Italian House for lunch

Just heading out of Janesville, Wisconsin. We had a lovely classic Italian meal, ravioli, manicotti and spaghetti. Now some will nap and one will drive. Looking forward to out stop on Tomah for some raspberry ale.

WE SKIED ON SUNDAY!

3 whole inches and we raced down to the Rose Garden to carve it up! We of course were the first and only skiers that morning. Super fluffy and fun snow. Good weather, great company, happy kid and dog! Loved every minute. Minnesota is awesome.

Our Dog Loves Snow

Finn can't believe his luck that after this long hot Summer and Fall, his dream has come true and snow came again. We got about 3 inches and even some ice to chew on. Finn has spent many hours rolling around on his back in the white stuff, gnawing on ice bergs and just laying around on the deck soaking it all in. As you revel in the beautiful 50 degree weather on Thanksgiving Day, think of poor Finny and how hot and miserable he will be.

The knight on the fridge

Owen drew this guy this morning pretty cool shading and shadow.

Saturday in East Harriet

Check out EastHarriet365 to see our photos each week. Joel and Brenda do the Saturday shift.

Arm and Leg Breaking Weekend

Between the old ski-erg machine and our shocking to the system (knees) but super fun 2 hour run we're a little broken tonight. Ski-erg is some kind of wattage measurer and the Balance Club (Owen included pulled on the arm pulley thing for 30 seconds each. Owen believes his arms to be broken.

This morning we had a gloomy, windy, but oddly balmy 45 degrees for our Sunday morning run. My bright idea from last week was to run for two hours. We ran slowly around Eloise Butler, Quaking Bog and Jar Hill then stopped by Wirth Beach.

Here's our 1 hour crew! Joel's taking the photo.

Then we went out for the second hour through JD Rivers and up North through the Golf Course, up to Golden Valley to the BMX park and back down. By the time we returned to the lake it was significantly colder. My fingers were so cold I couldn't turn the key in the car lock.

Here's our 2 hour completion gang. Susan's taking the photo.

You gotta love Minnesota for being Minnesota. Embrace it or...move, I guess.

Spooky! Cowgirl, Ninja and Steve?

Oooh Alex is such a cute tiger

Home improvement classes offered at Casa woodbut

Haven't you always wanted to learn to dig a post hole for your fence? Learn to paint a room? Hold a paint brush without it dripping on the floor? ION experts are here to help.

En Garde

Did you know that the Ninonator is now a fencer? He did a Saber summer camp and is now Foiling this Fall. Sorry for the bad puns. Here he us dueling in class at the Minnesota Sword Club. The space is in a basement that used to be a bowling alley. Now full of kids with swords.

Swing Dancin' at the Barton All School Morning Meeting

A little bird let me know that Owen's dance class were doing a one song swing dance at the meeting last Friday. I ran home to grab the Flip and came up with some great amateur video of the performance. I don't have NFL Circle technology, but you can see Owen in a blue hoodie in the way back at the left. I think he is actually dancing, very slowly, but dancing. I'm still working on uploading this 5 minute video, but you can see him in the stills.

I know I'm a terrible blogger, but I do want you to go to another blog...

Joel and I are the Saturday photographers for our neighborhood blog, EastHarriet365. It's a photo a day kind of site. Click here to see our work.

Art in the Park photo by Brenda

We're back!

After a lovely long week of watching the world go by. The Woodbut's are back from the North.  We went first to Chicago to watch Nicky graduate from high school. Go Huskies! Last Monday morning we jumped in the car for a 10 hour endurance car trek to the Boundary Waters. We were about 35 miles North of Grand Marais. I'm attaching an iMovie here of our trip. Enjoy!

Owen get a win.

This last weekend was the first in a mountain bike racing series. Owen competed in the kids comp division and got first, Way to go Bumper!

Here is a shot of Owen on the home stretch.

Spring soccer

Hey all,



I took some pictures of neal and his team at soccer this week.

Here is a link to an online gallery. http://www.jwoodwarddesign.com/clients/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=32&Itemid=28.

