Lately

Ethan is getting big enough now that Maegan enjoys interacting with him. He loves it when she gets down on his level and talks to him. The biggest laughs I've heard from Ethan resulted from Maegan's antics.

We've been staying busy here at home. Last Saturday, Maegan helped us wash outside windows. She liked to squirt ("firt") the cleaning solution onto the glass. Matthew cleaned out the gutters (for the third time in six months, I believe) and mowed. He also split some logs for our fireplace. We have a really nice Jotul woodburning insert in our fireplace that we have enjoyed on a couple of cool evenings lately.

Matthew also took on the task of removing the carburetor assembly from the motorcycle, cleaning it and putting it all back together. It wasn't wanting to start or stay running, and whatever he did seemed to work. I took a quick ride Saturday and put it out on Craig's List for sale. We'd love to keep it, but it doesn't make sense since we don't have time to ride very often anyway.

We signed up for the Drake University American Family Friendship Program. Our "adoped" international student, Tianyi, is from China. He's a freshman in the actuarial science program and we're having fun getting to know him and we're learning a lot about China. We're looking forward to tasting his cooking this weekend. He's from the area of China that makes spicy Szechuan food.

And here's a picture of Maegan at 3 years old. I realized I didn't post any good pictures of her face from her birthday, so I took this one today so you can see how cute she is. :)