August Catsup

Why have things seemed so crazy?  Well there was Coast Guard Festival.  It started off with a surprisish visit from my cousin Mary Pat Dunlap nee Pfundstein.  (Of the Minnesota Pfundsteins.)

We had a great day at the rides with the best weather in ages.  Brandon and Kaitlyn joined us.  (Be sure to check out the movie as well.)

B & K were fearless, riding almost anything.

And Brandon even got a chance to sit in with some drummers.  He an Bela made plans for busking in the future.




We had Mason and the Minnebos for the parade.  Good eats from Grapes and Grain with lots of fresh veggies.































One of the favorite post parade traditions has become a show of Anna's latest animations.  Great stuff.

Finally, we got another visit from Baby Audrey.  Maybe more anticipated than the whole Coast Guard Festival.

Hmph.

If Xavier can break in, so can I.
Do any of you readers have brothers who break down the door to your room, try to sit on you, try to force you to put the radio you have in your room (That happens to be on its loudest setting) to his favorite song, take some of your stuff, (Even if you stop him) and then, finally, after 20 minutes of fighting, leaves for 10 minutes before repeating the whole process?
I do! (at the moment, we are at the "Favorite song" part of the cycle."

INTRUDER ALERT, INTRUDER ALERT

Hello blog-readers, time for a guest post from Super Creations! since my dad hasn't been doing any posts I cut in. Time for a post Xavi style. What happend to my blog you ask? I got bored of it.

Hoped you liked Hobby!

DA-DA-DA-DAAAAH-DAAAH-DA-DA-DA-DAAAH-DA

Dumbest post title ever.  But it's been a good week for Star Wars coming into our life. Not to this extent...





We got to go to Star Wars in Concert this week -very fun.  Moreso because we got to go with one of the two biggest Star Wars fans we know.  Celebrated the next night by watching the 1980 VHS of A New Hope from the other of the two. ("Why can't people just call it the first movie?" says Karen in response to all the episode this or that talk.)

So who's the bigger fan?  I don't think there's any way to settle this without a lightsaber.

 or

We're lucky to know both!

Listen, you must, to your parents.

Two wookies and a kid.

The queen and her court.




Finally, if you have a minute, check out Anna's first talkie.  It fills in a needed gap in the story.

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July Catsup

Bad blogger!  Bad!  Good bloggers update more often than every two months.

So... what you been doing?

Ysabela graduated from elementary.  To her credit, she said, "It's not a big deal.  If I was like going to go get a job or go to college maybe."

Xavier sang with a 4th grade group.

Mr. Z gave all the grads parting hugs.  He graduated, too.  Er, retired.

Y and Ashley

Bela's awesome teacher Mr. Schiller 

- hopefully we'll see him next year for X!

Xavier's great teacher, Mrs. Bruckbauer.  But maybe secretly Amanda Peet.  (Ms. Peet probably is nowhere near as good a teacher though.)

Been trying to get out in nice weather and hide from the heat.  Smashball, tennis even, chalk drawings, sprinkler action, etc.


These pictures really don't do the chalk drawings justice.


Father's Day brought some great swag, but even better cards.  Bela made an Avatar style dragon and Xavier's had a heap of heroes.  The coolest gift was a family set of purple Batman shirts.  Karen's and mine were a size too small to encourage weight loss.  Good idea.

 We had a rare visit from Carmen here in GH.  Highlight might have been the great Mia & Grace dinner.  Everyone must go there.

Don't make me give you the mean face.  I mean, this was to my own mother.

Carmen had a bag of photos someone sent to Michael, which I greedily scanned before delivering.  Great stuff like this one of Oliver and Carmen at my Aunt Jean's marriage to Uncle Gil Dunning.

This might have been HS graduation.  Had the note: 6' 1/2" and really applying himself.

Xavi keeping his head down.

Ysabela with the follow through.

Last week was a neat thing, the kids got to try golf lessons.  Randy White, also director of our local First Priority, gave lessons at a club for four days.  The kids did well and looked marvelous.




But wait!  We REALLY want to hear from you about your fantasy dinner party.  We've got a simple new cooperative game you can play over dinner, where you make up a guest list and pick a restaurant for a great dinner party.  It has it's own dedicated blog, guys!  Guess Who's Coming For Dinner?  But wherever you go in your fantasy dinner, I'm sure they won't have cinnamon rolls like these:

Thank goodness.

Grogger Blog I - Chicagrog

Guest post by our good friends, Benita and Bobbert Grogger, about their most recent trip to Chicago.

These opinions are not necessarily those of J-K-X-Y or our parent companies.  Nor is their exclamation point use policy.

Benita:
We went to Chicago.

Bobbert: 

It was horrifying! we got eaten by a T Rex, and got stepped on by the Hulk.

 

 

 

I know! And the zoo was so cool!

 I took a trip in a saber tooth tiger's digestive system!

So first we went to the T Rex pen.

There were 25 of them but I think they were starved.

And it was skin and bones.  Well, minus skin.

So, we didn't get digested when we were eaten.

And it almost ate us, and its breath was really, really, hot.

I just said that! Plus, its breath was gnarly!

And then, we went to the saber tooth tiger den! And it ate Bobbert!

Ever since then Xavi thinks I am Germanish Potatoish.

And then we saw a bear.

It break danced on my head.

It was taller then 5 Ysabela's!!!!!!!!!

And that's grooving tall.

It really knew how to break dance.

And lions were in the zoo too.

They were green.

Oh my gosh! They were!

And there was hair in its mouth. No wait, thats the one Mr. Stream
said was in front of the library.  Ysabela told me about it.

I thought they were German Potatoish.

What??!!!!

And then, a comic book shop!

And I read a book. Not much for me there.

But lots for me!

Go on....

There were all the essentials of the Avengers, and Power Man! 

They had millions of action figures, and the highest price was $20.00. 

There was lot's of my favorite comic book story lines, and it was awesome!

No German potatoes?

No. But there was Hulk.

Didn't you get stepped on?

Yeah! he was doing it for free!!

And Spider-Man! Thwip!

How old is your grandson?

What??!!

Lets talk about the Palmer House.

Okay...

We rode the escalator 15 times!

And we slept a lot. And watched a really bad T.V. show.
Xavier hated it, but wanted it on. Make of this what you like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lets quit talking about the lame stuff, and get on to the Griffins!

Oh yeah, there was some really cool Griffins, standing on a door that wasn't there any more.

And they spat at us.

They spat on YOU, and they were golden, that has to mean something, right.

Kittens.

Are you falling asleep or something?

There were kittens at the art mueseum, remember?

Oh yeah! The green kittens that escaped from the zoo!

And there was an awesome Matisse exhibit.

And then, there was modern art!!!!

We had to witness: Its making!!!!

Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

Its true! That darn Calvin tricked me!

Do you need a nap? I'm getting worried about you.

It's okay, I'll be napping on the way home.

Speaking of the way home, we went to Wonder Land with Alice,
and grew and shrank and grew and shrank and..... well, you get the idea.

Five thousand billion trillion...

Okay, you need a nap. We're going.  Say goodbye, Bobbert.

Bye, Bye, Bobby!