August can mean only one thing: a visit to a county fair. This year we journeyed to the Scott County Fair in Jordan, Minnesota just south of the Cities. We like to try a new county every year.  City kid Theo didn't like all the animal smells.  After the animals we looked for some lemonade and something to eat. With being so close to the cities I thought this would be a bigger fair than it was.  The kids have been doing chores every week to earn money. Meadow really wanted these fold up fans. She had just enough and it was buy one get one so she let Theo pick one too.  I guess Kirby is having a moment. Theo loved this cut out. We went all out on the food.  Meadow got some hot dog kids meal from 4-H, we got wood-fired pizza and Theo got cheese curds and pretzels. Not a bad county fair smorgasbord.  While Brooke and Meadow watched a magic show, Theo and I checked out the free advertising for Rainbow Play Systems. He actually managed to play with kids arou...

Brooke had us up bright and early to go blueberry picking: my favorite and least favorite berry to pick. We were all hungry so the kids and I got some donuts from KwikTrip. Plus an egg and sausage biscuit for me. We're such Wisconsinites at heart. The blueberry farm is only open until 12. If we left at our normal pace it would have been closed by the time we got there. She is right. The kids and I tried to go blueberry picking last week during Scott's surgery but they were closed due to short staffing.  Blueberry picking is so much work. And it was hot. I will never complain that it's hot again after camping in Texas in July while pregnant. Nothing can compare to how miserable that was.  Unlike last year, where we got so many blueberries on one bush, this year was more of a hunt.  At least Meadow is as into as I am.  I was hoping to get a whole bucket, but this amount would do.  Usually we save swimming for the end of the day but decided to do it right after....

  I had  finished painting two coats on most of the porch. Unfortunately I wouldn't be helping with the floors as I had surgery. After dropping Scott off at the hospital real early, I took the kids out for breakfast.  We had planned to go blueberry picking but the farm was closed due to being short staffed. We stopped at a playground until we figured out our next adventure.  Luckily we brought our swimsuits. We swam at the St Croix Boom Site until it was time to pick up our patient. 

  With our renters out of town, I cleaned the porch walls and Brooke cleaned up the old doorbells and other hardware. It was time to paint the lower porch. It felt like it took so long doing ours and we didn't even paint the floors. I was not looking forward to doing it all over again. I was excited though to strip all the paint on the doorbells. I had been wanting to do it since we moved in. I mean look at the detailing on it.  So long lead paint.  The backside looked like it was going to be copper but they're brass. I love the color variation. 

We kicked of the 4th weekend with c ottage breakfast pancake art.  Theo couldn't wait to get in the water, but his cousins beat him to it. Grandpa brought up the wood chipper that used to be in our shed at the duplex. He got it sharpened and working order, but it doesn't work well. Oh, well. We tried. It's basically just loud. I was surprised by how few wood chips come out.  Harvey and Nolan started to make a frog habitat. I wondered aloud why the wetland on either side of us wasn't good enough.