No Time for Stoplights

The House Made the News

2010-07-27T15:22:00.002-05:00

Spaces Magazine published an article about our home remodeling and landscaping. Click here to read the entire piece. My only editorial comment would be to say that Mike best weed his own garden now that the article is calling it his front yard garden.

Galaxy Drive-In Review

2009-08-06T16:01:00.004-05:00

The town's beloved drive in, Wagner's on Highway 7, was sold to a new developer, and Galaxy Drive In opened last month. The lines to get in have been long, but one cool night last week, we thought that we'd try, figuring who would go out on a night like tonight?

All of the parking spots for a carhop were taken, but we did find an open picnic table with waiter service. However, our waiter Aaron was so new to the job that it was painful to watch, and even more painful to wait for him to take our order, enter it into the restaurant's computer, and then bring our food. Aaron told us that our order was the first order that he had gotten right that night. I told Sarah that if she's ever thinking of using marijuana, just think of Aaron. He's the best advertisement for saying no to drugs.

Anyway, the hamburgers, fries and onion rings were okay. No Lion's Tap, but who is?

After our burgers we got the Smores Kit, and roasted marshmallows on one of the fire pits at the drive-in. That was definitely the highlight of the evening, and we all agreed that the Smores Kits (made by the company across the street from the Galaxy Drive-In) were clever. They could use more marshmallows though since they had computed the exact number of marshmallows for one sleeve of graham crackers. They didn't take into account that people like to toast a few to eat right from the stick.

In the photo below Kenna, Sarah, Joe and I enjoy Smores at Galaxy Drive In.

Mike's Birthday Cake

2009-08-06T15:58:00.002-05:00

On Mike's birthday, he returned to his office to find the hamburger cake in the photo below waiting for him. Meagan, his assistant's daughter, made the cake for Mike after recently taking a cake decorating cake at Joann Fabrics.

Uncovered NYC Photos--Hot off Facebook

2009-08-06T15:45:00.004-05:00

I'm usually luke warm about Facebook, but once in a while I find some real gems. I especially love finding photos with my kids tagged--not because I learn secrets about them, but because the photos are fun and memorable.

A few days ago I noticed in my Facebook sidebar that Joe was tagged in Susan L.'s photo album. I really didn't know who Susan was, but I clicked on the sidebar and discovered this photo of Joe on his night out in Manhattan. That was Saturday night when Joe got off the subway earlier than our stop to walk to a friend's house--Susan L.'s.

A second photo on Susan's album revealed the footwear that Joe and Susan were wearing that night. I loved this photo for two reasons. First, it reminded me of the time that Sarah took pictures of a ton of people's feet at Pam and Jimmy's wedding. When we got home that night, Mike and I laughed at the foot photos; however, we ended up using a few in the slide show that we created to commemorate Pam and Jimmy's wedding. Second, I like Susan's NYC foot photo because it showcases Joe's newly purchased Converse All Stars. On our first day in NYC Joe was wearing flip flops and quickly realized that he needed to purchase some walking shoes (he hadn't packed any because he didn't feel any of his shoes fit the bill). Joe picked out black Converse All Stars and wore them the rest of the trip. On our way home, Mike was sitting in JFK waiting to board our Sun Country flight when he read a piece in Esquire magazine about the best footwear for men visiting NYC in the summer. The fashion editor claimed that all a man really needs for a summer trip to Manhattan is a pair of black Converse All Stars. Joe proved that is in indeed true.

Farm in The City: Four Months in the Making

2009-07-29T10:28:00.022-05:00

Back in April, Mike and I began meeting with Molly from Heart and Soil LandDesign to create a complete makeover of our front and back yards. After the remodeling project, much of our yard had been destroyed anyway, so we had Molly take away all the plants, grass, and even some of the tired soil and start fresh. The only items we kept were are three established trees. Both of our maples are showing a little stress because their root systems were disturbed; however, we are hopeful that they will rebound.

The design process itself seemed never-ending since Molly proved to be just as much of an artist as a landscaper. However, the hours of poring over potential designs, talking with Molly about options, and reading plant books has paid off. We love our "Farm in the City."

Molly coined the name "Farm in the City" after a few of our initial consultation meetings because she realized that I wanted to devote the backyard to edibles and vegetable gardens to feed the family, and I wanted the front yard to have a prairie house feel to go with the front porch.

During the design process Molly had us focus in on a few design elements so that the front and back yards would be unified. Molly employs the rule of three landscaping principle, so we chose three elements for our hardscape--tumbled stone pavers, a white Trex picket fence to match the deck and front porch, and core 10 bridge steel to rust like the old farm implements that were being incorporated into the Farm in the City.

