August?!

Tomorrow is the first day of August. I can't believe it. We'll be enjoying fall colors and sweater weather before you can say "boo!" More importantly, we'll be enjoying cheese curds and alligator on a stick in just a few short weeks! Hooray Minnesota State Fair!!!

We spent last weekend (friday 'til tuesday) at the cottage. Hadre, Brad, and Courtney were up there, as well as MIL and DIL. Chris and I went to the Lumberjack Championships in Hayward on Saturday. They weren't as exciting as I had imagined they would be (partly due to rain), but it was fun to do something different. It was so nice to see Heather and the kids, and so much fun to watch Audia and her cousins interact. She certainly had a fun time playing with them! I wish I had a few photos of Courtney and Audia playing (you would think that I would have at least ONE in the 700+ photos I took...), but alas I have none. Hopefully Hadre or MIL have a couple they can send my way.....

While we were up there, little miss mobile (aka Audia) figured out how to climb on top of her toy box when it was flipped over, as well as how to climb up the stairs from the beach to the cottage. She's also learned to point to her nose when you say "nose" and to her ear when you say "ear" (most of the time.....she still sometimes points to her nose when you say "ear"). She is giving her animals, and me, hugs when I say "Can you give *object name* a hug?", which is a total thrill....of course I am always asking for hugs now. Her hugs are the BEST!

On the way home, we couldn't resist stopping on the side of the road to get some photos of our little "child of the corn"....hehehehe

I've been trying to figure out for some time now if I should start a seperate blog to talk about non-Audia related things, but have decided to keep just the one. Bleary-eyed ramblings don't always have to be child-rearing-related bleary-eyed ramblings, do they?

Anyhoo, my good friend N and her hubby, D, who have a daughter, A, who is just a week older than Audia, are moving to MN at the end of August!!! I am sooooo excited. It is so funny how things work out; we had our daughters in the same month and now we're both moving back to MN in the same year! I so look forward to play dates galore with her, and watching our little ones grow up together :-) I love all my friends dearly, but there is something just so nice about having good friends who are at the same place in life as you.

As a mini side-note, I've been reading a very interesting book this past week called 'Godless: How an evangelical preacher became one of America's leading atheists'. It's written by Dan Barker who is, as the title suggests, an evangelical preacher-turned-atheist. I would highly reccommend it to anyone who is interested in why someone would chose to be an atheist, as well as to any atheists and/or agnostics who are interested in getting to know the bible a little better from a rationalistic (as opposed to theism-imposing) standpoint. Next, I'd like to read a book written by an atheist-turned-believer.