Tommy's New Bike

Well it's been 18 years since Tommy had a new bike. He's been looking on eBay for about a year now for a new bike, and he finally broke down and bought a Windsor Tourist bike for his 8 mile commute to work. Reeve and Kyle were the first to open the box. They couldn't wait to see the new bike get put together.

Kyle really liked the box it came in:


Tommy rode his new bike to work the very next day. This is a picture of him riding down the backside of the monster hill. Someday I'll have to take a picture of just how big it is, but we think it's around 150 feet steep. You can also see from this picture just how isolated we are here on our ridge. You can barely see part of our neighbors house, but not in this picture.



One of Reeve and Kyle's favorite things to do when Tommy rides his bike to work is to ride their bikes in the driveway while they wait for him to come home. Reeve really loves riding his bike, and here's a better picture of him riding with no training wheels.

HustlerFest

Geez I'm behind on posting! I had a rough week... the internet lost connection for 5 hours on two days thanks to some construction folks who cut the fiber optics line for the DSL. They cut the line about 30 miles from here that knocked out the internet to the entire area. Anyway here's the latest update about a week behind :-).

Last weekend we went to the 87th (I think?...I'm pretty sure) Annual HustlerFest, in our beloved little (pop. under 200) Village of Hustler. It's the closest thing to a town near us at 4 miles from our house. Normally we ride bikes to HustlerFest, but I pooped out and was not looking forward to riding bikes home in the dark and up our Monstro Hill. I don't know how Tom rides that hill every day home from work. It's nasty.

The picture below is of the Garden Tractor Pull. This year they had the pull where they have the big tractor pull... next to the Omaha Bike Trail and behind the Hustler Cheese Factory. The white building in the picture below is the Cheese Factory. They make both goat and cow cheese, even some organic cheeses.


For us at HustlerFest this Garden Tractor Pull is the big event. We like it better than the big Tractor Pull because it takes place in the evening, and not in the heat of the day. It's also over in a couple of hours and not an all day event. There are a lot of kids (8 and up range) that drive the garden tractors, so Reeve and Kyle like to see that. A lot of locals are there on Friday night, so it's nice to get out and chat with neighbors you don't get to see otherwise. The kids had a blast running around the park playground with the other kids while we watched the log sawing contest. The trick in winning the log sawing contest is in the pulling. It's a two person contest. Gary Gladstone wrote a book entitled, "Passing Gas, and Other Towns on the American Highway," and in that book he states that when he traveled through Hustler it was sooo boring that it made his hair hurt. That probably sums up about how most are feeling about this post.

Pickles

We only have 3 cucumber plants, but more cucumbers than we can eat. There's more out there to harvest, but yesterday weeding took top priority (look at the bottom pic and you'll see why). To date I've canned a total of 17 quarts of pickles. We tasted my first batch (6 quarts) before I made more, and I was really suprised at how good they were. They're a tad vinegary and slightly salty, but I wanted to be on the safe side. The kids love them and request cheese-pickle sandwiches all the time. The greatest part is that pickles are so easy to can. It's not a chore like putting up tomatoes. I also used dill from the garden, so they're dill pickles.


We're also starting to harvest the carrots. These are small ones, and don't worry I washed them well before the little guys put them in their mouths. Nothing compares to carrots fresh picked from the garden. The taste is 1000% better than store bought carrots. I also have to ad that I did weed in the garden last night and it looks MUCH better than in this picture. I also need to mow, and hopefully I'll get to that sooner than later. It might be later because we're forcasted to have 4 days of rain, so it'll be nice and long when I do get around to cutting it.

Last of the pics from the Reunion

Here are the last of the pictures from the Reunion. What a great get together!

Silly Shower Game

The second part of the Reunion took place at the Plaza Suites where they had a nice warm pool with two huge floating snakes. Sadly I did not get any pictures. I was in the water having fun with Reeve & Kyle and the rest of the kids.

After swimming we had the the baby shower portion and a silly baby shower game which the kids participated. The object of the game was to see who could stuff the most baloons into their shirts.


It was really funny to watch. Kyle tried his best, but the balloons kept falling out of his shirt. Gina and Mary did most of the preparations for the game by blowing up countless balloons.



Jacob won!

Cross-stitch for the Baby Shower

During Part 2 of the Guilbeault Family Reunion there was a baby shower for William Richard Guilbeault. I have a dear friend who also has a blog that was the inspiration for this blog. Dana's blog frequently includes her latest knitting projects. I think it's fun to see what she's working on, so I thought I'd include some of my cross-stitch projects. Dana was also the inspiration for my love of cross-stitch, and I designed this cross-stitch from one that Dana made.

Guilbeault Family Reunion - Part 1

Here are some pictures from the first part of the Reunion at Gene Guilbeault's house.

Tenetia and Reeve are getting the baloons ready for the Baby Shower (Brian & Cassie's William Richard) game to take place at Part 2 of the Reunion.

