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Today was Art's first day of first grade at Barton . Jess and I can't stop smiling about the thing, mostly because we just love his teacher. Last year, as some of you might know, we went through bouts of real discontent over Art's half day kindergarten, his perfectly fine but sorta uninspired teacher, just the whole situation. It was a bummer for a long time.  But this year he of course has all day school and teacher who has a wonderful energy and  enthusiasm , you can tell the instant you meet her. Here's what I wrote  Jessica  after dropping Arthur off this morning, an email she said she reread many times and kept smiling:  ------ subject: all went brilliantly I could immediately tell that Patrice is a wonderful teacher. She greeted him bent over and then put her hand on his shoulder and walked him into the room to his cubby hole. That small gesture was so telling to me. She is very organized and open and available to the children. I think it is going to be a wonderfu...

Try sleeping in at the cottage and soon enough your bed fills up with little people. However Jessica loves snuggling and, as you can see, this makes her quite happy.

Lewis- It's just pretend. Arthur- Yeah, but there are zombies coming out of the ground.

We're headed to the cottage for a bit before summer departs. We'll be off the grid!

I photographed a pretty meaningless Vikings preseason game and  witnessed something pretty extraordinary. Bored fans began doing the wave, and I was thinking to myself, man, this is an impressive wave. Lots of screaming and everyone on their feet. An d then a few fans started throwing their programs, and shortly after EVERYONE started throwing them. Thousands and thousands of people tossing their programs skyward and eventually ripping them up into confetti, showering their neighbors. It was a ridiculous and wonderful moment of a sort of joyous  group-think . Literally everyone tossing ripped up paper into the air and laughing uproariously about it. It was so fun to watch!

That would be Bailey in the foreground.

Come on! I have to share this.

Here's the link to the story.

Arthur and his friend Si spent this week in a 3-hr a day theater camp at MacRae park. Today was the performance. It was good fun! Art and Si were both crows and had a singular line each. They sang and danced a bit. My brother Josh and Jessica's step-mother Joanna showed up, two of Art's favorite people.  Art was so proud, as soon as he said his line he looked at Jessica and I with this, "Did you see that!?!?!?!" expression, so cute. A panoramic photo taken with my fancy cell phone.

This morning I had a wonderful little special time with Lewis. As he requested, we went on a bike ride to the May Day cafe to get a cinnamon roll, his favorite. And then we went to the park and pretended to be spies, running from tree to tree hiding from anyone we saw. He was so happy and I was so happy that he was so happy. Arthur and Lewis are great boys, but getting them on their own often amplifies their greatness. They often seem like their able to more fully be themselves and are less worried about sharing a parent or, god forbid, a cinnamon roll.

Tuesday was national night out, a fun night where hundreds of Minneapolis blocks have potlucks and get togethers on the street.

Last Sunday we threw a hot dog party at an extraordinary new park on the north end of Lake Harriet. We invited everyone we knew who likes hot dogs, it was tasty fun. Especially popular is a sandy area with a water pump making mini rivers and water play possible. My brother Josh came and took their play to the next level. Kids started bringing cups of water to a nearby hill on the backside of the park, creating a little waterway. Josh helped children to build dams with sticks and sand and leaves. Literally for hours they were all working so hard making damns, screaming out "there's a leak!" or "we need some sand over here!" Mud made it's way onto ears and foreheads and the rear end of pants turned dark black. It was the kind of fun that kids rarely have these days (I sound like an old man). But for real! Josh was chatting with me about how that's the way it was when we were kids, we'd just found stuff to do. At one point Josh came walking up the hill ...

Here's an xray of my swollen hand from June. I've had pretty unbearable hand pain over the years with multiple surgeries and cortisone shots (with the help of my nice Pa I'm working on getting a better doctor, etc). Don't you feel bad for me? It seems to get worse in the summer and better in the winter. Anyway, I'm posting this image cause it looks cool.

It took me a couple weeks to finally post these lovely photos. We (our family plus my brother Josh and his wife Ashley) met my father and step-mother Cynthia at the Wisconsin Dells (they drove over from Michigan where they had just finished a craft fair selling jewelry ). We rented a little cabin along the Wisconsin River and went to one of those fancy water parks.   Cynthia, master storyteller. Art and Lewis on the Wisconsin River. We didn't really take any photos at the waterpark, except for this. Arthur and Jessica were really proud that they were brave enough to do this super scary slide together that basically goes straight down and straight up.  Jessica taking the girls on a rain walk. Ashley and Lewis.

Happy Anniversary, Ben! 10 years married, 15 years and two days since the fateful night we met at Riverside Park in New York City.  It wasn't much of an anniversary for us today - we got a nice 45 minute conversation in while the boys watched TV, but other than that we were manning the fort and Ben was working to pay for the fort.  Anyway, here is a shout out to my teammate, my love, from our family blog Oct. 9, 2010 (one day after our third and fourth children were born): "But as proud as I am of birthing these twins I must say I could not have done the great incubating I had done without Ben. Really. Ben made it possible for me to take a nap EVERY DAY, even if it meant being late to work or juggling kids or being super sleepy himself. He helped me eat a lot and made me lots of hard boiled eggs, grilled cheese sandwiches and protein shakes and even got me a family size gallon of ice cream so every shake could be amply spiked with ice cream. He got up with k...

An heres what Netta left of her apple. Even the Arthur and Lewis were impressed!