For the pavers we decided on Anchor's Charleston pavers in a fieldstone color to play up the burgundy accent of our house shutters and front door. Molly contracted with Simon from Patios Plus to lay pavers for wide walkways throughout the property, a patio off the deck, landings at the garage service door and at the front steps, and a retaining wall around the back vegetable garden so that we could raise our side yard to be relatively level instead of the previous sloping hill. Simon was the first to get to work on the yard, starting around April 15 because Molly needed the hardscape in first, and she wanted to be able to clear the sod and move dirt around with Simon's skidloader (since Molly doesn't own a skidloader of her own). Simon, the Aussie, and his bloke Matt worked for nearly a month to prepare the base, and cut and lay all the stones. Here's a picture of Simon's work on the patio, sloping walk to the driveway, and a glimpse of the stone wall holding the dirt in place for the veggie garden. You'll also notice that in addition to the main fieldstone color, we used a charcoal stone to edge the patio and walks.

The picket fence design element was easy since it was only for the front yard from the front porch to the property line, and Mike had a client in the fencing business who owed him money. We kept the chain link around the rest of the backyard, which proved helpful as we rabbit-proofed the entire backyard with 2 feet of chicken wire pulled tight to the existing fence, and 4 inches of the chicken wire fence buried beneath the ground to prevent burrowing rabbits from entering. Mike and I worked tirelessly for one week to rabbit-proof the backyard in early June because we had already planted our raspberry patch and rabbits ate two of the bushes down to nothing. As neighbors walked by and asked us what we were doing, we encountered all naysayers. No one thought that our plan would work. They said rabbits always find a way. But our neighbors don't fully understand Mike-Gyver. Mike examined every inch of the fence and came up with a plan for each area to deter rabbits. His most genius idea was adapting the chicken wire into psuedo-razorwire for under the gates and where the fence meets house walls. I have watched squirrels even try to sneak under or through the fence at those locations, and they inevitably jump back in pain.

The only non-naysayer we encountered was Grandpa Mike, who had successfully built a rabbit and deer proof fence for a garden in the woods in Northern Minnesota. Grandpa Mike knew that Mike could do it too. And he has. We have been six weeks without a rabbit in the yard, and the kids and their friends have been extra careful to make sure that the gates are always closed. We often sit on the front porch and the deck and talk to the rabbits, asking them "Oh, wouldn't you love to figure out a way in to the bountiful backyard." Joe once mused that it would be fun to let the gates open and get a rabbit sideto chase around. We've discouraged his creation of the running of the rabbits.

But I digress, the picket fence matches the maintenance-free Trex on the front porch, and the plants in front of the picket fence match the native grasses and flowers in the berm, boxes, and birdbath gardens out front. If you look closely in the photo below, you can see the chicken wire attached to the backside of the picket fence.

The third hardscape design element that we selected is steel that will rust to brown. Molly had some of the steel planters made for her, but she welded much of it herself on site. Molly made 18" high steel planter boxes for the front of the house to hide what's under the front porch, and she carried those planter boxes under Sarah's bedroom window, but those are even larger (not higher though). The design element of those steel boxes transferred to the berm in the front yard too to provide structural support for the tall hill under the maple tree. The steel is also used for the raised vegetable beds in the backyard off the patio. And finally, Molly welded steel plates to the backyard deck to hide the underbelly of that structure too.

Here's a view of the berm in the front yard with steel reinforcements. Some of the shaded areas on the berm have smaller plants that will come in next year, so those areas are a bit bare now.

The raised beds under Sarah's window should rust to brown along with the rest of the steel by next year.

Our landscaping has proven to be an edible wonderland for humans, birds, insects, and unfortunately, those pesky rabbits that I mentioned earlier. The rabbits are starting to nibble on some plants out front, but we are taking a wait and see approach before trying any chemical deterrents. And we still have squirrels running rampant and digging in the dirt for roots and nuts.

In addition to looking like a native Minnesota Prairie for our little house with the front porch, we wanted to attract bees, birds, and butterflies to the yard, so plants for the front gardens were chosen appropriately. Nancy G. let me use her book on native plants and flowers, and that became my bible for the two months of plant selection. The front beds are dominated by purple coneflowers and Big Bluestem grass. Molly also planted a number of other species of flowers to round out the beds such as lavender liatris, purple bee balm, yellow ligularia, purple astilbe, yellow coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, bugleweed, asters, and sedum.

The photo below of the front bird bath garden, which incorporated our existing crab apple tree, shows a variety of the native plants that Molly selected for a prairie feel.

We have so many honey and bumble bees in the front gardens that Mike doesn't feel the need to petition the city to be an urban beekeeper. Yes, Mike was planning on taking up beekeeping because of all that he's been reading about the perilous situation of the bee population.

Even though I am very excited to see the flower gardens swarming with bees, my biggest thrill is trying to identify all of the butterflies that are new to the neighborhood. I count that we have six different species of butterflies now. However, Nancy G., my naturalist friend who also loves my gardens, said the white butterflies are bad. Considering that they are the butterflies that came from the little green caterpillars that attacked my cauliflower and brussel sprout plants, I have to agree.

