsche's trailer, wheelbarrow, and shovel helped us level off low spots in the yard, plant two apple trees, and dig a flower garden at the southeast corner of the house. One apple tree had two apples, so each girl grabbed one and chomped in, sharing a bite with everyone. Christine and I were very thankful for the company, as they watched and played with Michaela and Danielle allowing us our best attempt at physical labor. We completed much of the work Saturday before lunch and after supper, leaving the middle of the day for naps! Danielle even helped out with the apple trees while Michaela was still sleeping! Hot dogs and cheeseburgers on the grill tasted good, even though we had the grill a bit too hot initially.

I leveled off the remaining dirt Sunday morning and Michaela helped seed it. Hopefully the yard will look better in three weeks. The clay soil is almost prohibitive for flowers, hopefully the flower garden and apple trees will drain well enough. Sunday night we did the entire meal on the grill; corn, potatoes & onion, and chicken!

Family and Friends

The holiday weekend brought good times spent with family and new friends. Saturday we went to Paul and Janeen's home south of town and the girls enjoyed playing with the girls and Aunt Diane. Though Michaela had a 'near' run-in with the dog and proceeded to have a melt-down, from what I heard the dog hadn't even touched her, but just came towards her quickly and she couldn't get away fast enough and fell causing her to be frightened of the dogs all night.

Danielle is now loving corn on the cob and proceeded to carry her half corn cob around all night and did the same tonight when we visited one of Malcolm's co-workers home for a BBQ with a group from the college and their families. Michaela and Danielle met a bunch of new friends as most everyone had little girls that were close to Michaela's age and of course there were lots of new toys to play with as well. Michaela said that we needed to go back and play some more another time...I guess she liked it :)

Tonight on the way home from the BBQ we were driving right at sunset and so we stopped to take the above picture. Ahhh, the beauty of Wisconsin. Well, back to the grind of things, classes start again tomorrow for Malcolm and I am in the process of trying to patch and re-texturize the bathroom so that I can hopefully paint tomorrow or the next day. It is most definately a learning experience for me as I have never painted by myself...Michaela's room in Madison was the first time I remember even helping to paint (though I did do the stenciling and it made me appreciate it enough that I may never do it again!)

Hoping everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend and we now can look forward to the beauty of fall...there are quite a few changing maples already!

Silly Times!

Somedays are so interesting. Today was one of those days. The girls and I went on one of our almost daily bike rides to the park and all three of of had a blast, I even played like a little kid too. Then we came home only for me to get a little exhausted from Michaela constantly trying to run out of my sight...it is hard on my nerves! To feeling rejuvenated after Malcolm took the girls for 45 minutes while I actually cooked a decent meal...yeah! To then beginning the bedtime routine of baths and storytime. Storytime ended up being playtime and the girls were crawling all over us, laughing, kissing (this is Danielle's favorite), and it was great...I can't remember the last time all of us laughed so hard. I told Malcolm that this was just a sneak peek into the near future when the girls will play better together and get eachother wound up. Usually Danielle just cries/screams when the two of them roughhouse, but tonight they laughed and giggled :) What a blessing in disguise.

Also, I wanted to post two pics from the last two days. First is today when the two girls were playing well again and Michaela was taking Danielle for a walk with the monkey backpack/leash. They went around and around the kitchen/living room and I just had to snap a picture! The second pic is my new deal and I had to brag as Michaela LOVES it :) I went to the second-hand store in Marshfield and found this desk and chairs for the girls. Only $6 for everything. Michaela loves drawing on it and also there is a little light that she can turn on and off which of course she thinks is so cool.

Sorry for the rambling and disorganized post, but alas, that is how my thoughts are running tonight.

First weekend in Marshfield by ourselves

Two weeks after moving and of course we are not settled in yet. Christine has done a wonderful job unpacking, but we have to much stuff to be completely unpacked.

I finally finished the deck yesterday, after way too many trips to Menards to get a drill bit extension. (It is surprising how many of the extensions are actually bigger than the 3/8" diameter whole I was drilling.) We tried out a church that happened to be in the middle of ministry week, no sermon at all...hmmm...we will have to go back again to get a sense of what a service is like in general. We also found a place to walk and bird, the McMillan Marsh Wildlife Refuge is just north of town. Not much for birds this time of year, but it was nice to get out for a couple hour walk and pick a handful of blackberries.

The girls were fairly well behaved but we have a few issues to address with Michaela. When we are outside she likes to go around the garage; which entails entering the back garage door, running through the garage and around the outside back to the deck. For the time being it is too scary letting her out of our sight while she is running, the road is very close.

Michaela does not mind time-outs anymore, so we have moved to the draconian measure of losing a bedtime story when she misbehaves. Two days and only one story so far, which is not good considering she starts with two a day. I think she has missed the idea of gaining extra books by being good.

The girls are still enjoying their play room, finding toys and other entertaining items (mostly bathroom stuff) spread out in the room.

