One more summer trip

That is not the theory any longer. We are now set to pretty much stay home for the remainder of the summer. But, last weekend, we had an interesting series of events. I took the last part of the day Friday off, and we hit the road. We headed straight for Paynesville for Heather's grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. Every single child, grandchild and great grand child and all husbands and wives made the journey to town for the celebration. It was quite a feat to have everyone there. We spent all of Saturday morning taking family pictures, and the afternoon was spent at their open house. Sunday was then to be spent at the cabin with everyone playing in the water which was convenient since it was 95. Well, we didn't make it to Sunday. Instead, we spent Saturday night in the Montevideo emergency room with Olivia as she was running a fever near 103. We found out that she had some sores in her throat that were painful for her when she would eat. They feared that it was strep throat and gave her some penicillin. Well, that was slightly scary too, because I'm allergic to it. So, we had to stay and wait at the emergency room to make sure she wouldn't have any extreme reactions to it. She didn't, and by Tuesday we were able to feed her without having the drug her up first.

So, Sunday, we were at the house just keeping her comfortable and trying to get fluids in her to keep her hydrated. We were able to do so and she has bounced back just fine and full of energy again. She's rolling around on the floor keeping us busy always. I noticed tonight that she gets herself set into a perfect crawling position, but has not yet figure it out. Soon, we'll really have an adventure on our hands. Here is to 5 months!

The Home Improvement Projects

It's almost exactly like the television show, except it's not in Detroit, doesn't include Tim Allen, I don't have a cable television show, and I don't have a sidekick named Al. Ok, I don't have a sidekick at all. My sidekick Olivia still lays on the floor inside and drools and chews on things, so she isn't much help with any projects. So, I guess in review, there is really no similarity between what I'm doing and the old television show, but I am doing some projects here around the house.

About two months ago I made a list of things to accomplish through the summer. I haven't really looked at the list in a while as I'm pretty sure I'm a long ways behind. However, there are several things on the list that I've accomplished. Currently, I don't need to look at the list because I know exactly what I need to finish. I'm in the middle of some landscaping projects. I've got things taking up lots of room in my garage, and I'm tired of mowing around the 6 pine trees in the back yard. And cutting them down is not an option because of the lights of the gas station. So, we made a decision on landscaping around them. We'll see how that ends up turning out. Here is what we've done so far:

Step 1 - Rip out the ugly trees in front of the house. The first time we came and looked at the house, Heather looked at the over grown shrubs and said they had to go for sure. It was one of the first things we did in the first spring, they were pulled out easily by my dad.

Step 2 - Pull up all the rocks from the front. This was time consuming and a pain. They've found a new home on a pile in the back yard by the aforementioned trees for now.

Step 3 - Dig out the base for the new brick facades. There will be a new brick landscape border in the front of the house (which is actually now up) and in the back in front of the trees.

Now, here is what's left in this project:

Step 4 - Remove weeds/grass from the front and back yards where the new landscaping will be.

Step 5 - Finish constructing the brick border in the back yard in front of the trees.

Step 6 - Get the landscape paper down in front and back new areas.

Step 7 - Remove all rocks from the side and back of the house and back of he house and put them in the back trees as landscaping.

Step 8 - Place wood chips in the front yard, and along the driveway and by the house and plant any shrubs necessary in the front bed, and put in the landscape lighting.

So, as you can see, not much left really. Also some leveling of the walls, and a lot of bricks to move to the back yard yet. Some other notable things on the list are replace the toilet in the bathroom, work on the snow blower, clean up the garage and get it ready to store everything for winter. Still tons to do, and all I have to do is miss this weekend and then get moving before the weekend of the 24th of August. I was wondering the other day why I can never get anything done in the fall. Then I remembered that I work soccer games from the middle of August until November, so there goes fall. Looking at the schedule, already have September Saturdays booked up, so it will all begin again here in just over a month.

This weekend, off to Minnesota again. Should be another fun adventure!

Goodbye to the motorcycle

It was about 4 summers ago when i purchased my 2007 Vstar. A couple days ago, I received a check for the bike. It's now in a new owner's possession. I had to think back to some of the great moments with the bike that I can remember.

1. First trip to Sioux Falls after purchasing the bike - after just learning how to ride, I decided I needed to plan a route that did not involve the interstate. So, I rode a different route. On the way home, it was getting late, and getting dark, and the bugs started to come out, and I found out how cold the air is on a bike at night. I shivered all the way home 80 miles. That may not have even been the worst part. The bike didn't originally come with a windshield. After having a face splattered with bugs, I ordered a windshield immediately on arriving home.

