My dad is not the easiest guy to find a gift for, so when he turned, um, 74?, this year, I hatched a plan to take my parents out to the

,

a medieval restaurant, circa 1376, as authentic as health codes allow.  Try the hard cider, and the dinner sampler!  The seven of us split all the entrees served, and true to form, no forks or plates were used.  In fact, the only thing Wesley would try was the trencher the meal was served on.

Keith, Brian, let’s do a sibling/spouse date there sometime next summer!

We attended Bethany’s 100th Anniversary service down at UW—one of the few places big enough to hold 5 campuses.  Dwayne and I met and married at the Green Lake campus, back when it was the only campus, so it’s pretty special to us.  And our unsaintly son has one of the pastor’s names as his middle. 

Congratulations, Bethany!

Piper teaches an art class in her free time…as long as she can wear her PJs.

Weekends whizz by in October, especially if you are waiting for a warm, dry, open day to go spend time and money at the Pumpkin Patch.  That weekend never happened for us in October.  Luckily, a neighbor-friend belongs to a CSA down the street and had no use for the 3 pumpkins they were granted with their membership.   So she gave them to us, and the kids were delighted to go on a sunny day after school to frolic in the fields.

Success!  Thanks, again, Karin!  We spent a particularly pleasant hour on the farm.

The trellis.

The trellis.

Or, maybe, our third and best attempt.

The set up:

Denise:  Babe, look at what I bought.  Grape vines!  One red and one white.  The only place they might grow well is that strip along the driveway—it’s the only place that gets sun most of the day. 

Dwayne:  Mmm.

Denise:  I’m picturing a small trellis…right here….  In a few years, the kids can come out and munch grapes, and…

Dwayne:  Trellis?  And by little, do you mean a 4 post extravaganza that will require a full ton of concrete, 6 weekends of labor, oodles of money in stone, grout, and just-right hardware? 

Denise: Yeeesss…..?

It actually only took a few hours of us working together to build this:

(Granted, setting the posts had to be done one day, the horizontals the next.)

Dwayne was ground crew and engineer.  I was Rosie the Riveter.

Wesley was charming.

I’m barefoot right now, because these two blow my socks off!

This is my little bitty trellis after weekend #1:

A close-up of the hardware that Dwayne assures me I don’t want to know the cost of.  Sigh.  It’s too late, I love it.

Of course, that amount of solid wood needed far more than the original concrete foundation.  Weekend #2 was adding a full ton of concrete the bases.  The first one is carved with a D, the next K, P, and finally, W.

Dwayne decided the trellis needed more.  Like stone-clad column base.

Denise: Sigh. [Translation:  I am a woman with trials.]

The next weekend(s), it looked more like this:

Then, this:

Then, grouted:

Then, finally, capped:

Dwayne: The End.

Denise:  Now I can finally plant my grape vines, and resuscitate all the plants Dwayne crushed. 

Thanks, Babe, I love it!  And doing projects with you, even if it costs me two (more) dead rose bushes.

Cornelius Rainbow Dragon had his stuffing knocked out of him through another unfortunate Scissor Incident.  Now Cornelius’s carcass is one of Wesley’s favorite dress ups. If he squats down to half his size, he can become an adorable, cuddly dragon.

This is Piper dressed up as a doctor, cape included! 

We fostered a dog for 2 months, and Piper was pretty smitten.

Classic Wesley—clothing at odds (shorts and a hat/scarf combo) with the implements to be helpful and destructive.

 

I’m not buying school pictures this year outside of class photos, and I didn’t dictate anything outfits for them to wear.  This is what they came up with on their own:

We finally got a weekend at the cabin and took along Parker and Cecily—my niece and nephew make great accessories at the cabin.

 

In between showers, we adventured down to “our” beach.  I’ve never seen the tide out so far!  Left behind was sand so goopy that only lightweight kids could partially walk on it without sinking to their knees.

 

Cecily and Parker were not impressed…and were the only kids who didn’t have to be hosed down later.

The others played and shlopped for hours.

I had to zoom in, as I am too big to take on that goop and win!

That’s Wesley, Piper, and a neighbor friend—somewhat a female equivalent of Wesley, but better adjusted.

And here’s the rest of my heart…

Wesley wrote a special note he slipped into his sister’s lunch bag.