The second major project completed recently was the installation of window shades. It’s been an ongoing event since we moved into the house – choosing the type, color, quality, cost, etc. Officially, we were super sick of the temp shades that we had up…and they really limited how much we opened and closed them. Consequently, the permanent ones have been great for two reasons. The first reason was just eluded to: we open them a lot more frequently and thus get a lot more natural light into the house. The second reason that we love these is due to their insulating power. It’s a noticeable and marked difference in the amount of heat that comes through the windows that are in the direct sunlight when the shades are down. Here’s to more sunlight and less cooling costs!

PS – it’s hard to figure out how to show off the new shades in photo form, so the first photo is my effort. I also decided to grab a couple of other shots of the house while I was outside.

There is a boat tour just off of the La Crosse boardwalk that is advertised as an eco-tour of the Mississippi….you get on a boat, tour around for 1.5hrs, and look for birds, animals, and other signs of nature (road building supplies, huge barge ships, etc). The trip was a lot of fun – albeit hot – and we did end up seeing some pretty cool things, like a bald eagle, some cool birds, and a beaver dam. Ezra and the other cousins did great on the boat despite Ezra seemingly only wanting to do the things that he wasn’t allowed to do, like drive the boat.

It’s not too often that a single event during a single day is cool/important/different/fun enough to earn a post all by itself. Ok, maybe that’s not entirely true since almost every post on this blog is about that exactly…but the trip to a park in La Crosse and the morning spent at the Kid’s Coulee was pretty cool.

As you can see from the photos, the Kid’s Coulee is a GIGANTIC playground. Unlike one that I have ever seen before. It’s super fun and super easy to loose your kids inside of. Hours and hours could potentially disappear into thin air spent at this place. For a minute I will digress and attempt to explain what a coulee is for those of you reading this not from the midwest. A coulee is a mysterious natural phenomenon that as far as I can tell only occurs in the La Crosse area. It’s smaller than a mountain but larger than a valley…because we have words to describe those. At one point, I believed that it was the word for all of the hills (called bluffs here). Now, I believe that it means something similar to, but different from a valley. Who knows (even Wikipedia is confused as to it’s meaning). However, when it it placed on a wooden sign after the word ‘kid’s’ and put in front of a huge playground, it means: coolest park this side of the Mississippi.

The larger park that houses the playground is also home to an education center that has many things for kids to do including learning about animals, feeling animal fur, looking out into the marshland, and observing a hive of bees (the hive is actually located indoors – which is nice on a super hot July day – with an access tube to the outside for the bees to crawl through).

The annual trip back to Wisconsin is always highlighted by the reason for the July journey: the trip to the farm to celebrate Bestemor’s birthday. This year marks something insane, like 98. The folks at the farm decided on doing things a little differently this time around: Saturday dinner was a ‘celebration of every holiday’ (including July 4, Easter, Christmas, and others), and Sunday was a ‘celebration of everyone’s birthday’. The idea was that for 2010 we could be together for every holiday and every birthday…:-) It was lovely.

Sunday morning was special, not just because it was Sunday morning, and not just because there was a church service. It was special because the church service was done with only our family, sitting in the new addition at the farm, and performed by Ezra’s Papa. As the designated one in sort-of-charge of the church nursery, I spent a lot of time in the back of the room chasing kids. That did, however, allow for many moments of pause to look at the entire group gathered. I say again: it was lovely.

PS – You may be asking yourself, “Self, I wonder what part of the trip to the farm wasn’t so lovely?” Lucky for you I have an answer to ease your mind: the mosquitos.

Is there anything better than being with family? We made a trip back to Wisconsin to hang out with family for more than a week. There will be lots of photo updates because you just can’t help yourself from snapping away on the camera when there is such cuteness around.

Chillin’ with some great friends on July 4th weekend. Finally getting around to posting these photos.

Last night brought a good dinner with friends and a lot of rain….so much in fact, that between the lightning and thunder and tornado watches, the town decided to postpone the fireworks show till tonight. Since we weren’t geared up for a display tonight – no friends to drink the night away with and Ezra fast asleep – Ahna and I resorted to finding a different way to watch the show.

We packed up our camera, chairs, and each other, left Ezra behind sleeping in his room….and walked upstairs. All of the way up 16 steps and into the playroom. Our concerns about leaving Ezra to sleep while we watched the fireworks were quickly put to rest when we realized that we were (as the crow flies) 7 feet and 2 sheets of drywall away.

The town’s display this year was “a low-flying fireworks show” launched from a park just across the interstate from the house. As you can see from the pictures, Ahna and I actually had a great seat for the presentation (and now hope that they launch from that site as long as we live at this house), and remarkably Ezra slept through the entire 25 minutes.

The three of us ventured downtown to the Denver Aquarium this morning for some fish fun. Ezra has always liked looking at the fish when we see tanks at different places, so we figured a journey to the mothership was in order. It’s a pretty decent aquarium – nothing like Baltimore or Atlanta – but it’ll do for being thousands of miles from any coral reef. There is one significant drawback to this place: it’s expensive. Ezra was free because he is 2, but Ahna and I were each $15…then they nickel-and-dime you for every little thing else (parking was $7). The overall question is always whether the expense was worth it, and basically it was: you can’t ever put a price on watching your son explore and explore and explore with a smile on his face the whole time. I’m just not sure that we’ll do it again anytime soon. 🙂