Halloween, the fall out

Scoring treats at the Steins, the hat got too hot for Cecilie so the last couple of houses she hoodless

Home again home again, jiggedy jig; time to inspect the loot

One very contented monkey...

...and an exceptionally tired kitty cat

Halloween I

This is from Cecilie's Halloween parade at school, her fiend Ellie is PrincessTiger Lilly, they all marched over to the Old People's home next door to sing Halloween songs and generally charm them to bits.

The kitty cat and the monkey streching and getting ready for action...

At neighbor Linda's door

Three Nilsen kids out trick or treating

Halloween Party

Some of the 13 children at the table, due to a "public works" issue the Slears joined us a little late...

But when they came they got to tell us all about how to create a vacuum with a round plunger over a square hole (now I know, send an email if you want more details...), Tim in the foreground: checking out his work.

As you can see, this blog entry is really only to brag about the finishing carpentry work we've had done, Tim did such a fine job we haven't even considered starting to paint...

Keegan had a special liking for our spider cookies (licorice laces stuck into double stuffed Oreos, for legs, in case you wonder...)

Farmor's last weekend

We did some Baltimore touristy things to get some ticks in boxes, this is from the Clipper Pride of Baltimore II, and Lars showing off his sealegs.

Then we went on a Quack-tour, partly on land partly on the harbour in an amphibean bus, very exciting...

They gave us "quackers" to blow - made for a loud 90 minutes, but we pretty much covered everything.

This, then, is the begining of a tree house down at the bottom of the yard, don't worry, if you look really closely Cecilie is wearing a safety sling around her waist at the top of the ladder there... ;)

Finally fall

I suppose it was bound to happen, autumn arrived last week, cold and windy and the rain making the commute more fun than I could handle.

Well, we survived and the kids got to trail run their winter wardrobe, which seems to be working OK...

Lars talked his farmor into a monkey suit at Target on Thursday, he LOVES it and he is adorable - I suppose that makes the fireman outfit redundant for Wednesday, luckily we got that one too big.

In the mean time he will be mostly monkeying around...

Birthday partying

Last weekend we went to Cecilie's new class friend, Ellie's birthday party. Lars was embraced as a part of the group and soon got busy working on his skills of seduction.

He's got tatoos in his tool box too...

...and with help from sister and farmor he managed to eat the cake while wearing the hat.

The biggest game of the day was the rocket balloons; the dads blew them up, one kid launched them and they all ran after them - this picture shows the different stances the Nilsen kids took to getting what they wanted...

A Last Sprawl at the Beach

Fall is finally here, but with temperatures matching a nice Norwegian summer day we loaded the vikings in to the car and headed east to the beach, at Lewes DE

At the beach opposite the Lewes lighthouse

Hanging with farmor

Flying our patriotic kite over the dunes

Building the castle

One excited viking

Only the boys made it in to the sea, at 19C (66F) it was actually not too bad once we were in...

Enjoying Indian Summer

We went to a state park yesterday, for a last summery hurray

The diva on the people towel (the people of El Salvador...)Lars has become quite inseparable from his trucks; this is cute until nap/night time -depending on where play has taken place you need a tractor / life guard to navigate his bed...
The obligatory baby burial

Normally this is Maryland's largest waterfall, after a dry dry summer it has become the tallest trickle of water

Made for some fun sliding though... (especially since the lake was too low, I would guess 9 ft (2.5m) below normal, which made it impossible to swim in it - Lars got stuck in the mud to his crotch trying...)

So, did you have a good time...?
After having worked hard on them all summer long, she's finally mastered the monkey bars, pretty good for a girl that has just turned five...

(Note for the pedantic: these were shot with my mum's camera - she hasn't quite figured out the date settings it would seem...)

At the tire park

She's a Good Year girl

Climbing on his onwn

The Nilsens

The Yellow House

To bring you up to speed...

We are back, blogging in the present tense, almost - here the kids are doing a pumpkin ride with Cecilie's class, on Friday...

The dumbfounded pumpkin picker

Made his day!

American Gothic, anno 2007