Settling In

I just felt like writing a quick post to let you know that we are back from a quick trip to Minnesota last weekend for my parents 40th Anniversary...congratulations mom and dad! And though we were hoping to see a new baby too, Dan & Renee's little girl decided to wait a couple of days after we left, but CONGRATULATIONS Dan & Renee on having a healthy, beautiful girl, we can't wait to meet her!

After a still long, but much shorter trip home, we are back and getting into the swing of things here in Marshfield. I have slowed down on unpacking, though we have gotten the majority of stuff unpacked we still have things that need to be organized...too small of clothes, books, movies and bathroom stuff. For whatever reason I can't get my head wrapped around how to organize our bathrooms, with no medicine cabinet in either bathroom and only a narrow, deep closet upstairs (no storage downstairs, where all our rooms are)how do I fit everything in where it is still usable. Oh, the hardships of new home ownership...I know you are all laughing and rolling your eyes, Malcolm included :)

Lastly, I have become spoiled, I am already missing having family here. Anyone want to come for a quick weekend?? Aubrey, how about you, you still have a couple of weeks, right? Just kidding! Anyways, missing everyone and hope you all have wonderful weekends.

-Christine

Move to Marshfield

Two weekends ago we were blessed with an plethora of family and friends who helped us move from Madison to Marshfield AND build a deck on our Marshfield house. Mom, Matt, Chandler, and Nick were at our apartment door Friday morning at 9 am to help load the U-Haul truck. Three hours later we had much of the apartment empty; leaving only a few odds and ends to pack with a bit of cleaning after lunch at the golf course to say goodbye.

Matt stopped at the Madison Menards to pick up a few deck supplies the Marshfield Menards called to inform us that they did not have, calling us only after realizing upon delivery that morning they were short on the order placed two weeks earlier. Nick and Chandler drove my Jeep to Marshfield and were happy to get out of it upon arrival, as the Jeep has no AC, no cruise, no radio and only one CD, and the electric windows only work sometimes. I drove the biggest U-Haul truck we could rent, which was close to 34.5 feet in total length, felt like an apartment on wheels, and scared the crap out of me on the freeway. All the girls rode together and the four different vehicles arrived within an hour of each other in Marshfield. Paul welcomed us and with Pizza and Wings for supper and helped unload. A few hours later the truck was empty and out of the driveway. Dad, Gary and Chris arrived around 10 pm Friday night; the crew had assembled for the deck the next morning!

Saturday morning Paul and Matt picked up a Bobcat with a dirt auger attachment. Dad inside the Bobcat made short work of the the four foot holes for each of the eight 4x4 deck posts. Gary brought all the necessary tools for the deck and with all the helpful hands we made good progress throughout the day. We started the railings before dark but had the stairs remaining to finish the next day. Grandpa and Grandma Swecker and Caroline arrived around noon on Saturday. We ate well, played a bit of cards, and my immediate family thoroughly enjoyed the extended families company. Michaela and Danielle especially loved the attention and extra stroller rides from their great aunts. Matt headed back to North Dakota on Saturday, having been an awesome help with moving and the start of the deck. The Trout boys and Matt carried many heavy loads with all of our stuff.

Sunday morning we had a bit of rain. Cards in the morning before getting to the deck as I needed to go get a tarp and rope to help everyone stay dry. The sky lightened and cleared up late morning. Three hours of work and the deck was completed as far as possible. We are short two pieces to finish the one section of railing. The extra help was great inside as well. Boxed items for the kitchen, playroom and office were put into place. Mid-afternoon everyone packed up and headed back to Minnesota. We love the deck and the help was greatly appreciated, I'm not sure how long it would have taken us to do it alone or if it would have even been possible.

Pictures from that same weekend, but not related to moving or deck activities, as well as a few others can be found in the link below. Once at the main list of albums click on "8/24/09". After a few weeks I will move these pictures to other archival folders.

http://picasaweb.google.com/malcolmgold/

Happy Birthday Danielle!

Today is Danielle's first birthday! Oh, how the time has flown. We have spent the weekend at my parents cabin north of Park Rapids after surprising them by showing up to celebrate their anniversary and today Auntie Lisa came through providing presents and I made a cake for Danielle.



Elizabeth and Michaela have had loads of fun together and spending time with Grandma and Grandpa. They went for golf cart rides, (which turned into a 1/2 mile walk after the golf cart died!) and swam in the lake and went for a pontoon ride and just danced and sang with their dancing dresses on all day :)Family is so special and much appreciated.



Danielle had ideas of her own for her birthday cake...she was very tired and first Grandpa tried to convince her to try her birthday cake which resulted in tears and then when I tried to convince her to try it, she finally stuck her finger only to shove it in my face. The next few minutes were filled with Danielle progressively grabbing more and more cake/frosting and putting in my mouth and face and it turned into a bad flashback of our wedding, only I was the only one get covered! Even Michaela joined in by feeding me too. So, though I hate to have pictures of myself up, I had to share Danielle's idea of eating birthday cake. I was glad that she finally did eat some of the cake and seemed to enjoy it...lemon/blueberry was a hit :)



Hope you all enjoy the pictures, I just wanted to have a blog to commemorate Danielle's special day and share with all of our loved ones.