Someone driving by the house can easily spot me running around with a camera trying to add to my photographic butterfly collection. Here's a shot that I got of a Swallowtail the other day.

Sarah captured a Monarch on camera at a coneflower near our birdbath.

And now we are hoping to add birds to our watching hobby. Mike just put up his two bird feeders in the front yard, so we can sit on our front porch and enjoy the bees, butterflies, and birds while using our handy identification cards.

As the front yard provides a bountiful harvest for birds and insects, the backyard is devoted to feeding the human residents of our Farm in the City. Upon entering the backyard through the picket fence gate, visitors encounter the blueberry and strawberry patch on their left. Joe spent a Saturday last month hauling pine bark to mulch around all the the fruit trees and bushes. Mike picked up a bale of straw on his way back from court one day in Elk River. So Green Acres of him. I'm not a fan of how the straw moves around, so next spring I'm going to try to find pine needles. I need to keep this bed at such a low PH level for the blueberries that I have to watch what I use for mulch.

After entering through the gate, visitors will also find a perennial herb garden with sage, lavender, chives, and oregano on their right. I have also dressed up this perennial herb garden with a large pee gee hydrangea tree and two hydrangea bushes. One light blue hydrangea bush I received for my birthday from Mike's sister Amy this year, and the pride of the garden is my "heirloom" hot pink hydrangea bush. This bush is an heirloom for two reasons. First, I received it as a gift from my Grandma Sue about 18 years ago. And second, Molly said that the hot pink color has basically disappeared from the hydrangea bloodline. In the photo below of the hydrangea/herb garden, you can see my grandma's hot pink hydrangea in the lower left corner.

Continuing on the tour--the left side yard next to the blueberry patch continues the fruit farm theme with five Nanking bush cherries, two Juneberry bushes, two Honeycrisp apple trees, and a Fireside apple tree (selected because Molly's Great Uncle John who owns an apple orchard in Upstate New York claims that the Fireside is a great cross-pollinator for the Honeycrisp).

In the narrow space between the walk and the steel deck piece (you can get a glimpse of that area in the photo above), I planted more perennial herbs such as savory, thyme, oregano, mint and chives. Molly hopes that the thyme and oregano take over so much that they spill over the walkway, so that people walking can scrunch the plants underfoot and have "an aromatic walking encounter." Yes, Molly is an artist, and those are her words. Throughout the design process and even just a few days ago for our final walkthrough, I kept hearing Molly say, "Walk with me. First, we enter the yard through the sweeping prairie. Then, we enter the fruit farm and walk through the aromatic scrunchables to find ourselves on the patio overlooking the vegetable garden and raspberry patch."

So I guess that was the tour in a nutshell. I could have saved you from reading the paragraphs and paragraphs of me raving about my garden. But I'll continue anyway.

The raised vegetable gardens are at the end of the scrunchable path right off the patio and perched dangerously close to the basketball court. We've lost a few things to an errant basketball already. Oh well, there's plenty to spare.

I have definitely over-planted this year, and I really can't wait to start over again next spring. I've learned a ton already. The four raised beds got so over-planted because I just wanted so much, and on the day of planting, Molly showed up with a number of plants that were a gift from Lou at Gerten's--and I had already purchased more than enough. But I didn't want to toss any plants, so I just shoved everything in the planters. I wanted to cut down on the recommended spacing anyway to follow the French intensive plot gardening technique, but even the French would think I'm nuts. It's such a jungle that I have to send out a search party to look for ripe tomatoes. I have also maximized space by planting creeping vines on the outside of the boxes and training them to go over--my cucumber and watermelon vines and even tomato plants have so taken to this plan that I have virtually no aisle between the beds at this point.

We do have a large area of grass in the backyard so that we can play lasso golf, bocce ball, and I can hang out my laundry. I had to fight Molly to keep my clothesline because she thought I should go with one that was simply attached to the garage to be pulled out when needed. But Mike painted the poles a color to match the brown steel design element, so Molly deemed it worthy of the landscape.

Along the garage I planted a grape vine to cling to my old tractor wheel, some more strawberries, sunflowers, and a few asparagus plants. Mike is also planning on cementing an old tractor seat in that garden so that it is sturdy enough for people to sit on. He's tried twice, but it wasn't sturdy enough either time, so he's planning on more rebar and a deeper footing next time. I have also put a few hanging flower baskets there to give this garage garden a lot of interest since this is what I look at from my kitchen window when I wash dishes.

The tractor seat is positioned as a shoe changing station next to the raspberry patch. When the raspberries come in in full force next year, I will put small galvanized buckets and an old pair of Crocs by the seat so that the kids and their friends can change shoes on muddy days if they still want to pick berries. With 17 raspberry plants now that will multiple ten-fold, someday, I will probably be putting a U-Pick sign on the fence in the alley behind the patch.

