Words with "oo" in them

Another week has blasted by. Last weekend we went to Wahpeton to check out the Chahinkapa Zoo. I hate to admit it, but little old Wahpeton's zoo is better than Fargo's. Better variety, better location, and bigger. Luckily it's only 45 minutes away. Since I know most visitors come here for kid pictures, I'll skip over the animals this time.







Jennifer started her new job on Monday and is loving it. As it turns out, her office is about half a block away from mine. We're able to carpool in the morning, and I ride bike home in the afternoon. It's about 15 miles and takes about an hour, but that's an hour of exercise that I don't have to otherwise schedule. We'll have to work on a plan for the winter months, but for now I'm enjoying it.

It's been in the mid 80s all week and looking like the same for this weekend. Jennifer's down with a cold right now, so I'm chasing after the kids. We filled up the inflatable pool in the driveway.




Now it's off to the bike shop and grocery store, and after dinner the pool should be warm enough to go in.

Detoured

I've been trying to bike to work periodically this summer, but the county highway department seems to have other plans. My main route is under construction, so I have to pedal about 15 miles instead of 11. It's not really a big deal - after about 5 miles it doesn't seem to matter how far I have to go - but it does add a little time. I replaced my mountain bike tires with some narrower slick tires for commuting and it really seemed to help.

Here's the other thing that helped today - I didn't need to worry about rushing home to pick the kids up from day care. Jennifer took a job offer with a different bank earlier this week that will allow her to work part time. She'll start on Monday, but in the meantime she's got the rest of the week off.

Shortly before Eli's birthday my old second-hand Canon Powershot S1 croaked. It appears the CCD sensor just failed, as all I could see was black and purple. The review function still worked. It had a good run, so I had no hesitation getting another Canon. I upgraded to the Canon PowerShot S5IS, and so far I'm extremely happy with it. Best of all - I have a macro function again!

One Year

How the? I really was planning on posting pictures on Eli's birthday, but somehow that didn't quite work. Now I get to jam three weeks of happenings into one post.
So last time, I put up a video clip of James playing on the organ. No, in fact, he does not know how to play "Superstitious". That was a blatant copyright infringement meant for a laugh. We had a fun weekend in Lake City for Waterski Days. Since James and Sammy were there for the weekend, it was a little hectic chasing 4 kids around.




After we got back from Lake City, we celebrated Eli's 1st birthday. For his actual birthday, we had a very low key night and just went to Space Aliens. Then, things started getting busy!
Jennifer's sisters (all 4 of them) and mother came into town for the 4th of July. We had a nice little party for Eli on the 4th, then torched off as many fireworks as we could stand.



Eli decided to start walking, and is now really motoring around.
Once the last of the family left, we got back to work for the week and things seemed to be settling down a little bit. We realized we didn't have anything going on for the coming weekend, so we invited Grandma and Grandpa up. We had a pretty quiet Saturday and didn't go out much because it was horribly windy. Sunday was absolutely beautiful and we spent the day out at Fort Ransom State Park for Sodbuster Days. Alison really enjoyed seeing the horses and sheep, but was feeling a little under the weather.