Ripka Notes: Busy, Busy, Busy!

Clara and her best friend "Tubby Kitty".

Dear Family and Friends,

I'm sorry my July blog post is late. For the past several weeks we have either been visiting family or have had family visiting us. My parents flew back home to MN yesterday after a nice trip to Connecticut to see us, and over the weekend my aunt and uncle from Virginia came to visit too. During the middle of July, we spent two fun-filled weeks with both my parents and Joey's parents in Minnesota. I am going to include a separate post about our trip to Minnesota. As it turns out, the two weeks we were away included some of the hottest weather on record in Connecticut, so I guess we chose a good time to leave the state.

The beginning of the month was a lot of fun. We started by celebrating Joey's 31st birthday. Several friends were very generous, and we ended up with multiple birthday cakes and flowers to celebrate with. Clara was so excited about the cake that she started digging into it with her fingers before we could light candles or sing "happy birthday".

She couldn't resist.

On July 4th Joey presented his 2nd annual "Stars, Stripes and Pipes" concert, which was sponsored by the Stonington Historical Society. Again this year, the church was so full that people were standing outside the door to listen. He played great patriotic music, and the audience really enjoyed singing "America the Beautiful" out of the hymnals. This year Joey put up a screen at the front of the church so that people could see him play and watch his feet. I think the organ 4th of July concert is going to be a tradition in the Borough from now on.

Helping daddy practice for "Stars, Stripes and Pipes!"

Singing "America the Beautiful".

Before Joey performed, the three of us marched in the Stonington Parade. Actually we marched with a group of "Minnesotans in Stonington." One of Joey's adult piano students is from MN originally, and she suggested that we team up with other Minnesotans in the area. As it turns out there are a pretty good number of Minnesotans living around here. We wore Viking horns and Minnesota shirts, carried Spam cans, pulled Clara in a home-made canoe wagon and got a lot of cheers from the crowds. We were even mentioned in a small write up in the local paper the next day. It was fun, and we even got some authentic mosquito bites while marching in the parade. (The Mosquito is what we call the "state bird" in Minnesota. Haha!)

Summer is a great time to get fresh produce at local farmer's markets and farm stands. We took Clara to a "pick-your-own" fruit farm, and she helped us pick wild blueberries. She loved finding the blueberries on the bushes and putting them into our bucket. They were delicious! This time of year there are fields full of Sunflowers. They are so beautiful to look at, but I don't recommend bringing them home because they make an awful mess!

The fruit of our labor.

Clara continúes to enjoy playing in her pool on the deck, playing in the sand at the beach and going to the park. She participated in the summer reading program at Stonington Library and was awarded a prize for keeping track of her book reading (meaning the books we read to her!). She loves going to the library and coloring, playing with toys, picking out books and sitting in a big plush chair while I read to her. She also loves story time. Her speech is developing at a really fast pace, and we are able to understand her really well. She loves to sing and is always excited to learn something new. She is doing really well with her numbers, letters, colors and shapes. She is growing up way too fast.