classroom

Jake held class at home for Sam and most of all their stuffed animals. Wait, is Jack and Griffin even paying attention or are they sleeping? And it looks like Paddington (the travel bear) has a question. I wonder what he is going to ask...

Here is Sam telling a story.

pumpkin patch update

Haven't updated the pumpkin patch chronicles in a while. The six or seven pumpkins are progressing nicely, as far as almost orange pumpkins go. They were orange on the seed package, really. I keep asking the boys thinking my color deficient eyes are playing tricks on me, as usual. Sam & Jake only confirm what I suspect - the pumpkins are green. Mon says they look like watermelons. Perhaps they will change. We did get a packet of 'white' ones, which really means 'striped' ones in Swedish. Not really. A couple are kid soccer ball size and a couple are smaller but we could harvest them today if we wanted.

Mon and Sam picked pears.

rock beach 2

2nd and goal

Before.

After. Jake wiggled his tooth for 3 weeks before it came out. Two down, eighteen to go.

mr. bubbles

Remember when bathtime was more about fun than getting clean? Those were the days!

pumpkin patch update: just when hope was lost

They say you should not count your eggs before they hatch. As far as our pumpkins go I think we had done just the opposite starting to think we wouldn't hatch anything. Turns out we've got about a half dozen pumpkins of various sizes. We've got two big ones somewhere between grapefruit and (american) football size and we still may have a month to go. A couple weeks ago we had a cold spell which gave us a scare, but an unanticipated break from the snails also.

Keep hope alive! And away from the snails.

clip clip

Remember the haircuts Mom use to give us as kids - the story where function and form were on opposite sides of the room? Well Mon is actually starting to get it down, in a good way. Sammy is getting a haircut for next week's school picture.

pumpkin patch update - lessons we've learned.

So we've been in Sweden almost five months now. The official (short) growing season is nearly over. Though a few fist size pumpkins are still on the vine, Dad thinks it's not too early to start a check list for next year. Hopefully the remaining pumpkins will be able to mature a bit more before Halloween.


Things we've learned this year:

-Snails drink beer. We need more beer and frisbees next year. Nothing like policing a bunch of drunk frisbee throwing pumpkin eating killer snails.

-Bigger growing area. The old green house base is nice for a vine or two, but not nine. Bigger area will offer more maintenance and drunk snail removal opportunities.

-Fence in the patch. Pumpkins din't draw the attention of the deer this year but once we put up a nice fence, they'll be all over the patch. Now, where to put it up. Hmm...

-Sprout seeds earlier - like April. That will mean sprouting them indoors and transferring them once we're out from under the threat of frost. Like June?


-Pro-actively cross pollinate the boy & girl flowers more. For as many flowers and length of vines we have this years - not a lot of product.

-Figure out where I can get a can of pumpkin pack so we can bake Uncle Joel a pie(and us, of course). Now where is that American store in Sweden that Mon keeps talking about? Do you suppose they have a 20lb turkey and stuffing dressing too?