Couch Full'O Trouble!

Robby attended the birthday party of his buddy Noah (in the flag shorts) last weekend.  This is a couch-full of his buddies who probably terrorized Noahs parents for the night...

MAGA Championship!

Mini-Amatuer-Golfers-Association! 

What fun stuff happens while dad's at work?  First, sushi for two ravenous boys and second, mini-golf!

Master C banging out a masterful putt!

The former hippie getting ready to teach his opponent a lesson or three!

Annnnddddd...  there's this.  Robby fishing mama's ball out of the drink.

Lining up the big putt!

That is the posture of a grumpy boy...

Another Summer Of Camp Is In The Proverbial Books

The lad is back from Riverside Lutheran Bible Camp!!  He was busy sweeping out their cabin when Robby and I got there.  He was excited to see us, but wouldn't abandon his job to come give me a hug!  

That's my boy!

He said,  "I wish I could stay another week, but I cannot.".

He also bought me a gift but has apparently lost it betwixt the time it was purchased and the time he was picked up. ;-)

Happy boy on the drive home, eating his sour skittles and shrieking LOUDLY!!  Man, the boy about blew my ears out around 1000 times.

I forgot to post this.  This picture was taken just outside the back door of Robby's cabin.  This tree was struck by lightning during the middle of the night.  The bark was blown nearly clear off from the top of the tree on the branch that was struck, all the way down to the ground.  The dark spot on the right side of the tree is where it blew the dirt up.  Their cabin deck still had a bunch of bark chips on it when I got there to pick him up.

Beaver Cheeks Burger Boy

I have mentioned in this space that we have wonderful neighbors. I will mention that again. Last week while Robby was at camp, our neighbor Diane, who feeds and gets the boys off to school in the mornings when we're both working, took Caleb along to meet her hubby, Mike, for lunch.

Caleb had a BALL!!!

Here is the boy, who is at camp and I miss SO MUCH, eating his bacon cheeseburger and plate of waffle fries.  He killed the burger, but brought some waffle fries home after declaring, "And I'm NOT sharing!".  He shared...

Camp Drop Number Two!

Caleb is at camp! We had a successful drop off on Sunday afternoon. He's in the same cabin as Rob was in his first year (I think) and even the same bunk!  So that's kinda fun. 

We're going to try and have a more successful pick-up of Caleb than we had with Robby though... 

Turns out that Rob had purchased a red Riverside bag while at camp and had his shampoo, Bible and probably some other stuff in it. Dad knew that Robby didn't have a red bag so I did not pick it up... 

Neither did he... 

We were about half way home when we realized it was not with us so we called back to alert them. They said they would have the "lost and found" available to us on Sunday when we dropped Caleb off.  

So we got to camp and got Caleb signed in and started asking around. Eventually, we got to search the lost and found items but there was no sign of his new bag.

My guess is that some other dad, not knowing that his boy DIDN'T have a red bag, just picked it up and carried it out, taking it home with them.  

Robby thinks his stuff was next to a kid from Ankeny, IA. so that's good.  We're trying to figure out how to contact them, but so far, it has not happened.

So be it...  

Here is Calebber with his buddy Lucas.  Lucas's family are members of Lutheran Church of the Cross in Altoona, IA, the same as us.  These two are Sunday School classmates and Caleb is often called Lucas.  Probably not quite as much now with the hair...

Mr. Green Belt

Happy boy waiting for his big moment!

Caleb accepting his Green belt promotion.

The First Camp Drop of 2017!

Robby, on the far right, has not quite blended in with his cabin mates yet.  This was pretty much right after we helped carry his belongings inside, talked with his counselors, and were getting back in the truck to head home without him.  By the time I got my keys out of my pocket and turned around to unlock the truck, a counselor was over engaging him and getting him into their game of frisbee.  Truly amazing the training these young men and women have received to be able to do this!

Hairy Is, As Hairy Does

The boys both got their penultimate hair cuts prior to our Chaotic arrival in Hawaii.  Caleb is still considerably hairy while Rob is far less hairy!

Calebber, who got the back of his hair trimmed so that it's pretty much the same length, all the way around.

Robby, on the other hand, got a bit more sheared off!  He had a bit of a long topped "do" going on but it required a lot of maintanence.  As it turns out,  Mitchell Trubisky, drafter by the Chicago Bears this year, sported a hair style that the lad found quite appealing.  So, he went with it!

6th Grade Sunday School Golf Outing

Rob has been soon extraordinarily blessed when it comes to teachers in his life! All the way thru the 6th grade, he's had excellent teachers who have understood him, understood his competitive nature, understood his "wordiness" and so on.

Blessed I tells ya!

And that's just thru the public school system...

Then there's Sunday School thru our church, Lutheran Church of the Cross in Altoona, Iowa.  He has had wonderful instructors of the Word in each of the years he's been there, the weakest likely being his own father...  yikes!

So Friday night, his teachers from this year decided to have a miniature golf outing for the class.  Here are those lovely people!

I have taught, and taught with, many of these peeps and this picture tells me that my village is a good village!

The Joys Of Summer

Summer! The time for jobs and hurting your back and mowing and allergies and vacations mowing and hurting your back and gardens and mowing and flowers and landscaping and hurting your back...  and mowing...

You know, summer.

The boys are getting old enough to take on more responsibilities as well as individual responsibilities.  Robby can handle the zero turn mower by himself now.  Caleb can push mow now.  They can both handle watering gardens, doing the dishes, cleaning their bathrooms and so on.

I had Robby tear apart the flower box over the septic tank since it was falling apart and starting to look quite ridiculous.  He did that and stacked the wood up in a relatively nice fashion.

So the next day, Lesley assigned Caleb the job of staining the flower boxes off the deck in back of the house and I assigned Robby the job of hauling the wood down to the creek and burning it. By himself. 

How'd it all go?

The Chinaman with paint brush in hand.  He did a fantastic job of re-staining the boxes.

Larger American boy admiring his fire as a man should.  Proudly.  He also did a great job and I showed him a trick towards the end where you fire up the mower, turn the blades on and point the discharge from the deck at the fire to get the remainder of it to burn up really, really fast!  We both liked that!

A job they're doing together.  We need to remove all of the river rock from the area between the sidewalk and garage.  They've been experimenting with both wet and dry techniques.  Wet is far messier, but they got more done faster that way.

My job... washing the North side of the house...

She cleaned up quite well after a good few hours of work!