In the photo below you can see the garage garden and the raspberry patch in the back 40--40 square yards that is.

The last small garden is the space under the kitchen window around to the air conditioner unit at the other end of the property. Molly wanted this simply pea gravel, but I convinced her that I should be allowed to plant a few things. I recycled some hostas (which she hates) and some large sedum plants that we had in the yard before, and I planted them by cutting through the landscaping fabric below the pea gravel. I was also able to incorporate some more farm souvenirs in this area.

I also purchased a shade-tolerant hydrangea bush that was large enough to block the view of the air conditioner from the egress window in Joe and Kenna's bedroom. As you can see in the photo below, in the first year the bush is already doing its job in this shot from the egress window.

Molly tells me that three years from now the garden will be in full bloom, and she's hoping that I will consider being on a garden tour then. I told her that since we had 495 people inside the house during the SLP Home Remodeling Tour day this past May, I could have people over to see the gardens. I also told Molly that she would be back to do some more work since I am already dreaming of my next additions. Those plans for the future eased Molly's departure on her last day--after spending nearly four months at our house, helping us build our Farm in the City.

Mike's 51st

2009-07-29T10:14:00.005-05:00

On Monday we celebrated Mike's 51st birthday with a quiet dinner at home. The night before we had our Mexico Trip Friends over for a backyard BBQ, so Mike didn't feel the need to have a gathering. He simply wanted the family on the deck--our usual dinner spot this summer. Danny B. also happened by since his Internet was down, and he needed to print a resume, so we were six for dinner.

Joe made a shrimp and anchovy orzo pasta dish, and he grilled marinated asparagus. I made a Cuban coleslaw. Mike grilled tilapia. And we topped off the meal with Byerly's tiramisu.

Mike enjoyed all his gifts. The kids gave him an electrified flyswatter, a bike light, a bike bell, and coconut M n M's. I gave Mike a new squirrel-proof birdfeeder, a bat house, galvanized pails to pick his berries, and laminated butterfly and bird identification booklets.

NYC Day 5: Shalk til you drop

2009-07-27T10:37:00.004-05:00

I can't believe how much we were able to do on our last day in Manhattan--even with getting up late after our big night out at Mamma Mia. We were all packed and ready to leave the apartment by 11:30 a.m. We had arranged to leave our suitcases in the apartment and return for them at 5:30 p.m. when we needed to head to JFK. New tenants were arriving at 3:30, so they would only have a slight overlap with our bags.

Monday was a beautiful, sunny, not-too-humid day in NYC, so we decided to walk as much as possible. We headed to Times Square to start our shalking tour. We hadn't purchased many souvenirs yet, and we had a shopping list. From the street vendors we were able to purchase four "I heart NY" t-shirts for $10. We had seen the t-shirts, which are everywhere, for as low as $2 each, but we splurged on the extra 50 cents a shirt to get the smaller sizes we wanted.

Sarah and I also picked up some "designer" jewelry from a cart on a street corner, and Joe purchased a pashima scarf for Kenna. And of course, we had to buy a Mamma Mia soundtrack. I'm fairly concerned about Mike's new-found addiction to ABBA, and as I write this, I can hear Sarah playing the soundtrack in her room.

One of our first stops was the huge Hershey's store in Times Square where we were greeted with a chocolate treat at the door, and we were given Hershey's factory worker hats.

We also rode the escalators in the Trump Tower so that we could see the seven-story waterfall.
If you look closely in the photo below, you can see our reflections in the rose-colored glass of the Trump Tower interior atrium.

We also had a fun time in FAO Schwartz where we saw the Make-Your-Own Muppet workshop, picked up some tasty candy, played the giant piano, and had fun just looking at all the toys. Joe posed with a few stuffed ring-tailed lemurs since Kenna always claims that Joe reminds her of a ring-tailed lemur. Who knew?

When we felt that we had shopped enough, we decided to head to a bagel place for lunch. We thought that a trip to NYC would not be complete without at least one meal of bagels. Sarah googled "best bagels in NYC" and navigated us to Ess's Bagels. Joe and Sarah just had their favorite bagels with cream cheese. I topped mine with an herb cream cheese and smoked turkey. And Mike went all NY on his bagel with cream cheese, raw onions and lox.
After lunch we walked a few blocks to the United Nations building. We didn't have time for a tour, but we wanted to see the outside of the building since we were so close.

After snapping a few photos, we hailed a cab and headed to the Guggenheim Museum. It was our last City Pass ticket yet to use. The Guggenheim is a relatively small museum, so we knew that we could take a quick tour before heading back to our apartment to catch our car to the airport.
Frank Lloyd Wright designed The Guggenheim, and the museum is a five story spiral building with one art gallery on each floor. So to see the museum, you simply walk up one continuous spiral and back down, stopping to look at a few paintings now and then in a small gallery. The spiral walkway contains models and sketches of Frank Lloyd Wright, and we noticed that many of his sketches were never built. Some of them were so outrageous, in my opinion, that no wonder he never found a builder for them.

