Lumberjack Days at Stillwater

Stillwater is the birthplace of Minnesota and is on the St. Croix river that is the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin. Back in the day lumberjacks would float logs down the St. Croix to the mills there.
So each year the have a festival with concerts, lots of good fried fair food, inflatable toys for kids and competitions. This started on Wednesday and ended tonight with a big fireworks show that we did not stay for. And silly me took our camera but didn't think about getting out to take pictures, I'll see if I can get some from our friends.
The competition for the lumberjacks consisted of sawing, chopping, running and climbing on or up logs. It was very impressive! The Outdoor Channel was filming it and will be airing it the fall.
They also had dogs competing on distance jumping and retrieving and vertical jumping. We saw mostly the dog competitions which where world championships. The dog that won the distance jumping beat his world record twice. The highest jump for the vertical was 7ft 8in.
At the end they had a dogs and logs competition. This involved the lumberjacks and dogs doing a relay in two teams, it was a lot fun to watch.
As far as the food was concerned we did pretty good only spending $20 on 5 things: 2 drumstick icecreams, a corn dog, cheese curds and a big refillable cup of root beer. The drumsticks were a deal at $1 each. Since I didn't grow up in a land that sold cheese curds, I've always been skeptical, but really it's just fried cheese. And we all know anything fried is generally good, but I'm not going to try the fried snickers.

(Side Note having nothing to do with Lumberjack Days...Sonic just opened up their first one in MN a few weeks ago and plan on opening 35 more in the twin cities in the next 5 years...How can they be the All American drive thru if they aren't ALL over America??...But none the less I am excited about this hope to go visit Sonic soon...after the 30 min wait to get in the parking lot is over!!! I believe the Minnesotans knew what they were missing.)

Josiah was a trooper the whole time, as long as he can eat, sleep and poop he doesn't mind were we drag him to!!

A Good Visit

Last week my mom came up for a visit. We had a good time running errands and playing with Josiah. The last day she was here we tried to take pictures with Josiah smiling. We really should have done it in the morning since that's when he's all smiles.
Josiah's starting to grab things more and I think it's intentional. It's more like if it is by his hands he grabs it but he's not reaching for things yet. He's making all sorts of sounds now too. It's great. We have a video camera so maybe I can catch him giggling. He usually just stares at the camera so maybe I'll have better luck with the video camera.

I love my Nerd!

I've always thought Mike was a well rounded computer geek.

Who's the Cool Non-Nerd?

That would be me!

We'll see how Nerdish Mike is when he gets home. He's an IT guy, how nerdy can it get?
This weekend he is doing a very non-nerdish thing, haying. He went home to help his dad and brother bale hay.
Fortunately my mom is coming to visit tomorrow so I'll only experience single-parenthood for less than 24 hours.

Do you see what I see...

in that big ol' cotton wood tree?

Yes there are cotton wood trees up here, tons of them!!

Who wants to watch fireworks when you can sleep?

Yup, that's what Josiah was thinking last Friday night. A park near our place had an all day celebration for the 4th. Mike's family was here for the weekend. We met some friends from church at the park for a picnic supper and listen to two community bands play before the fireworks started. Since this would be Josiah's first experience with fireworks we had a backup plan to head to the car if he didn't like it. Fortunately he fell sleep shortly before they started and slept right on through. Of course I was holding him with a blanket and my hand over his ears just in case, but he did well.
We had a busy and fun weekend with Mike's family. While Grandma and Grandpa were watching Josiah, Mike, Matt and I went for a swim at the lake across the street. I wasn't planning on going under since I thought the water would be freezing but it was actually very nice. I guess the summers up here in MN don't start until July, June was very cool and the first day it got into the 90's was the end of June. We also all went and played disc golf while Grandma carried Josiah around in the Baby Bjorn, then we ended the evening by stuffing ourselves at Maggiano's. All of which Josiah slept through.

Two months

This is a late post, so I'll play catch up for a little bit.


We went camping the weekend Josiah turned two months. He did well but we didn't. I don't know what I was thinking camping in the summer in Minnesota. It did not even cross my mind that the mosquitoes would be bad and boy were they!! We were so worried about him getting eaten up that we weren't having fun. Camping is meant to be fun, so we stuck it out for a night and then went home.
Mike and I have camping gear but it's all for backpacking also, so our little two man tent was nice and cozy with the three of us. Granted Josiah is 1/5 of a person right now but he had the best spot, all nice and snug between us. He slept all night which tells you how comfortable he was!

Backing up some, at 6 weeks he started smiling more than just the random smirks. And everyday since then the smiles have been getting bigger and better!! Around week six we went in to weigh him and he was at 8lbs 7 oz. We get excited to see how much he is gaining. He started out slow but we are filling him up as much as I can.


A few weeks ago we started switching Tues nights babysitting with another couple who had a boy four days before Josiah was born. Right now it's easy since they just lie around. Mike and I could only think of a few things we like to do but can't take him with us, so we went canoeing on the lake across the street from us. Oh, we also took a pizza with us and ate it out on the water. Every third Tues, we'll all do something together. The dads held the boys up to look at each other and they started grinning!! I'm sure those grins will lead to a lot of mischief if a few years!

Here's few things Josiah's been doing (with me of course):

• two trips to Ikea
• one trip to the Mall of America, he was a little overwhelmed with that as I was my first time!
• at least three disc golf games
• numerous walks
• one camping trip
• one trip to see Grandma and Grandpa Loosbrock
• every Wednesday, he gets to stare at the kids at our New Mom's group
• stuck his feet in a cold wading pool and didn't like it