Fairmont or Bust / Busted in Fairmont

We recently went to beautiful Fairmont, Minnesota to visit Henry and Violet's great grandma Dina, who is recovering from a stroke. We drove down with Grandma Judy. We rolled five deep in the Honda Accord with Grandma Judy flanked by car seats on both sides. There were no major meltdowns on the way down. Our pit stop at the Dairy Queen in LeSeuer may have been our saving grace. It was a Brazier.

There was some of this...

And some of this...

Dina was in great spirits for our visit and Henry and Violet wasted no time in challenging her to a wheelchair race down the hall. I honestly don't remember who won.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn and it is the most exotic vacation we have yet to take as a family.

Violet thoroughly enjoyed herself in the pool.

There were only a handful of near death experiences in the kiddie pool under my watchful eye.

This was bedtime -- after I returned from dropping of Grandma Judy at Dina and George's house. I was given a ticket on the way back to the hotel for failure to display current registration and failure to provide proof of insurance. I was unaware that it was my duty to keep current vehicle tabs on the wife's vehicle and we had been driving with expired tabs for about five months. And I didn't know where the proof of insurance was. We were able to get that dropped. Anyhow, I wasn't about to let the stiff arm of the law ruin our exotic vacation.

Violet was pretty excited for Easter.


She quickly got the hang of the Easter Egg Hunt...

And was on an unadulterated sugar high for at least the next six hours. She ate all candy as fast as she could find it. She may have look disinterested and aloof but she has several peanut butter cups in her mouth in the photo below.

Henry got the hang of things pretty well too...


Living with a three and a half year old continues to be a never ending source of amusement and aggravation. The things that come out of Henry's mouth can astound and befuddle me all at the same time. Henry and I have been working on fixing the Subaru without success. I think it might be a lost cause. I have been unable to re-thread the spark plug that blew out a couple weeks back. The other day, I was working on the car and Henry was crawling around under the hood randomly hitting things with a ball-peen hammer. I was getting nowhere with what I was trying to accomplish when Henry turned to me and said matter-of-factly "Dad, this is pretty tough. We better do a high-five when we're done." He really comes through with some gems when I need them the most.

Henry is totally potty trained except that we normally have him wear a diaper at night. Lately, if we feel confident that he hasn't had to much to drink and went pee before bed we will just let him wear the big boy undies to bed. It didn't work out so hot one night. It must have been about 5:30AM or so when momma and I woke up to Henry's angry and confused screaming.

"WHO POURED WATER ALL OVER ME IN MY BED?!"

"WHY DID SOMEONE PUT WATER IN MY BED?!"

"MY CLOTHES AND BED ARE WET!! WHY?!"

He was screaming, hysterical and inconsolable for at least five minutes. I think momma and I had to try pretty hard not to bust out in giggles while tending to his emotional needs. It seemed to fall in line with his current stage.

Henry had an absolutely brilliant idea the other day. I'm just going to go ahead and put it out there. He was running around naked and I was trying to convince him to get dressed. I told him to put his underwear on and he said he wished that there were pants with built-in underwear like swim trunks. It blew me away. I waste at least twenty seconds ALMOST EVERY DAY putting on underwear and I'm guessing some people take even longer. He obviously has the mind of a truth seeker and pragmatist.

Henry was eating out of a box of Teddy Grahams the other day and pointed to a recipe for a smoothie on the box -- a container of yogurt, some applesauce, ice cubes, and a handful of Teddy Grahams. Not bad. He now calls it a "swirlie".