After a speed tour of The Guggenheim, we cabbed in back to 47th Street, met up with the new tenants, and grabbed our bags. We had allocated time for traffic back to the apartment, and we really didn't encounter any, so we had a half hour to spare. We didn't want to just sit on the sidewalk with our suitcases, so we headed to The Hot Pot coffee shop on the corner, and Mike was able to contact the driver to tell him to pick us up there.
We had also allocated traffic time to JFK since it was rush hour; however, our driver was able to get us there in 45 minutes. He said that Mondays are usually easier drives to JFK, and that Wednesday, Thursday and Friday rush hours take an hour and a half to JFK. Anyway, we ended up having spare time at JFK, so we sat down at an Irish Pub (the only restaurant in our concourse) and had a light dinner before boarding our half empty plane. There were so few people on the plane that Joe took an entire row and took a nap. And we were all able to sit in seats with an empty seat next to us to spread out.

We were back in Minneapolis by 10:30 p.m., and Kenna was waiting at the Humphrey Terminal for us by the time we picked up our checked baggage. It really was a great, whirlwind tour of Manhattan, and I am sure we will return again someday. Heck, Mike was already pricing Mamma Mia tickets again at Costco.com. For Mike's birthday tonight we are all going to wear our I heart NY t-shirts and blare the Mamma Mia tunes throughout the house and backyard.

NYC Day 4: So much to do; slept so late

2009-07-24T16:10:00.019-05:00

The late nights were catching up with us. I was the first to wake, and it was already 9:00. Mike was usually up by 7:00 and walking around Manhattan, on what he calls his vacation walkabouts.

Mike and I were slow getting going because we had not realized yet that our coffee was decaf. This was the morning that Joe made the deduction that we must be drinking decaf. Mike quickly remedied the situation with a trip to Starbucks, and we were off by noon.

To make up for lost time we decided to take cabs instead of walking or using the subway this sunny Sunday. The kids and Mike got up the courage for another day of the Jack-Itinerary on a wall overlooking Central Park before we entered the Museum of Natural History--our first stop of the day.

At the Museum of Natural History we all enjoyed strolling through the rooms of stuffed animals, birds and fish. The dinosaurs were a highlight of this museum trip as was the planetarium show and meteorite. We even enjoyed playing with the animals ala Night at the Museum.

Joe running from the elephants.

Help! The T-Rex is going to get me.

Here's our tri-Sarah-tops.

The museum's signature dinosaur.

By the time we left the Museum of Natural History it was after 3:00, and we knew that if we were going to see the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the largest museum in the Western Hemisphere), we needed to do that this afternoon since it is closed on Mondays. We knew that we wouldn't be able to see much of the artwork, but we felt a quick tour of our favorite time periods would be worth the short walk across Central Park. The Met is directly across the Park from the Museum of Natural History.

On a sunny, Sunday afternoon Central Park was packed with sunbathers, lawn bowlers, roller dancers, rowers, etc. So it was fun just to take the quick stroll and people watch.

At the Met we toured the Roman statues, Egyptian coffins, armor exhibits, and European masters. Our final stop at the Met was the Egyptian temple which was housed in a huge room. That exhibit was so impressive, and it's definitely worth a longer visit someday.

One of the many Roman statue rooms.

Joe and I almost seem to be in a contest--the person who sees the most Picasso's in his/her lifetime wins. Picasso is our favorite painter, whereas Mike and Sarah tend to favor Van Gogh. Here Joe poses with a painting that neither of us had ever heard of--Picasso's 1938 oil on canvas called "Man with Lollipop."

Mike claims that these warriors from the past have nothing on him.

We all enjoyed the Egyptian Temple room with a glass wall that looks over Central Park.

From the Met we took a cab back to the apartment to have a quick snack before heading out of the Winter Garden Theater for a production of Mamma Mia. Joe and Mike headed to The Amish Market for sushi while Sarah and I worked on cleaning out the fridge of snacks and leftovers since we'd be leaving the next day. At The Amish Market Mike confirmed what Joe had suspected; Mike had purchased coffee beans from the bulk bin clearly marked "decaf."

The Winter Garden Theater was only five blocks from our apartment, so it was an easy walk. We settled in to our great seats only 10 rows back from the stage and let the music of Abba take us away. Joe was a Mamma Mia virgin, and he loved the play--as we all did. It was by far the best production of any play that I have seen, but it's Broadway, so I guess that's to be expected. The cast did three encore numbers after the play closed including "Dancing Queen" and "Waterloo" (which wasn't a song from the play.) Thanks to Mike's discovery that members can buy Broadway tickets at Costco.com we were able to enjoy this play at 40% off. That was as good a price as we would have gotten at the same day rush ticket booth in Times Square--and then we probably wouldn't not have been able to get four tickets together on the floor, and we would have had to wait in line for up to an hour. Costco.com also sells tickets for Broadway touring shows, so you should really check it out if you are looking to go to a show.

