Idris' 5th Birthday

Idris celebrated his 5th birthday today with several friends and cousins.

This year's theme was the blue knight:Idris the blue knight blowing out his candle on his castle cake.

Idris' cousins, Jake and Karsten.

Kids decorating crowns and shields.

A very happy birthday boy opening his presents!

Weekend at the Capitol

Last weekend was Violet's birthday and Linda and the girls came up to our house. We decided to go on an art hunt through the MN state capitol. It was a lot of fun!
Idris was disappointed, though, that Governor Pawlenty wasn't there for him to meet. He gets very excited every time we pass the capitol building and says "That's our state capitol where Governor Pawlenty works! He plays hockey!"

Violet looking for the illusive "M" for Minnesota

Idris posing in front of Colonel Covill's statue

Sweet little Eva in front of "The North Star"

Approaching the Capitol

Idris cleans up!

Today I told Idris that he needed to clean his room (which really wasn't that bad) because his cousins are coming over this weekend. He readily agreed to this and I left him up there. It usually takes him a few hours because he takes plenty of breaks to rejuvenate. Awhile later, Benjamin went up to check on him. He came down saying, "Idris' room is worse than before he started to 'clean' it. He told me 'I'm making it more of a challenge.'"
Benjamin and I were obviously thinking that we would need to go and talk to him and maybe eventually have to help just to get him going but we left him be to see where this would take us.
Later Idris called down the stair, very excited, "Guys! Come see my room! It's clean!" We went up to check and sure enough he had done a wonderful job.

Idris' clean room

Victory ice cream

A Change of Pace

I've finally discarded my longtime position at Roseville Best Buy and accepted a job on Best Buy's traveling circus called the "project team". Basically, I'll be using the same skills I've practiced for years, but do so in a whole slough of different stores in the metro area and beyond. The team (10 or so people) I'll be on will be responsible especially for resets and new store openings in the southern/eastern parts of the Twin Cities, but occasionally anywhere else in the US.
When I join the team, our first task will be to prep the new Mall of America store for opening, which should be interesting.
Hopefully, this should mean I'll get most weekends off and I'll also be quitting my part-time job. I'm hoping this will make work more manageable for me in the future.
In the meantime, I'm taking 10 days off as a stay-at-home vacation. It's time to enjoy the summer!

Continuing on recent stories:

Idris graduates from Guess who? to Chess

Jenny did a marvelous job refinishing our table!

Valleyfair 4th

Read Dan's post for a good review of this year's 4th of July to Valleyfair, but here is our contribution in pictures:

Our patriotic baby

And he plays it cool, too.

Arken contemplates this 4th of July thing, curious whether the Francis Scott Key who wrote our National anthem during the 1st firework display was of any relation to famed St. Paulite Francis Scott Fitzgerald.

Tailgating in the handicapped zone with some Grenzes

And Van Lohs...

At the end of the evening, grandparents and grandchildren alike were still putting on a good face for it all...

...While others were ready to call it a night

Guess Who?

Idris has been challenging Jenny to a string of Guess Who games in recent days. The game relies on asking the right questions (i.e. "does your person have a small nose?" or "Is it a man?) to narrow down and choose the person your opponent has selected.
So far Jenny reports that Idris wins about half the time with a strategy of asking bizarre , non-consequential questions followed by exactly the most fortunate ones:

Here Idris considers a narrow field over a cupcake

Jenny enjoys her newly- stained table while wondering how Idris figured her character had a small nose, facial hair, and "orange" eyes

Arken: innocent bystander or secret Idris-team Spy?

House Work!

It's time for a lot of house projects around here now that the weather is decent and Jenny is no longer pregnant. Most of our tasks were on hold until recently, but now we are painting, staining, patching squirrel holes, and what-not:

Originally, this was going to look unique; soon it will just get a thorough coat of paint

I had absolutely no aptitude for sealing this squirrel entry port, but Jenny researched options, arranged to borrow a long ladder, mounted the ladder with significantly less acrophobia than I, then cut the metal pieces and showed competence with a drill to affix the metal firmly over the apertures on both sides of the house

Jenny's dad was briefly in town last weekend, but was able to slice these dead branches from our tree.

Jenny de-linked the fence of a defunct dog run, and I dug up the posts.
Anyone need some fence posts?