Category Archives: Photo

Oliver’s Eighth Birthday

Oliver’s birthday was celebrated in multiple chapters. First, he invited some friends to a ninja gym. Then, we celebrated as a family at home. Special breakfast: daddy’s waffles. Dinner: Punch pizza and cupcakes. Finally, we joined Sarah’s parents in Courtland to celebrate a third time.

The framed print above is the bespoke dungeon that I wrote about a few years ago. I finally managed to get it printed and framed. Now we just have to key it and run it as a real adventure!

The video clip below shows an example of one of the challenges at the ninja course. Marci is a pro!

Fencing Silver Medal

Griffin attended the 2024 TCFC November Challenges
tournament with the Twin Cities Fencing Club. This was a small, local tournament, but it was Griffin’s best showing to date. He won four of seven bouts during the pools segment. Then he won two of three elimination rounds, earning second place overall in the tournament.

In each of the photos below, Griffin is on the right side of the strip. In the video, however, he’s on the left. (Mismatched socks may be his visual trademark.)

Griffin scores his first point in this video clip.

Final Cabin Tidbits

To round out this trio of cabin posts, I took a few other random pictures of the sorts of things we did at the cabin this weekend: deflating and stowing the dock, touching up some trim paint, adding some non-stick strips to the wooden dock, role-playing games, other dice games, and a marvelous jigsaw puzzle (a gift from Grummy who passed along her love of puzzles to Andrew). We also prepped the well and pump for winter and put the snow shovels up on the covered porch lest they be irretrievable if anyone visits after the place is buried in snow. (We’ve learned that the hard way.)

Lest one think that we live an irredeemably charmed life, I should also mention that we did face a few challenges. For example, although the cool weather meant that there were few bugs outside, the black flies love to hibernate under the cabin roof. When the place warms up, they emerge in droves. Herds of droves. Hordes of herds of droves. We swatted and cursed at them, but our only moderately effective solution was to vacuum them up multiple times per day.

More Construction

The kids got very excited to build a “tree-ish house.” They started by extending a small treehouse that the built last year. This was cool, but took up a lot of prime real estate and interfered with the view from the cabin. After some discussion, they chose a new plot in heretofore unexplored territory. (It’s only about 30 feet west of the prior spot, but it’s screened by trees.) They enlisted Sarah’s professional help, removed the old structure and built a new, improved one. The sounds of hammers and saws filled the woods today.

The first picture below shows them beginning to deconstruct the first draft house. The rest show the new one. (And Piper, of course!)

Cabin Time

We made it up to the cabin for a long weekend. The weather is perfect: highs near 70 and lows just below 50. It’s dog heaven for Piper. The kids are engaged in a construction project. We saw the comet from the dock last night. A jigsaw puzzle is underway and we played a shockingly close game of Farkle. Not a bad way to recharge in the midst of a very busy autumn.

Note that while “GO MOM HQ” sounds like a worthy homage to Sarah, it actually stands for “Griffin, Oliver, Maggie, Olive, and Murray.” (Olive and Murray are two of the kids’ best friends who regularly come up to the cabin with us.)

Triathletes

Sarah has regularly completed the YWCA Women’s Triathlon around Lake Nokomis since her first outing in 2018. This year, however, Maggie decided to join her! They did the “Super Sprint” rather than the full Triathlon because Maggie’s not old enough for the full version yet (you have to be 14+). The Super Sprint consists of a 200-yard swim in Lake Nokomis, a 7.3-mile bike loop, and a 1-mile run to the finish line. Maggie had some trepidation going into it, but handled herself like a champ. She crossed the finish line at a full-on sprint.

Video clip of Sarah and Maggie as they head from the lake to their bikes:

Griffin at Widji

Griffin has spent the last three weeks on a canoe trip managed by Camp Widjiwagan in northern Minnesota. This year his crew traveled up to the Quetico area in Canada.

Griffin went with his good friend Murray. We pick them up tomorrow but just received this group photo from camp. Looks like a great crew!

Griffin’s companions for the past three weeks in the Canadian wilderness.