On our walk home from the theater we stopped at an Italian restaurant for a late dinner. We had an excellent meal which was a great capstone to a perfect evening.

NYC Day 3: Caffeine Free

2009-07-24T10:43:00.020-05:00

Mike and I got up earlier than the kids on Saturday, so we took some time to review guide books, blog and enjoy breakfast and coffee in the apartment. Little did we know that the coffee beans that Mike had purchased at The Amish Market the day before were decaf beans. In fact, we didn't discover that until Sunday when Joe lamented that the coffee wasn't giving him the usual buzz.

Joe: "Dad, did you accidentally buy decaf beans?"

Those few words sent us all for a tailspin. No wonder that Saturday had been hell with all of us complaining of headaches and being grouchy with each other until we had our iced coffee later in the day at Starbucks. So Sunday morning when Mike realized that he just may have made that mistake at the bulk bins, he immediately ran out for three Vente coffees at the corner Starbucks.

Oh, but back to Saturday's caffeine-free day.

We finally woke the kids around 11:00 and asked if they wanted to sleep or go to MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) with us. Joe hadn't staggered in until 4:00 a.m., so we didn't know what to do about him especially. Both kids sleepily confessed to a desire to see MoMA, and said that they would get up and shower.

Around noon we were ready to depart on our next shalking (see day 1 post for definition) tour of Manhattan. Our first stop was the nearby public library. Although we had roamed the halls of the library on Thursday, it was only later when reading a guide book that Sarah and I discovered that A.A. Milne's original Eeyore, Kanga, Piglet, Winnie the Pooh, and Tigger were owned by the New York Public Library and on display in the children's section of the main branch.

Joe: "Seriously, we're going to see a stuffed, old bear?"

Jackie: "Don't mess with Winnie the Pooh."

Despite a few grumblings from the crowd about the Jack-Itinerary (definition: a derogatory term used by the family to complain about all of the sights I make them see), we found ourselves in a small room dedicated to the original pooh animals.

And everyone loved it!!

They all even commented that this was way cool. And Joe and Sarah snapping photos on their cell phones to text to friends is always an indication to me that despite the complaints, the shalking tour stop was a hit. Piglet turned out to be everyone's favorite, standing only three inches tall and made of linen (Mike deduced). Piglet was by far the greatest departure from the Disney representations that we have all come to know. We also loved that Eeyore actually had a small nail in his tail. Joe was so taken by the stuffed animals that he decided that he needed to market replicas of the originals because even the Classic Pooh series does not do justice to the character of Milne's originals. Joe and Sarah also so enjoyed reading poems in Milne's When We Were Young that I ordered a copy from Barnes and Noble as soon as we got home. Below, Sarah and I are trying to hug our favorite stuffed animals of all time.

After taking our time admiring Milne's friends, we decided to grab a Jamba Juice to pick up our energy. Remember we still didn't realize that we were shalking caffeine free. In addition to his Jamba Juice, Joe ordered two wheat grass shots because he read that they were detoxifying--and he needed some detox that morning. He wanted Sarah to down one two. Both kids agreed that it tasted like mowing the lawn. Yum!

With the kids detoxed and Mike and me still dragging in our caffeine-free haze, we all walked to MoMa. We decided that we'd split up and just meet in the lobby at 2:30. We started on the fifth floor, a museum floor which fast became one of my favorite exhibits of all museums. The MoMa fifth floor nearly rivals The Guernica room at the Sofia Reina in Madrid and The Impressionist Gallery at D'Orsay in Paris as one of my favorite spots. Here we saw Van Gogh's Starry Night, a ton of paintings by Picasso, Dali, Miro, and Marc Chagall (some of my favorite artists), and, of course, we got to examine the most influential painting of the last 100 years (according to Newsweek)--Picasso's Les Demoiselle D'Avignon (seen below).

We spent most of our time on MoMA's fifth floor of modern masterpieces, but we did take a quick tour of the fourth floor's contemporary collection. There was a room full of Jackson Pollack's, but the red board leaning against the wall was too San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for me. I did a quick tour of that floor and realized that the lower floors were getting even more contemporary. The third floor actually had a flea market masquerading as an art exhibit, so I decided to meet Joe and Sarah in the lobby earlier than we had arranged. Mike had his fill too.

