Quick Summary

I can't believe it is August already! Where has the summer gone? We have been keeping pretty busy around here. I recently finished taking two online, Master's level courses through MSU. (I am not in a Masters program at this point, but need some continuing education credits to keep my teaching licence.) It was a ton of work, but I survived thanks to help from Dave, our next door neighbor, and my parents who all pitched in at some point to keep the kids out of my hair so I could get some work done.

The last week in July we went on the annual Paulsen family vacation to Peter's resort near Glenwood, MN. Dave and Martin actually went up a few days before Libby and I so that I could get my final research paper written. It was strange having only one kid to take care of. I couldn't believe how EASY it was. :) Libby and I eventually joined the rest of the Paulsen clan and we had a great time. Martin was brave enough to go tubing with me, and Libby went tubing for the first time. We also went to a petting zoo/farm one day and the kids got to feed a bottle to a goat. Even though Martin was there for an entire week he was still sad that we had to leave. To cheer him up we told him that in two weeks we would be going to Camp Croix for another vacation. He is super excited about that, in fact, we have played "Camp Croix" multiple times every day since we got back. I hope the real thing lives up to his expectations.

We have been super blessed in our garden this year. We have had very good production from our green beans, and our tomato and potato plants look fantastic, including the potato tower which will hopefully produce better than it did last year. We have also had a bumper crop of cucumbers. I have been routinely picking 5-7 cucumbers every day. On Tuesday I picked 22 cucumbers! I have found an effective way to get rid of them though. (I got rid of all 22 in less than 4 hours.)





Today I had an interesting conversation with Martin. We were all driving into Rochester and we saw some hot air balloons. I mentioned to Dave that before I die I would like to go for a hot air balloon ride. Then a concerned voice pipes up from the back seat, "Mommy are you going to die?" I told him that we will all die eventually, but that I had no intention of dying any time soon. Of course all Martin heard was that he was going to die, so he got a little worried about that. We talked some more about getting old and about heaven and he eventually got distracted and went on to talk about other things. It sure was a strange parenting moment for me though. Some of the things he said were so funny, yet at the same time it was all very serious.

So there are some of the things that we have been up to. I hope your summer is going as well.