Today, the girls met the newest member of their family, Bella!
Bella has actually been at the house for a little over a week, but the girls were busy starting 3rd and 5th grade. 
Today is dad’s birthday. Instead of going out to eat, dad wanted to have homemade pasta for lunch.
The girls enjoyed watching grandpa make the pasta but loved the food.
Today we had a big food day. We started by getting tons of food at the restaurant supplier.
When we got home, we prepared two giant beef loins on the grill and a mixture of onions, garlic and peppers. For dessert, we had pistachio cannolis.
Both girls had fun during the process and gave the food a “thumbs up” rating.
After lunch, grandma, grandpa and dad butchered 70 pounds of pork belly. I’m not kidding.
I always wondered who would win in a fight between Gabrielle and Natalie.
Actually, Gabrielle fell when she was climbing out of the pool at the water park. Her eye looks bad, but she’s fine.
Despite Gabrielle’s black eye, the girls had a lot of fun today.
Progress on the energy front today. Another change in design allowed for more flexibility and experimenting.
Though we were unsuccessful at lighting a bulb, we were able to create 0.4 volts.
We will revisit this project soon,but with a little more experience and a lot more of the right equipment.
Today we continued our quest for energy independence.
Rather than continue working on our existing setup, we switched gears and started working on a new generator contained in a fancy box. We didn’t finish building the generator but we did get far enough to do some testing… Things look good but we may need to make some changes before we take the house off the grid.
The other day, the girls picked out some unique (to say the least) nail polish.
Apparently today is D-day and the girls actually applied the interesting color blend to their finger and toenails.
Today, the girls started working towards energy independence by building their own power generator.
We used some household items and spent a few bucks at Menards. Our goal was to make enough electricity to power a small light bulb.
We were successful in making electricity but not enough to light the bulb; only 0.03 volts.
We took some pictures of the project and have some ideas for improvement.
Today Gabrielle met with some of her classmates at the local coffee shop to discuss a book they read over the summer; “Ruby Holler.”
In addition to fun and friends, Gabrielle enjoyed a delicious hot chocolate. As you could guess, Gabrielle had fun.
Today the girls left on Wednesday for a week and a half to attend the wedding of their uncle in Duluth.
While only in town for two full days, the girls got a lot of work done.
Gabrielle read “Ruby Holler.” The book is 310 pages and was read in just two days.
Natalie kept busy by learning about lemurs, snakes and playing video games when we went to pick up pizza.
