Jumping to the End of June!

First, a few photos from Nick's phone from the June 17th flooding.

A trip to Dairy Queen, watching the traffic on Highway 2.

Notice Greta's shorts . . .

 Checking out the lake after the flood.  Lilly refused to get out of the stroller. 

One of our adventures/tasks this summer was tennis.  Lilly did tennis three days a week for June and July.  She loved it and Greta loved going to go watch Lilly play tennis.  It was terrific to watch Lilly's incredible focus during every practice and how much she learned by the end of the time.  These photos are from the start of tennis.

These photos go along with the science instructional videos from an earlier post.

Greta would run around in the grass, play with a racket and a ball during much of Lilly's practice.

Our girls are nothing but fashionable:

More science with baking soda and vinegar on the driveway.

The Brainerd Bunch had a soccer tournament in Duluth, and like last year, we headed over to watch a little bit.  And like last year, it was rather cold!  We watched some of Nole's soccer game, played a bit at the park, then went out for lunch with them at Canal Park Brewery (like last year).  Afterward we went to the park near the Aquarium to play (like last year).  Lilly was having some stomach pains, so was reluctant to play at the park, but after being in the trunk of the van for a few minutes reading, she was ready to go out and play with her cousins.

We attempted to get another picture of the cousins/grandkids in the circles again but were not very successful.  I think someone else got a better picture but didn't share with me.  At least this time Lilly didn't fall out of her circle.

So, those stomach pains of Lilly's came back the next morning, but this time in full force.  We knew something was certainly up when she told me she couldn't go to summer school.  While talking to her about how she was feeling, she puked up a massive amount of water.  A call to the nurse's hotline then told us we needed to bring her to the emergency room because they would have access to imaging equipment right away.   They were thinking she might have appendicitis.  So Nick took her, I focused on trying not to worry and keep Greta from suspecting something was up.  

No need to give a long recount of the day, but highlights: it took 5 tries to get her IV started, her white blood cell count was twice what it should be, and her CT scan was inconclusive.  That meant she'd be admitted for observation to see if she needed to have surgery.  Luckily, by lunchtime it was determined not to be appendicitis, no surgery, and we'd be able to go home around dinner.  Phew!  Lots of stress, an IV that drove her crazy, lots of popsicles (and Greta got in on those when we were there), some junk TV that we don't have access to nor would we'd let her watch, and a diagnosis of some stomach bug that we can never keep in our head.   We asked about summer school and tennis, the surgeon said to probably stay home from summer school, on Tuesday but if she was still feeling great tomorrow evening, she was free to go to tennis.

In the afternoon, Greta and Nick went home, I stayed with Lilly.  Lilly came out of the bathroom to see the same woman who had drawn her blood down in the emergency room, waiting to stick her again.  The look on Lilly's face just broke my heart.  She was done getting poked.  Before coming back to the hospital, Nick and Greta made a Walmart run and got Lilly some Legos and a Bop-it for doing such a great job at the hospital.

Since she wasn't able to go to summer school, that meant she had to tag along to story time at the library, which Lilly was excited about.  Then to Greta's Super Hero class.  This was the visit from the fire department.  Greta was just content to watch and not get close, much like the previous week with the police department.

Yes, I know there is a giant fire truck behind me, but I'm reading!

Feeling all better, Lilly did go to tennis that night (not without giving us a few scares during the midmorning and early afternoon with more stomach pains).  After that, it was like nothing happened, save for the bruise on her arm.

The pool was set up when it was very warm in the afternoon.  The winds shifted, and they played in the pool even though it was quite cold.  Just not for very long!

Lilly taught Greta a yoga class.

I asked the girls to sort the jackets and this is what they did instead . . . 

The girls worked really hard to clean up the house and keep it clean.  They were working to earn a playhouse for the backyard.  The requirements to get the playhouse were earned by the time the playhouse was to be delivered, so we were able to assemble the following morning.

It was delivered in this giant truck.

 The box turned out to be quite a bit more fun than the playhouse for awhile.

We couldn't assmemble it the evening it arrived, so the girls and I started to put it together the following morning.  I really wanted it to be this amazing, look what we girls can do, we don't need a man to help us build this playhouse experience.  Unfortunately, we did.  It took two strong people to hold pieces together to screw them in.  After much more time than we had hoped, the house was assembled and the girls were able to play in it.

That evening (and it was our anniversary) we had friends over for grilled pizza.  They have three girls (and one was coming soon), so we pulled out the big pool and the girls had fun playing and enjoying the new playhouse.  And the playhouse box.  Lilly and her good friend Magda went into the box and Lilly read to her.

They also had a tattoo parlor, covering one another with many, many tattoos.

Phew!  One week of summer (sort of, teacher inservice starts on Tuesday) and just July and August left to cover.