a trip to the minnesota zoo

All weekend I told the kids we would go The Minnesota Children's Museum on Monday to see the Thomas the Train exhibit. I hyped it pretty well. Unfortunately museums are closed on Monday's...a fact my sister gently reminded me of just as we were about to hop in the car. After tears and promises to go on Tuesday, we decided to seize the day and pack a picnic for the Minnesota Zoo.

Rory had recently taken the kids to the zoo and came home raving about how impressive the zoo has become. He likened it to Epcot (a pretty high compliment!) and commented on how each exhibit area has a whole theme...the architecture of each building matches where the animals are from, the animals are grouped with animals you'd see all in a particular region and the exhibits are nicely designed. I was excited that he was so enthused and was eager to get back myself.

The zoo was awesome as ever, but the biggest change that I noticed this time was my kids. Oh my. They are getting so big. And helpful. I don't think I'll bring the stroller anymore. It was a pain to push, and no one really sat in it for very long. Ivar and Elsie are the perfect zoo-visiting age and the day together was so, so fun. I was so aware of our life stage right now...we don't require a whole lot of gear and on the whole are pretty low maintenance. It was really great.

We played a game in the aquarium, looking at the pictured fish and trying to find it in the tank. The kids loved this game and we could have stayed for ages.

The current favorites for my kids were the penguins (they're by the rocks above, but clearly didn't make the picture...I was obviously more into photographing my kids than the animals!), turtles and the monkeys. They also loved playing in the bee hive play space and they each touched a snake. I didn't, but I was proud they did.

motherhood is a ride

Rory needed the house silent today while he took a few sales calls. And since we were still in our pajamas and couldn't really go out in public, I decided to take the kids on a country drive. I kept telling the kids, "oh that's a pretty picture!" and stopping the car to take the shot. Later they were telling me, "Pretty Picture! Mom, take that picture!"

We drove to a nearby town and got lunch at the meat locker. We played at the park and did a show for each other, showing our jumping jack skills, demonstrating our favorite give-me-five tricks and singing our favorite songs.

So here's what I was thinking about while on this super lovely outing: each day in motherhood feels like a bit of a crap-shoot. It's as if dice actually are rolled before I wake up, and the trajectory of our day greets me and asks me to adapt. It's why motherhood is the ultimate test in selflessness. Because some days require total selflessness. But other days are like today. They take you on adventures with your kids where you can't believe your life is this grand. Days when your heart is overflowing with gratitude for these two little lives who make for super fun company on these random outings.

And actually it's not days that are the crap-shoot... it's minutes. Everything changes in a matter of moments when little kids are involved.

So you end up with pictures like the one above where there are two happy and joyful kids, playing hard and life is awesome. But what I didn't know is that Elsie is running over to the swing to try to fly like superman. Except she's going to miss her fulcrum and tip forward, planting her face on the gravel below.  And this moment will be followed by screams and sobs until we pull ourselves together to go meet a dog and his old man owner who are walking through the park and distract us back to happiness.

Motherhood is a ride.

On the way home I turned down a new gravel road that, as it turns out, did not loop me back the way I thought it would. I was sincerely lost, scanning the horizon at every high point looking for a grain elevator that might point to some sort of town nearby. Eventually I spotted a tall elevator and found the town we had left about twenty minutes earlier.

And as it turns out, life is the ride.

God is so good, He's so good to me.

I'm not sure what kind of head-grabbing silly game they were playing in the stroller, but my kids really enjoy each other. They laugh so hard together. Sometimes they laugh because they're being naughty and not listening to me. But even that is kind of cute because they're in cahoots together. (I mean it's cute for like four seconds. But still cute.)

On Saturday night we moved Elsie's crib into Ivar's room. The first night it seemed like it might have been a terrible idea, but three nights later and I think we have a successful set up.