Since we were still dragging our caffeine-free butts around town, we decided that a late lunch was in order. Joe was still craving his huge Jewish deli pastrami sandwich, so we decided to hop a subway to the famous Katz's Deli. The deli was worth the destination because it lived up to all the guidebooks had promised. In fact, Mike said Katz's was his favorite meal of the trip. Katz's Deli was the location of Meg Ryan's fake orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally. Click on this clip of the scene, and you can see that the film was true to Katz's crowded atmosphere that is shown in the photo below. A main difference in the movie clip is that soda is shown to cost 50 cents. Now Katz's charges $2.50 for a soda.

After lunch we walked around the SoHo shopping district (what's a shalking tour without a bit of shopping). While Sarah shopped, Mike and I sipped iced coffee and our spirits started to rise. Go figure. Sarah picked up a cute skirt at Forever 21 and braved the energetic sales staff at Hollister. Joe said he barely made it out of Hollister alive. Too much energy for a detox day. Not to be outdone by her Abercrombie Polaroid, Sarah took a minute to have her picture snapped with the two Hollister models outside the store's door.

After Sarah satisfied her shopping desires, and with a newly-found Starbuck's energy in my system, I agreed to Mike's suggestion to walk across The Brooklyn Bridge. The views from the bridge were awesome, and just seeing the architecture was a marvel. I scored one for Mike for suggesting this side trip. We walked halfway across the bridge and then turned around because it was getting late, and we wanted to get back to the apartment to re-group since Saturday night was our night slated to go to the top of the Empire State Building.

Saturday night had clear skies when the previous two nights had been cloudy, and with Mamma Mia scheduled for our last night in NYC, we knew this was our opportunity to see the lights from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building. After dinner in the apartment (we ordered some great pizza from Hell's Kitchen Pizza near our place), we headed out to the subway station. We had a 15-minute delay sitting in the subway train since a train ahead of us needed to apply their emergency brake. We could have gotten out and walked the 15 blocks, but Sarah wanted to ride, so we stayed put. The wait turned out to save us time and energy, which we ended up needing for our hour wait to get to the top of the Empire State Building. The views were similar as seeing Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower, and we all enjoyed the cool breeze while having our photo snapped.

It was midnight by the time we came down from the observation deck to catch the subway back to our 49th Street stop. By then there were no lines for the elevator to go up, and since the observation deck is open until 2:00 a.m., a travel tip for night owls would be to just go as late as possible. And so ended day 3 of our NYC trip.

In New York Good Things Are Worth Waiting For

2009-07-19T08:28:00.018-05:00

If the theme of day one in NYC was walk (or rather shalk) through the exhaustion to get a feel for the city, the theme of day two was all good things are worth the waiting. But Mike, Joe and Sarah would have a different opinion if you asked them if they believed in that old adage while waiting in line to get inside the Statue of Liberty.

All of our touring on day 2 seemed to be an endless stream of hurry up and wait. Our City Pass tickets allowed us to skip only one line of the day--the line to buy tickets to Liberty Island, and if you totaled up the time we spent waiting to get on the ferry, get in the statue of liberty, get on a ferry to Ellis Island, get on the ferry back to Battery Park, and then the line to wait for a hot spot to eat dinner, we probably stood in line for five hours on day 2. I guess we could all get job as professional line standers now. But overall, I really enjoyed the sights, so it paid off for me in the end.

We started our second day in New York City, July 17, 2009, with breakfast in the apartment while everyone got ready. Then we headed to the nearest subway station to grab a train to Battery Park to catch a ferry to Liberty Island.

After a relatively brief line to get on the ferry, we took a spot on the top deck so that we could snap some photos of Lady Liberty as we approached. Fortunately, through no planning of our own, we found ourselves on the railing that allowed us shots of the statue behind us. As we neared the island, so many people from the other side of the ferry made their way to our railing that we could visibly see the ferry listing.

Once on Liberty Island we picked up our audio tour headsets and strolled briefly around the grounds before getting in line to enter the monument. The wait here was "monumental." All tolled we waited an hour and a half to get inside the monument to tour the museum and get up close with the statue on the pedestal. Views from the crown closed down after September 11th but re-opened this month. However, the crown tickets are sold out until Thanksgiving. Even scoring a pedestal ticket took advance planning, so I hated to give up the chance to enter. Joe, Sarah and Mike all wanted to give up after an hour, but I told them that we were so close that I could taste it. Did we really want to cut our losses when we may never return to Liberty Island again? Fortunately, about the time the three of them had be convinced to step out of line, a new security guard took over who entertained the folks waiting in line. He also seemed more efficient because the line really started moving then. We determined the wait was caused by the intense security. Really the tightest security we have ever had to go through. Our bags were x-rayed and hand searched, with Mike being questioned about all of the contents. We passed through a metal detector and a second detector that blew air on us and then analyzed the chemical composition of the air to determine if we were carrying any explosives. Sarah and I had to hold down our skirts since the gust of air was intense. Each person spent about five seconds in this chamber--which was definitely the bottle neck of the entire wait.

Once inside the museum we learned about the building and financing of the statue. We also had our picture taken by the original torch which had glass windows to give the illusion of being lit.