We did go on Vacation

I took a few moments to look at the blog and realized that I should make record of our vacation in Florida. We enjoyed the beautiful summer-like weather daily on the Naples beach. Doing nothing more than encouraging melanoma and allowing sleep to take us over for one full week was fabulous.

Once again the early bird does get the worm or at least gets to see the dolphins and sting rays. April must be a bad month for sand dollars and calico crabs because we didn't see a one. Rats for Neal, who looked and looked. He was even seen trying to dig a tunnel to Cuba in hopes of running into a few crabs--no luck.

We did have one wonderfully grumpy, crabby and disfunctional morning paddling on the Estero River where we did see a manatee swimming beside us. We couldn't get a photo of the guy, but he was there.  The next day we were on a roll and the boys saw a manatee in the surf at the beach at the condo.

Thanks Gappi and Grandpa B--we had a blast.

Woodbut's Hit New Low of Interest

After viewing the new vimeo video site featuring A-But, I'm left feeling a bit defeated. I have no cute kid pictures or videos. No adorable stories to share and no heart warming anecdotes to offer. I rifled through my recent photo files and found nothing extraordinary, in fact, I'm offering something that one of the Woodbut kids captured while on vacation in Florida. Gappi should feel honored that the buttons on her elevator have made such an impression on them, so as to take a photo of the panel.

Here it is, the exciting button panel on the elevator at Le Ciel.

Hello From Hayward

Here are the warm blooded Woodbuts out for the weekend in the land of snow and cold. Here you will find us, with Henry Mullen, on the streets of Hayward Wisconsin awaiting the start of the Birkie Family Fun Race. The only real impediment to the fun here was the 10 degree starting temperature. Our toes were getting pretty cold waiting around out there. Owen and Henry did a 10k double loop around the downtown and nearby golf course. Joel, Neal and Brenda did the 5k single loop of the above course.

Had we only known then that the temperature for the big races the next day would continue to plummet. Starting temp was definitely subzero on Saturday morning. Joel got a bit of frost bite on his chin and cheeks, just adding misery to the already grueling 51k race/ski marathon. Brenda had a fun and successful first run at the korteloppet--short course of 24k. Korte means short and loppet means race.

The story of the birkebeiners goes like this: Back in Norway about 1200 CE, there was a lot of trouble between the people that lived there. Some liked the King, Haakon, others liked the other guy. His dudes were called the Baglers. When Haakon died in 1202, he left behind a little baby and the other guys wanted to kill Prince Haakon Jr. The Birkebeiners were on Haakon's side and they made a historical trek  through treacherous mountains and forests, taking  two-year-old Haakon Haakonsson to safety in Trondheim. Norwegian history credits the Birkebeiners' bravery with preserving the life of the boy who later became King Haakon the 2nd.  The fun part of the American Birkebeiner is that there is always a trio, two guys and a lady with a baby strapped to one person's back that ski the entire 50+ k race course. They do it in burlap sack looking clothes and on wooden clunky old skis that look like they were made in 1202. They of course are elite skiiers chosen for the part so they can whiz by the participants and make them feel really crummy about their own physical abilities when passed by a dude in rags on wood planks with a fake baby on his back.

Here is a famous painting of the Birkebeiners whisking Haakon Jr. to safety.

To finish off the story of cold and skiing, I will add historic eating. We stopped in Cumberland, WI on the way home. To the Corner Bar we went to eat a ginormus basket of all things fried. This was a first for all but one Woodbut, Brenda had been here before and partook of this basket. Here is the photo of only a part of what we ate for lunch post-Birkebeiner.

Yes, fries, onion rings, mozzerella sticks, jalapeno poppers, mini corn dogs, mushrooms, shrimp poppers... all of that fried goodness is stuffed into that mound of orange. I believe that even that bread on top was fried in some way. We ate it all, our poor arteries.

Brenda and Finn

Here's Brenda and Finn. good times had by all.

What's Fun to do in Minneapolis? Skijoring, of course.

Here (joel will insert) some skijoring footage from the weekend. Finn is amazingly strong and seems to like the skiing/running. Until we run into some other dogs we do pretty well. Once there is a loose dog that looks like it is having more fun, Finn tries to take off. He skiied about 10k on Saturday. We'll try again tomorrow.