Welcome back to another exciting edition of:
WHAT THE SAM HILL HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO?!
Today's featured family is the Karger Tifts from marvelous Minnesota. They've settled into their new home nicely and seem to be doing well despite spending nearly all day every day under the same roof. Let's check in and see exactly... WHAT THE SAM HILL HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO!
Our last visit into the Karger Tift residence left us on pins and needles, wondering if those dear, eyeball-shedding caterpillars would make it through to the next metamorphic milestone.
Well, faithful readers, not only have Joe Mauer and Monarch Boy successfully undergone significant insectile changes, but they've emerged from their gilded chrysalises to reveal their true identities as Josephine Mauer and Monarch Girl! Unfortunately, it is probably too late in the year for the butterflies to make an attempt to migrate, so they will most likely winter over (read: croak) in the care of Leah and her mommy. It's been a wild ride, Monarchs!
The family's youngest member, Natalie, has traded in her patella-free knees for a pair of tasty little feet. She's a walkin' talkin' goofball and is in almost constant motion. Every day she gets a little sturdier and a little faster and her doting parents couldn't be prouder. (Video note: Relax, the strange gurgling sound you may hear at Natalie's approach comes from her throat, and not from... well, you know. This video was also abruptly ended when Natalie's curious little sausage fingers managed to nab the camera from her mommy's hands. Thankfully no one was harmed.)
Our featured family hasn't spent all it's time behind closed doors. So let's take a look at the Karger Tifts during some of their recent outdoor activities.
Darling Leah and her mother joined Grandma Jan's 3rd and 4th grade cherubs on a field trip to a local garden where on one visit, they planted cloves of garlic. Mmmmm... garlic. Jan's class adored Leah and boys and girls alike took turns carrying her as if she was aged a mere quarter of her years. The kids were great. The instructors at the garden were great. The day was great.
The family of four also trekked back to their previous residence in Wisconsin to raise many glasses of good brew with friends, ring in the big 3-0 for Marnie's not-so-younger-anymore brother, and to see what if anything had changed in the fair MadTown since they had left two months before. Once again, Marnie failed to take as many photos as she should have, but she did manage to click one at the zoo here,
and one of a beautiful, old truck parked by Matthew's work building.
They just don't make 'em like they used to, right folks?
And with the return of fall, that strange period when Demeter begins her annual mourning over the loss of her foolish daughter, comes the requisite family tradition of visiting an apple orchard/pumpkin farm. Yes, the place that totes camera-eyed city slickers around on straw bale seated flat beds pulled by ancient Farmalls, the place where for a moment you get swept up in the colors and smells of harvesting and you toy with the idea of dropping everything to be an apple breeder, the place where grandparents shell out more money than you should ever pay for a single pumpkin only because it's the one that their doe-eyed granddaughter picked out, and the place where eating a carmelled apple feels like the healthiest, most god-given act a person can do on a Saturday afternoon. Incidentally, it's also the place where you can let your kids play in a giant corn silo. Leah, ever able to transform into some variety of wildcat, used the opportunity to play the role of a poor, captured cheetah, separated from her family and turning wilder by the second.
Back at home, our charming featured family, stuck to more domestic activities. Leah enjoyed working on a little Halloween craft project sent to her from her very bestest buddy, Nate, back in Madison (Thanks Nathan!),
Matthew attacked the deck with a power washer and a scrub brush-- the prep work necessary to ready the deck for resealing,
and they all enjoyed tearing into a Jack-o-Lantern pizza for din-dins.
With the falling leaves (and acorns, branches, and myriad other tree debris), there is real, genuine, unfiltered sunlight slanting through the windows into the Karger Tift house for the first time in their possession. During the season when the daylight hours lessen, the rooms are brighter and more cheerful than ever. The irony is so thick, you could cut it with a knife. Exclamations and exaltations are spoken frequently as members of the house sight bright boxes of light on the carpets, or as they find they can prepare meals in the kitchen without additional light sources. Perhaps they won't become blind cave rats afterall.
Jack, the family dog who thinks he's a cat, finds these new sun patches exceptionally wonderful.
Ahhhhhhh.
Well, that's it for our show today folks. Please join us again some time for another exciting and informative edition of WHAT THE SAM HILL HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO?!
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