2. Riding camping - The first time was with Dwight going out to Pierre to go camping. We were planning on riding out there, camping, then riding home. Well, I got out there, and was incredibly sore. The seat just wasn't up to snuff. Not just that, but in part of the camping excursion, Dwight got sick and could not ride any more, so Matt, the good sacrificial friend he is, rode out to Pierre one day, and we went home together. We made a few stops to help my sore rear end, but in the end, as soon as I arrived home, I order a new seat.

3. Riding Camping (#2) - This was the second time we did the for the same camping trip for 4th of July. Dwight, and my brother (who now got a bike) and I rode up to Gettysburg to camp. As we were 5 miles away, we got completely soaked by rain. The rest of that time was uneventful other than it took us hours to dry out.

Those are three of the big memories. I put 6000 miles on the bike before giving it up, and as it was for sale, my brother comes by with a beautiful newer bike the other day which make me wanting a new one, but for now, it won't be a reality for quite a few new years, but the odds of me having another bike someday are quite high. Now there is one more thing that I won't complete. I'd set out to see about riding all of the state and US highways in the state over the life of the motorcycle. That will not happen any more, although that was done quite some time ago when I met this girl.

Getting down to business

Some big new events have been going on in the Wipf house. Olivia is having some new tricks that are making mom and dad nervous.

1. Rolling over, at all hours - Olivia likes to roll all the time. We often find that when we lay her down to go to sleep, she'll roll to her side and stomach within the first 5 minutes. We're not really sure why she likes her stomach and side so much, but she does when she sleeps. She has started to roll freely also and stay on her stomach when we put her on the floor. Finally, she'll stay for more than 2 minutes without screaming
2. Crawling - Because Olivia spends more time on her stomach without screaming, she has started to show signs of crawling. She can use her legs to push herself forward. She hasn't figured out the use of the hands yet, so she's pushing all her weight as dead weight. But, none the less, soon she'll really cover ground.
3. Talking (like crazy) - Olivia has, since I returned from Tennessee last week, started to talk constantly. She will sit and just jabber, jabber, jabber and squeal and jabber, jabber, jabber. She had talked to us (in squeals) before, but now it's just a long drawn out jabber and it's actually kind of impressive.

Those are the big new events here. We just wait for the time once when she'll come crawling around the kitchen corner and shock us all.

New Tricks

Well, we are now officially on high alert around here. Olivia has a couple new tricks that she loves showing off. She loves to roll over. She can roll one direction and can do multiple rolls if she feels like it. Sometimes she will prop herself up and look around, and see what is going on.


Other times she decides to roll to her tummy, then all the way around to cover a bit more of the floor and look around and see what she's missing. She's also starting to move about and can get around a little bit. Right now it's just a few inches, but I'm sure soon we will once again be wishing we could only go back to just a few inches.

This coming week I'll be headed to Tennessee again. This will be my June trip and I will be going to head camping following my trip. I'm getting into a busy travel season, although only continuing with a once a month trip to Tennessee through September. Otherwise just some standard summer traveling to Minnesota and some camping and just a relaxing summer out and about. Maybe, I'll see you in the airport or on the road somewhere this summer!

That smells aweful....

So, the story of tonight is that Olivia won't get to bed. The last few nights she's been up once or more during the night. Now, she won't go to sleep for the night, and is fighting it big time. So, Heather sits down in the chair, and starts to give her a little bottle to try to get her to have a fully belly so she'll sleep. So, in the process, Olivia spits/drools on her pajamas that I put her in. So, Heather takes them off and sends me in search of other pajamas. I dug, and looked, and dug and looked, and finally Heather comes in and lays Olivia on the changing table. She then turns and asks if I found anything yet to which I said that I had not. So, she asks if I want to change Olivia and she'll get the pajamas. I said, that it sounded just fine, knowing she has a better understanding of Olivia's clothes than I do. So we switched, and I stepped up to the changing table and it hit me. It was an aweful, horrific stench that literally knocked me back and made my eyes start to water. It smelled like a combination of rotten milk, rotten summer sausage, and dead rotten skunk. I almost threw up it was so awful. She just laid on the table and looked at me with an expression that said "I don't know what your deal is, just change the dumb thing already." Meanwhile, Heather isn't looking for pajamas because she's laughing too hard. She fooled me good, and she knew it and I knew it. She did step back in and make the diaper change and got her into pajamas while I faught unconsciousness carrying the diaper directly to the garbage container outside. As I turned to get back into the house, I saw a skunk walk by the garbage container, plug his nose, and run away.....

Happy Monday

Olivia told me this morning that she wanted to wish everyone a happy Monday!