Busy Week

Elias has been at preschool VBS this week, and today is his last day/concert.  He’s loved it so much.  He’s said he wants to go there everyday again, and again, and again.  We picked Silje up from camp yesterday.  She wasn’t overly tired like last time, but so happy to have gone, and so happy to be home.  She looked older, but I thought that was just my eyes.  Knut mentioned the same thing, so maybe it’s not just me.  Her skin is sun-kissed in such a flattering way, and she has so many stories to tell.  She liked talking about kayaking the most.

(This is the boys playing “carpet ball” as we dropped Silje off last Sunday.)

Going to town every day this week has been tiring, to say the least.  My kitchen has never been cleaner, and as I pause and feel good about this, I then realize that we’ve been eating so much instant/fast food because I haven’t been home to cook, that there are very few dishes to do.  That makes me feel not so good.  With this realization, I may try to be proud of my messy kitchens in the future.

Last night, in an effort to redeem myself, we ate salmon, rice, and creamed spinach.  The spinach was a new recipe, and ended up looking like spinach baby food…that tasted really good.  The kids weren’t too thrilled about trying it, but once they had their first bite, they quickly asked for more.  It did look weird, though.

In the garden, now several strawberries are starting to turn red.  They’re not ready to pick yet, but soon.  There was one lone ripe raspberry, and this is the first year that our bushes are producing raspberries.  It was so good.  Silje was upset I didn’t save that lone one for her.  I’m not sorry I ate it right there on the spot.  Overall, I don’t think our production of strawberries will be that great this year, or anywhere near last year’s because of the great transplant of the patch we did earlier this Spring.  Next year, though…

In my opinion, our chicks are big enough to join the big girls in the coop.  I plan to “home them” by shutting them in with the others for a few days so they associate the coop as home.  I was thinking of putting them in there this weekend, but then realized we have company coming, and I’m fairly certain that the little girls who will be staying with us will want to play with the chickens.  So it won’t be the best time to shut them in for a few days.  So now I’m thinking next week sometime.

Sunday is Knut’s birthday, Father’s Day, and our first Sunday of the Summer out on Knut’s family’s lake cabin.  Every Sunday, all summer long, his extended family gathers together for a huge pot luck at his grandparent’s lake cabin.  It’s a fun tradition, that’s sometimes exhausting with little ones.  Well worth it, though.  The kids have been begging to get out there already, and I think the weather might be in our favor this week.

And here I thought Summer was supposed to be relaxing.