Aunt Ruth's Visit!

Between our camp trip and the trip to Columbus, Aunt Ruth came out for a week. We had a great time and Ruth was characteristically generous, cleaning out our garage (!!!), painting the sun porch (!!!!), putting up a wall-mounted clock in the family room, making and re-making an amazing frozen dessert, taking care of the boys, picking out a new lamp for Sam's room and shopping with Susan for living-room drapes. It feels like a new house now. 

Oh, and watched about nine episodes of Firefly with us. :-)

Sam delivered his Lion presentation from last spring to Aunt Ruth, culminating in a lion quiz.

We recently scored a train table from friends Barb and David whose son Ian has outgrown it. Josh has enjoyed it tremendously. Here Aunt Ruth helps him with the finer points.

It did get a little hot, at least for Rochester. Nothing like the 100-degree weather SD and OH have been seeing. But that didn't stop Aunt Ruth and Josh from cooling off with some fine children's literature.

Found this on the camera. You get to decide whose socks are whose.

Sam and his friend Zachy cooling off with the hose.

Every summer Sam attends the Hochstein art and music camp for a week, culminating in a group presentation. This year it had a native American theme. Happily, Aunt Ruth was able to join us. 

While Aunt Ruth visited, Josh did his best to undo the cleaning she was accomplishing. Here he's been left alone in the living room with a box of Cheerios, and has done the natural thing, coating the carpet with them. He was pleased: food everywhere!