Family Visit

Alex is at a stage where he really likes having books read to him. Over the past weekend, my parents were in town and he was able to take advantage of the opportunity to have Senelis (grandfather in Lithuanian) read to him:


My dad's cousin, Aleksandra, was also in town. She really clicked with Alex, and enjoyed playing with him:



We had a really full house, since Lori (Pams' sister) and her son Braden were in town. Alex and Braden had a blast in the bathtub splashing each other (as well as Pam and Lori):


The full set of pictures can be found at:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=16ah43nr.a8nas4mb&x=0&y=amn8qu&localeid=en_US

Two Harbors Kayak Festival

We spent the weekend up in Two Harbors, MN at the annual kayak festival. I won my division in the kayaking race, which worked out to about 10th overall out of around 80 boats. It was the hardest I've pushed myself since I did the Turtleman Triathalon in 2004.

In addition to the racing, they also have kayak demos for people to try. Alex realizes that all good kayaking starts with the right paddle. So, his first course of action was to investigate the differences between my european style paddle (the Werner Kaliste):


and the traditional, or greenland style paddle:


These are important decisions that will affect his life greatly, and should be made only after great consideration.

We camped at the Burlington Bay campground, which ended up being a bit of a challenge with Alex. He was not feeling 100%, and so getting him to sleep was problematic. In the morning, however, we had a lot of fun reading books to him in the tent:

He enjoys a little breakfast milk with his book:


We are reading "You and Me" by Martine Kindermans to him. This is currently one of his favorite books, and he can easily sit through 5 back-to-back readings! It's a story about two geese, parent and child, that describes how they are always there for each other.