Doin' a Little East Coast Swing...

Minnesota Deans are Rhode Island Deans for a day.

Sadly, it's August again and Jay has started back at work. Fortunately, we were able to squeeze a week back in Mattapoisett, MA to visit Jay's family and enjoy some R & R. I think we have finally found some balance in these trips back - staying busy, but not spreading ourselves too thin.

Tired from a long day at the Buttonwood Park Zoo.

 On our second day back, we enjoyed a trip to Newport, RI to Kristin, Jason & Zoey Honsel's summer place and then spent the afternoon with Sarah & Sam Marcus at Sarah's mom's. While there, we went down to the beach and almost let Lucas wander into the ocean while we surfed through pictures on our cell phones. Watching Lucas play in the backyard with his former Willows Baby Room buddy Sam was one of the highlights. Plus, Lucas pet some baby sharks and that was cool, too.

Karen and Kristin reunited at Newport Beach.

It's been awhile since Lucas and Sam played together.

Sarah and Karen back together again.

Jay's cousin Beth got married to Walter Freitas on July 27th in New Bedford and we all enjoyed a high-octane celebration down at Shining Tides, the site of Camp Massasoit where Jay went to day camp as kid. There was a lot of fun dancing and way too many Manhattans in honor of Bumpa. There's no better place than a wedding to reunite with family. Thanks Beth and Walter for a fun night!

Newlyweds Beth and Walter with Karen and Jay.

The day following the wedding, Jay got together with some old high school friends. This time we decided to include the kids - the first time any of them have met Lucas. It was way too short of a visit, but hilarious quality time. I'm thinking some road trips to Minnesota need to happen soon.

Jay and Karen with "old friends" Karen, Dawneebee, Ben, Chris, Layla, Matt and kids!

The Dean Family Clambake didn't happen full-blast this year, but we still gathered on Harbor Road for "ChowderFest." Jay's cousin Dean and Uncle Jim cooked some tasty chowder (shout out to Jack Dean for doing the leg work and digging for the clams), and we had other varieties of seafood, too. But, who are we kidding? People showed up mainly to see the kids. Lucas put on quite a show in the driveway on his wheelchair with the help of cousin Emily on the Plasma car. He even almost took out Uncle Jim! Jay's cousin Patrick and his wife Melissa showed up with 6-month old twins Maren & Graham, too! Special mention should go to all the family member's who showed up after all of the wedding and bachelorette party weekend festivities.

Lucas with Uncle Greg and Nana.

Dean family members devouring chowder at ChowderFest.

Mike and Jay with Emily and Lucas.

Mostly, we spent a lot of time in Mattapoisett with "Grandpa" and "Nana" Dean and "Uncle Greg." Some of the fun: walking to the end of Harbor Road to watch the construction trucks, visiting the animals and riding the train at the Buttonwood Park Zoo, grilling on the back deck and eating in the gazebo, spending time with Great Nana and other members of the Lucas Dean Fan Club, searching for hermit crabs at the Town Beach, eating ice cream at Oxford Creamery, and simply just lounging around the house watching Curious George and the Olympics. By the way, Karen got to be the center of attention at a Baby Shower for "New Baby Dean" (only 10 weeks to go!).

Jay, Lucas and Grandpa at the Town Beach.

Our daily trip to the end of Harbor Road to watch construction trucks.

Lucas and Emily with Great Nana.

Thanks everyone for making this another trip to remember. See you next summer!

Back at Logan Airport for our return trip back home (!)

A long-awaited post would be nothing without some bonus videos. In order, they are titled "Olympic Driveway Wheel Racing," "Hide, Grandpa, Hide," and "Water Bombing Daddy." Here you go...

Fun in the Sun

J and K kicked off July up in Duluth sans Lucas.

There's nothing better than the summertime, especially for educators like us. We are finally on full-blast summer break mode and have set our sights on finding that balance of relaxation and activity. The last several weeks have been eventful for the Minnesota Deans: a visit from Dara and Remy Marble from the West Coast, a trip to the cabin at Lake Miltona, and Jay and Karen's 24-hour getaway to Duluth to see Wilco. Let's keep this summer train running...in a week and half it's off to visit Jay's family in Mattapoisett, MA. All aboard!

Arguably the summer MVP so far. We've been grilling a lot so far this summer and have tried everything from shrimp to pork kabobs to flank steak, A yummy way to eat for poor people like us!

The sandbox is one of his favorite spots in the backyard.

Lucas has enjoyed working on his new tricycle with his tools.

Reunited at last...Dara and Remy Marble come to the midwest!

We finally got to use the Double Bob again.

Lucas enjoyed ramming his head into Remy and knocking her over.

It was beautiful up at Lake Miltona and we melted the hours away down at the beach. Unfortunately, Jay's wedding band is somewhere on the bottom of the lake.

Lucas recruited some cousins into the mesmerizing world of Curious George.

Lucas and his hero, cousin Max.

Karen taught Lucas how to fish on the same Snoopy pole she learned on!

Happy Birthday, Grandma Bonnie!

Canal Park in Duluth...26 weeks!

Pink

Life in our humble St. Louis Park home continues to move forward at a rather frantic pace; it's hard to keep up sometimes. There's a lot going on for the Minnesota Deans. Time to catch you up...

Back in early May, we celebrated Karen's 34th birthday with an extra special event: a "cake reveal." We invited our Minnesota family over to our house to celebrate with some ice cream and some extra special cake. After our first ultrasound (16 weeks), we delivered a sealed envelope, containing the sex of our new baby, to bakers at the famous Oulette's Bakery and asked them to bake us a cake with either blue or pink cake inside, so we could share the excitement of finding our what "kind' of new baby we would be expecting in October. Here's how it went down...