Their bedtime chit chat is crazy cute. Ivar will tell Elsie things and she will repeat his words and add an "ohh yaaa" like an old Scandinavian woman. Two nights ago I caught them singing and recorded the baby monitor (sideways, apparently). The words they are singing is "God is so good, He's so good to me." It's from their Veggietales CD and at the end of the song Larry the cucumber says, "That's nice Bob." And Junior the asparagus says, "Ya, that's nice Bob." (you will need to know this so you can tell what they are saying...) Now prepare yourself for some cuteness.


god is so good from Becca Groves on Vimeo.

spiffin' up the place

I have blogged now for seven years. SEVEN. Holy smokes. This past spring I told Rory, "I think I'm in it for the long haul." And he said, "Oh you think?"

This past year I had three years worth of blog posts printed and bound in three beautiful books that hold stories and pictures that I found worthy to post. What a joy. I love thumbing through these hard cover books. I'm proud of them. And so glad I took the time.

And so it was at some point this summer that I decided to keep at it. To try to blog well, to write with honesty and to add things to the world that draw attention to the good stuff: family, creativity and faithful living that points to Jesus.

It was about that time that I found a blog that knocked my socks off. The design was stunning, the content was creative and beautiful and the writing felt genuine and true. I was so inspired and found the link for the artist who designed her blog and inquired to have her redesign my own blog.

And here it is. Tada!

No kidding, when Heather of Life Made Lovely, sent me her original proof for the blog I started jumping up and down around the kitchen table. Ivar was amused and curious and afraid. I was laughing and yelping. I loved how she took my ideas and made my life look so lovely.

The honest truth is that I don't have any huge ambitions with this blog. I don't see myself ever making any money through this thing. (though that would be awesome!) But part of that kind of blogging requires some sort of self-marketing. And every time I go near that idea I cringe. Maybe one day I'll be ready to go for it. But for now I love my readers, I love that I can blog about anything under the sun and I really love keeping my life journal up here on ze world wide web.

As always, I am grateful that I have so many faithful readers and love sharing my life in this way. My hope for the future is to continue to share a glimpse into our family, living our lives with creative purpose, always pointing to Jesus.

trouble in the bee hive

The walk to my honeybees leads me through our grove and then through our field. And every time, when I finally make my way I round the grove so the hives are in eye shot, I hold my breath. Because I love my bees and want them to thrive. But weird things are happening to bees like colony collapse and I feel like I'm sort of waiting for something to go wrong. My greatest fear is that I'll round the corner and find my bees have swarmed and are gone or that disease has set into my hives or that the bees have died. I am strangely attached to my bees. And I would be devastated if something happened.

Last Friday I put on my gear, rounded the corner and found a scattering of dead bees at the base of each hive. I wanted to cry. I felt so responsible, so helpless and so sad. I loaded my smoker and slowly watched the activity around the hives.

There wasn't a whole lot to watch...the runway that is usually dense with bees flying in and out of the hive was pretty quiet. So I opened the first hive and saw lots of bees in there, moving pretty slowly. There wasn't a lot of buzzing but they seemed to be fanning themselves a lot.

I opened the second hive and it was about the same. The bees were still there, but they were less active. I walked back to the house and called my bee teacher, Adam. And then I got on a bee keeping forum and explained what I had seen.

I didn't have any answers and left for an overnight with my cousins and aunts and mom and sister and found myself at the Stockholm, Wisconsin farmers market later that night. There I met a woman selling hot pepper jelly, sweetened with her own honey and told her about my bees.

I told her all that I had seen and that I was pretty upset to see my hives look so weak. Clearly something terrible was wrong with dead bees surrounding the hives. And then she told me the 713th crazy bee fact I have learned since starting this whole adventure: She explained that because it had been so hot the day before and gotten so chilly over night the bees were likely preparing for winter. And that to prepare for winter the female bees will clean house by stinging the male bees to death so they don't have to house and feed the moochers eating their honey all winter long.

What in the world?!! Oh I died. I was so relieved my hives are fine (actually, this is a sign of health she said!) and so shocked by the murders that had happened in my hives that morning. So much of what I have read about hives and bee colonies paints this glorious utopia-like picture of a society that works in unity, each person fulfilling their particular job, working hand in hand to get the job done.

But somehow they have left out the part where the women kill off all the men before wintertime.

At any rate, I was relieved. And humored. And taken aback. All at the same time. I left the farmers market with my mom and sister, aunts and cousins and went out for a lovely dinner to kick off our girls getaway. How very fitting.