Ethan has been wanting to grow his hair out. He wants it so long that a braid will go down his back. Jillian is trying to convince him not to do it, but I think it’s his hair and he can do whatever he’d like, so, we’ll see. After he told me he wanted braids though, I had to grab some rubber bands and attempt to braid the longest part of hair I could find on his head. It’s short, so I kept having to add a rubber band and then keep braiding. The cool thing is, Ethan turned into a unicorn with this little hair do. He was giggling, but was pretending to be serious in the pictures, so I told him to give me his pretty face and he gave me this. I swear that kid smiles nicely, he just thinks it’s too fun to look goofy in photos.
Pretending unhappy 
“pretty” face
In the meantime, we’ve been working with Gabe and Jill’s picky eating habits. The night before, Eric made his incredibly delicious bratwurst soup which tastes like a stew/chicken noodle soup hybrid with big thick homemade noodles. Everyone except Gabe gobbled up at least one bowl, so we made a deal that the next meal Gabe ate was his leftover soup. This was his breakfast the next morning instead of his favorite thing on the planet, frosted flakes. Little wins for Dad and Gabe looks quite proud of his accomplishment!
This was the last week of summer where we’d all be together, Joe and Ethan were to fly back to Colorado and spend some time with their dad. I’d asked what the wish list items for each Joe and Ethan were for the last week of summer with us would be. Joe’s requests were antiquing and fishing and Ethan wanted to go kayaking. On our way to go antiquing, we put the awning in and it fell off of the rail again. Of course it was nearly 100 degrees and we’d just showered and got ready to go, but I went to the store and picked up some self tapping screws and Eric and the kids fixed the awning. We had hoped to do a scavenger hunt on an app I bought Eric for Christmas in Coeur d’Lane in addition to antiquing, but by the time the awning was fixed, antique stores and the scavenger hunt museum starting location were closed.
We opted to go to a nice dinner at the lake instead. Everyone had a great time at dinner.
The next day we rented a couple kayaks and went into the water at a little river that feeds into Coeur d’Lane. The water felt like bathtub water compared to the falls we had just endured. I would definitely love to rent one of the properties at the water’s edge. It looked like they were building a tiny house village on one of the site…now THAT would be fun!
Joe attempted to fish. The fishing was actually really good, there were several people around us coming up with catches, and Joe wanted to get some salmon for dinner before they left. He said he caught one, but it got away. He broke his fishing line, had to restring, and then recast. When he came back to us, we saw that he did make a very large catch, just not very edible.
Joe also decided to get out of the kayak in his hilarious face down maneuver. He can be so funny sometimes.
As we said goodbye to the day, Gabe practiced his “Olympics”, some sort of running and jumping thing in the sand, and Jill and Ethan used the sand as canvases to draw masterpieces while they dried off. Their friendship has deepened and they now call each other their best friends, I’m so grateful that they found each other.
Gabe lost his glasses at the waterfalls, so Eric and Gabe went to get a new pair. He got many Harry Potter comments at the lake from strangers, so Jillian decided to give him the official Harry Potter lightning scar. I do like how they frame his big beautiful blue eyes!
Chief and Liberty 