Note for Maya:

Even though you are a few hours away, these eyes are still watching you.

Report from Wisconsin

Yesterday Maya saw a baby turtle and a grass snake (which apparently freaked her out like all the other snakes she's seen). When Zaheeda called last night she found out Maya has a schedule set for her Grandma on when she wants her to help her with projects. Initially our concern was that Maya was taking advantage of the elderly, but today I found out that her Grandma had Maya helping her with a "project" which was working in the garden. About half way through Maya voiced concern that this "project" was starting to feel like work... Hmmm - maybe those grandparents aren't the pushovers they appear.

Maya's Grandma's (aka Moor Moor's) Weekend Birthday Historical Site Tour

At some point this summer Maya's Grandma got the idea that for her birthday she would like to travel to Saint Paul and visit historical sites. Personally I feel this would have been a fine idea if doing so meant visiting historical sites by herself, but as it turned out she was intent on including innocent family members. We all had a good laugh though when we saw the name of the coffee shop connected to the Wabasha Caves tour - it was as if they knew we were coming. If only there had been a Grumpy Dave's Diner next to the James J. Hill house it would have been perfect....

Simpsons Movie Review

Maya says,
"Best movie I've ever seen!"
"★★★★★★ out of 5 stars!"
"Three thumbs up!"

Maya says, "Whoo Hooo!!!!!"

Leaving home again

This weekend she is going away again for another week. We can't seem to keep her home anymore.

New Glasses

At first we were worried her new glasses were going to make her a little goofy looking, but now we can see those fears were completely unfounded.


She actually got two different pairs, one for everyday wear to school, and another for other occasions when they are less likely to get broken. She can see much better now and her violin teacher is expecting much improvement in her sight reading.

Storms

Perhaps we wont have a final soccer game tonight, based on the weather forecast maybe we'll get a storm. We need the rain and we don't want to sit out in the heat - we'll just keep our fingers crossed.

Scary Cat

If you think Gizzy can be annoying when he comes into your bedroom and wakes you up in the morning... Well, he's nothing compared to the Grim Reapurr.

Last Night of Soccer

It's hard to believe but after tonight the soccer season will be over. If Maya can survive the heat tonight she will be leaving to stay with her grandparents this weekend. When she returns next week it will only be a couple more weeks before her brown Grandma comes to visit. Oh the summer is going by so fast it is hard to fit all the stuff in.

Simpson Movie anticipation

The Eyes

These eyes look good but they don't see all that great. Friday she is getting glasses.

Saturday fishing trip w/Zaheeda

Rare day of Zaheeda accompanying us on a fishing trip. Maya by a big tree.
Maya as always doing everything but fishing.
Zaheeda catching all the fish again (we think there may actually be something to that Guyanese fish call she does).
Maya tired, cranky and being generally disagreeable by the end of the day.

Dr. Who?

Last night Maya and I watched Dr. Who on DVD so I could introduce her to one of the greatest programs ever produced by those fine people over at the BBC. She knew nothing about Dr. Who (sometimes I wonder why we even send her to school), so she was in for a real treat. Unfortunately, after it was time to go to bed she started crying because she was afraid of a midget Chinese hand puppet from Victorian England coming into her room and killing her, so - she slept with us last night. I think we're going to have to move our Dr. Who marathons to the daytime hours.

Blue or Channel Catfish... That is the question

We can't figure out what kind of catfish this is and we thought maybe Maya's Grandpa could tell us.

Babies + Lemons

I challenge anyone to find anything funnier :-)

Maya is counting the days

Pizza

Last night Maya made homemade pizza for dinner (an Uncle Bob favorite). You have to admit the the sheer volume of her creative output is nothing if not impressive. :-)

The Masterpiece

Back to painting

Ah, life is good. No school, sleep all morning and paint all afternoon... Tonight we are making homemade pizza for dinner and we think she is going to vow to never leave home again.

Bassmaster

Maya & Haylynn

Haylynn smiling and grunting

Left on her vacation today

All their bags were packed and ready to go, all they had to wait for was Maya to get out of bed this morning. Her grandma usually gets up about 5 AM, but Maya doesn't roll her little candy carcass out of bed until about 10:30AM. Some think this could be cause for disagreement, argument and general consternation as the trip unfolds. but we'll just have to wait and see.

On vacation

Maya's at her grandparents today and will be leaving on a vacation to Lake Superior tomorrow, We'll leave updates as we receieve them.

Fourth of July

In the morning we went to the Mall and did a little shopping and in the afternoon we went fishing. Out of respect for Maya I will not go into the story about the huge small mouth bass I caught and how she lost it about a half hour later even though the fish was dead. I wont go into to it because of course people would want to know, "Maya, how could you possibly lose a dead fish?" But... like I said, I'm not going to go into it.

Another fishing weekend

We fished at least once every day this weekend and caught lots of fish. Yesterday we brought Zaheeda with - yes, Zaheeda, the one who constantly complains about how much money we spend on fishing tackle - and guess who caught the most fish? We think it has something to do with the Guyana fish call that she does. It is now Sunday night and we are sunburned, bug bitten and tired.