Guilbeault Family Reunion - Eau Claire, WI

It had been awhile since we visited a Guilbeault Family Reunion, but everyone there always makes us feel right at home. This year they had the Reunion about 90 miles from our house at my Dad's cousin Gene Guilbeault's house and the Plaza Suites in Eau Claire, WI.

I didn't take all the pictures that I wanted to take... I guess I was to preoccupied with catching up and having a good time. There were a lot of Guilbeault's & Santi's in attendance this year, and a lot of them came from great distances. Nick Guilbeault and his wife Elizabeth traveled in from Boston.

Bill Guilbeault's (another cousin to my Dad) traveled in from Boston (I think?) and New York. It was really difficult to keep up with everyone and where they were from. Pat Guilbeault (cousin to my Dad) and Tom Christopher traveled in from Boulder, CO.


Nancy & Bill Guilbeuault and their son Brian, his wife Cassie, and their new 3 month old baby Will traveled in from Appleton, WI. Gene and Mary Santi came in from across the border in White Bear Lake, MN. Their son Steve and his wife Lisa came with their kids Tenetia, Xavier, Alex & Jacob... also from the White Bear Lake area. John Santi and his wife Colleen and their two girls Jocelyn and Gina traveled in from Apple Valley, MN. Andy Santi traveled up from Brookfield, WI with his son Peter. It's quite possible I got some of that wrong, but as you can see there was a lot to keep up with.


Part 1 of the Reunion was hosted by Gene Guilbeault at his house in Eau Claire. We had a delicious lunch and the kids had a great time playing with each other.

Volk Field Family Day

Every year Tommy's work place has a Family Day picnic. Reeve and Kyle have a lot of fun playing the games and getting the prizes.

Night Bike Lesson

Reeve wanted me to post the dark night time bike photos. He's so happy that he can ride a bike without training wheels. Please ignore the fact that the grass needs to be cut :-).

Bike Ride to the Pool

The one thing about our camping trip that we regret was not bringing our bicycles. We NEED to get a car rack for them. Reeve was pretty bummed about seeing everyone else on bikes, so we promised him a bike ride to the pool when we came home. It's about 10 miles by car, so I'm guessing it's between 10-15 miles by bike. There are some big hills that we have to overcome before we get to the even grade of the bike trail.
The bike trip was one hour each way and then we spent about an hour at the pool. It was well spent family time. Reeve really LOVES to bike ride. This past week Tommy taught Reeve how to ride his bike without training wheels. Reeve learned to do this on our rocky gravel driveway! No sidewalks around here. He was soooooo excited when he did it all by himself. The pictures I took weren't very good because it was so dark outside (we couldn't get him to get off his bike; he wanted to ride all night).

Lake Michigan Camping Trip

We went camping at the Point Beach State Forest near Two Rivers, WI on Lake Michigan. We had fun using our bigger tent for the first time. We had just missed the rain, so we were happy to be dry. However it was pretty buggy. Reeve was really bummed because we didn't bring our bikes and it seemed like everyone there had bikes.

It was really neat to see Lake Michigan. It really felt like we were at the ocean. The beach was beautiful, but the water was not. In places it was filled with algae, had a horrible smell, and we saw a dead fish with sores all over it's body. There was no swimming in the lake due to high levels of e.coli bacteria.

The kids didn't seem to mind that they couldn't swim in the lake. They had a great time playing in the sand and building sand castles. It was good we had some cloud cover so we weren't baking in the sun. Then we really would have wanted to go swimming to cool off.

Garden Harvest

It's hard to stop and take a pic when you're hungry and just wanting to make something to eat, but we did stop and take this pic of produce from our garden. Reeve and Kyle were happy to help me harvest garlic, cucumbers, and tomatoes.

We've been happily eating fresh tomatoes everyday now for the past week. Sometimes we eat tomatoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but no one is complaining. They're the largest variety of Roma's that I've every grown, and they're very tasty. I also grew another variety of beefstake (I think). Reeve took this picture, and I thought he did a pretty good job.


We have more basil than I know what to do with! When we get back from our camping trip I think I will have to dehydrate it. I love having too much.

We also had an abundance of cucumbers, so I made pickles for the first time. We'll test them when we get back from camping.

We're going camping on Lake Michigan at the Point Beach State Forest. This was Reeve's idea. He's been begging to go visit the Great Lakes ever since we read about them. I'll take lots of pictures and post them when we get back :-). The last time we were camping as a family for more than one night was three years ago when we went camping with my Auntie Mary Lea and Uncle Rye and Cousins Elena & Austin in the Golden Ears Provincial Campground in British Columbia. That's too long for people who suposedly love the outdoors.