You could cut the tension with a knife as we all waiting for the dramatic reveal.

Here we go...

It's PINK! Mommy and Daddy are excited. Lucas is confused.

Lucas finally reacts. It's delayed, but he is super psyched for his sister!

The Deans revel in the news while the family erupts with laughter and applause.

In October, this cake will be replaced with a real-life baby girl!

A few weeks later, we ventured up to Blaine for a BBQ to hang out with some of Karen's college friends and their kids over at Worm and Mike's house. Brian and Kristy had dinner plans that night, so they dropped off Ingrid (our niece, Lucas' cousin) so we could take her up to the party with us. It was an early taste of what it might be like to be a family of 4. A lot of work! The kids had a blast playing in the water and Lucas, especially, got nice and muddy. It definitely took all of the adults to corral the kids all afternoon, but we had a really good time and all went well. Luckily, we made it back inside before the hail storm.

Lucas with Taylor Gabrielli doing some mud bonding

How deep can my hand go?

I found my hand again!

Dinner time was a big production

One dry (Ingrid) and one wet (Lucas) cousin.

Here's Karen at 20 weeks. Looking good! Look at how nice our lawn looks, too!

Last but not least, we thought we'd share two of our new favorite videos. In the first one, Lucas is dancing to Jay's rendition of "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain" and Karen gets him to share some new words from his growing vocabulary. In the second, Lucas trains for the 2024 Olympics in backyard downhill cart racing. Enjoy.

Summer Comes Early

Spring has come early this season.  We've had so many sunny, warm days you'd think it should be August already and that we'd be preparing for fall.  I continue to smile everytime I realize it's only the beginning of May and that we will still get to enjoy more months of outdoor weather!

This week, it reached almost 80 degrees.  It seemed like the obvious choice to get the pool out and have the neighborhood boys over.  Everytime people ask us how our transition is going after almost a year away from California we always say it's hard and we miss so much of our life in SoCal.  We also always follow it up by saying, but our neighborhood is so awesome and we couldn't be luckier to have landed in a spot with so many young families and 2 year old boys! Lucas has made the best of friends and begs to play outside with them everytime I open the front door.

Lucas, Will, Charlie, and Hutton enjoying the summer fun!

Tell Us This is Just a Phase...

The many faces of Lucas Dean.

So, Lucas is now 27 months old and he's been running us through the ringer lately. On bad days, he pushes us away, pointing to the other end of the room and shouting, "Go!", but mysteriously clings onto us and won't go down for a nap in the afternoon or to sleep at night (unless we're laying down next to him). Does he want us to go away or does he always want us by his side? I thought teenagers were supposed to send these kinds of mixed messages. Not 2-year-olds. In the end, we have decided to relax and not stress out too much about this new "phase." Seems like we just need to pay him even more attention right now and dig a little deeper into our storage of patience. All I'll say, is he's lucky he's so cute.

The rainy weekend presented an opportunity to head to one of our favorite haunts, the Minnesota Children's Museum. We met up with Karen's friend Worm from college along with her family (husband Mike and their daughters Ryan and Taylor) and Brian, Kristy and Ingrid Rolig. Good times were had by all and we were in and out of there before it got too crowded to move.

Our little Picasso during his "Purple Phase."

Notice the kitty nose and whiskers on his face?

Playing in the "Tot Spot," a pool that has ping pong balls and a maze of plastic tubes. He loved it. To his right is his friend Taylor.

Last weekend, we all headed up to Alexandria to the Rolig cabin. Jay, Brain and Jack put in the dock just before the torrential downpour. It's exciting to think the cabin is open for business. We look forward to many days there this summer. Pretty sure if we're looking for Lucas, he'll be down on the beach digging in the sand.

Fireside at the cabin with cousin Ingrid. I think they're gonna be lifelong pals.

They can't get enough of each other.

"Happy, Happy, Happy..."

This week Jay celebrated his 37th birthday.  Lucas loves birthdays, probably because he continuously says, "happy, happy, happy," to the person we're celebrating and he gets to blow out candles that he confidently knows how to do ever since turning 2. We light, and re-light, candles so he can have the satisfaction of watching the flame go out every time he blows.

 I was a little nervous about Jay's mood on Saturday considering I scheduled him for a day of yard work with my dad.  Was that mean?  I kept reassuring him that he was going to feel so good about the progress and promised him a nice night out after a longs day's work.  Maybe there were little grumblings here and there, but Jay did great, and so did my dad, and our yard looks ready for spring.  They cut a few branches, planted a bush or two, dug up some overgrown plants, busted out the lawn mower, weed whipper, and leaf blower, and lay some rock around our shed.  Being new homeowners, this is progress! To ensure he had some of his greatest pleasures on the weekend of his birthday, we packed Lucas up and had muffins at Turtle Bread Co. and on Sunday morning, enjoyed a family morning out to Starbucks(maybe the highlight of the weekend...sad, but true...we are addicts!) So unfortunately, we didn't take pictures of the yard to post, but here are some cute ones...

Hoppin' Down the Bunny Trail...

Spring is definitely here and our Saint Louis Park neighborhood has been buzzing with excitement. Jay, with the help of Jack, has been doing a lot of yard work, and we've been hanging out a lot with our neighbors. On Easter Sunday, we participated in an Easter egg hunt and even met the REAL Easter Bunny! Later, we went to Jack and Bonnie's for some family time and food. A perfect weekend.

We're still recovering from our run-in with the actual Easter bunny!

Someone is not quite tired and ready for bed yet. Daddy is, though.

Jack and Jay eliminating some trees behind the shed in the back.

Thanks for looking at the camera, Max!

Happy Easter from the Deans!