Our New Lawn Mower

We needed a bagging lawn mower. If you're going to garden organically you have to have mulch and grass clippings make a really good mulch. We have tons of grass, but we didn't have a bagging mower. We didn't want to go out and buy an expensive gas guzzling mower just for the bag, so we bought a Reel Mower. It runs on all of Reeve's abundant ENERGY.

It's very easy to push and we've got tough weedy grass. I actually think it's easier to push than our gas powered mower. It's certainly a lot less noisy and really easy to start :-). Reeve really loves to push it around. We find we want to mow the grass more often. I always felt extremely guilty using the gas mower all the time knowing we were causing more green house gasses, and now we don't have to feel guilty at all.

I took these pictures on Saturday evening when it wasn't terribly HOT. We're in a record breaking heat wave right now. Yesterday it was a 102F (38.8C) here, way too hot to be outside mowing the lawn. It's only supposed to get up to 96F (35.5C) today, and then in the 80's tomorrow.

Blueberry Picking

The kids and I went blueberry picking. It was our first time, and it was a lot of fun. The blueberries were tasty, big, and easy to pick. Reeve and Kyle loved it. We didn't stay terribly long because it was really hot and we were all sweating. We ended up with about 7 pounds. Now that we know where to go we'll definitely get an early start next year. I could only take one picture as my camera ran out of batteries.

Something You Don't See Everyday!

Tommy in Fatigues! There were some visiting Canadian troops at the Air Force Base where Tommy works that gave him a helicopter ride. He looks kind of nervous.

Tommy's the second one from the end.

He said that they went 140 mph (225 kph)hugging the ridge line from Camp Douglas, WI to Sparta, WI (about 45 miles or 70 km) and back.

More Monarchs & Garden update

Reeve is constantly searching on milkweed for more Monarch caterpillars and he found one! Just when I thought we were done for the season. At any rate it continues to be an excellent learning adventure for Reeve and Kyle.
Reeve and Kyle are sitting on the raised bed we made last year. I harvested the garlic and it's drying now. Now this bed has a few carrots, dill, basil, and I started some lettuce mix. I really love this raised bed. It's small but it's such a joy to weed. I get to sit which makes weeding extremely easy. Also since we don't walk in it the soil is really loose. Those garlic bulbs just popped right out. Last year I remember having to dig in hard clay soil and ending up damaging the garlic. The garlic was also moldy (not enough air circulation) last year, but this year it was beautiful. I should take a pic of that soon :-). In front of the boys are Jack-O-Lantern pumpkins.




This is a picture of the new raised bed I started to make. We had a lot of concrete blocks just sitting around. They were previously under the mobile home which thankfully has been removed. I decided I didn't like this raised bed so much. It's a lot of block for little garden space. Then I planted pie pumpkins and buttercup squash which needs loads of room. That was poor planning on my part. It's turning out okay so far, but there will be definite changes next year.
We planted cucumbers on the other side of the first raised bed. Beyond the fence is all burdock and nettles. The nettles have sneaky seeds that fly through the air and land right in the garden. I'm constantly weeding those sharp suckers.





An updated picture of the garden. The cilantro has bolted, the lettuce bolted and I removed it. I planted more spinach, and the kale is coming up. I have to figure out a better plan for the tomatoes next year. They get so huge and overbearing. You should have seen it last year. This year still looks out of control but it's 100% better than last year. The cabbage has been delicious and abundant. As a matter of fact I'm going to make some more cole slaw today. I should try to make sauerkraut, but I haven't worked up enough nerve for that yet.

DeeDee's Memorial

On Sunday we went to Chicago to celebrate the life and memory of my second cousin Carolyn Sands (aka DeeDee). Her husband Butchie gathered her closest friends and family and we celebrated at one of their favorite Mexican restaurants Mi Tierra's in Chicago near their home in Cicero.


DeeDee was an extremely festive person and this really was the perfect place to remember her.



There was lots going on in the restaurant. They had a wonderful Mariachi Band. They serenaded each table. Reeve and Kyle absolutely loved it and couldn't stop dancing in their seats.

Tommy, Butchie & Reeve

Reeve is sporting his new "TickFinderFriendly" haircut.

Silly Teeth

I'm happy to report that Reeve is feeling 100% again. However we noticed something wrong with his teeth.








Have we been forgetting to brush their teeth?











No, they just love these silly joke teeth. Reeve can't stand to see them in Kyle's mouth, and Kyle wants to wear them all the time!

Ticks Suck!

There have been no updates recently because for the past two weeks Reeve hasn't been 100%. He's had a mild fever, been lethargic, and started complaining of neck pains and headaches. Recently we suspected Lyme's disease. Thursday we were able to get an appointment with a doctor... unfortunately our normal doctor was on vacation. They took a blood sample and sure enough it came back positive for Lyme's disease. Poor kid is on antibiotics for the next 21 days. In less than 24hrs of taking the antibiotics Reeve has cooled down temperature wise and is really getting back to his normal happy self. He says he's feeling much better and finally has an apetite again.