Joe sent a photo similar to the one below to his friend Sam from the pedestal with the comment, "I can see up her skirt."After we satisfied ourselves by touring the museum and checking out all of the views around the pedestal and star fort on which the statue is built, we left the monument for lunch and a short ferry jaunt to Ellis Island. On another note I was really surprised to look up from the pedestal inside the statue and see just how hollow she is. Her skin is only the thickness of two pennies. I was a bit disappointed, like learning that the Easter bunny in my basket is hollow. Here is Mike enduring a light mist of rain as we ferried over to Ellis Island.

We checked out the luggage room on Ellis Island and even saw a trunk similar to the one that we have from my Grandma. We all wondered if our own trunk had made its way through this very room.

Here we are in the registry room of Ellis Island where the immigrants had to go through their initial medical and legal inspections. People who passed those initial inspections could leave through the door to the kissing post and points beyond. Those who did not pass one of those initial inspections were sent to a detention room. Exploring those detention rooms, medical examination rooms, and hearing rooms was fascinating.After getting off the final ferry of the day, we walked through Battery Park and then North towards Ground Zero. Seeing Ground Zero was not as emotional as Trinity Church, the church next to Ground Zero where the rescue workers rested and where a collection of memorials and missing person signs are being kept.
Our final stop of the day was Cafe Habana is SoHo for dinner. We heard that this was the best spot in town for Cuban food, so we wanted to give it a go. The line to get in for a table for four was an hour, but we thought that we were such professional waiters by this point that an hour would be a piece of cake. While we waited we ordered drinks to enjoy on the sidewalk, and then Joe went to Cafe Habana carryout next door and got four grilled Cuban corns to enjoy as an appetizer. The roasted corn with lime, cayenne, butter and cheese was one of the most incredible tastes that I have ever had. I can't wait to try to duplicate the recipe. After a most enjoyable dinner, we headed back at midnight on the subway to our apartment. Joe got off two stops before us because that was where a friend of his from St. Ben's lived. Susan was planning on taking Joe and a few friends out for drinks. Sarah, Mike and I ended up getting to sleep around 1:00 a.m. Joe got home at 4:00 a.m., and he said that it was really neat to walk the streets of New York with no one on them. But he did end up cabbing back for most of the way. And so to bed on day 2.

Shalking Tour Stopped by Obama's Motorcade

2009-07-17T07:15:00.030-05:00

We arrived safely at JFK International at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time on Sun Country flight 241. We called the car service and apartment representatives so that we could get settled in our Midtown Manhattan apartment at 326 West 47th Street, just off Times Square.

Raymond, an Israeli immigrant who appeared to be all over the map politically, picked us up in a black towncar to drive us from JFK to Manhattan. Mike found the car service online, and once we realized that the cost was similar to a taxi, we decided it was a no-brainer. We have taken the subways before from the airport in big cities, but Mike's fear of looking like a tourist on a subway prevailed, prompting him to find a car service.

Raymond regaled us with his stories of New York City; he immigrated here in 1975 after his required stint in the Israeli army where he was a truck driver who transported tanks to the front lines. Raymond was able to point out all the big sights we passed like Arthur Ashe Stadium at Flushing Meadows, the new Citifield where Shae Stadium used to stand, the Tri-burrough Bridge (now the Kennedy Bridge), Columbus Circle, Central Park, Time Warner, etc.

Raymond was definitely anti-union and started ranting about the construction unions' stranglehold on the city. He marveled that the new Citifield stadium was built in just one year because it was done with non-union labor. Raymond proclaimed, "Had the union been involved ten years would pass without a ballgame." But Raymond's politics switched slightly when we were passing under the Kennedy Bridge. Raymond remarked, "Everything in town seems to be named after the Kennedys. You know I once gave Ted Kennedy a ride to The Plaza Hotel. He could have been president if he had been honest about killing that girl in the car on the bridge." So we had an anti-union Kennedy fan from Israel on our hands. And he didn't stop with his ranting then. Next he turned to Obama and predicted that we'd all be socialists like the Europeans in a few years. Raymond also mentioned that Obama was giving a speech today, but that idea didn't sink into my travel-addled brain (I'd been up since 3:15 a.m.). I should have questioned Raymond on that one since we would have learned that Obama would be passing through NYC that afternoon, but we discovered that on our own by happenstance (more later on that in this post).

Once Raymond dropped us at the Midtown apartment we passed the psychic on the ground floor and headed to apartment 2B to meet with Dominic, the daughter of the apartment owner. Dominic gave us a little advice on shopping and eating in the area and left us with two sets of keys. Joe was craving a huge New York pastrami sandwich ala Jewish New York deli. Dominic told him, "Sorry, I am vegan. I can't help you on meat meals." But Dominic did say that eating on 9th Avenue is cheaper than just one block over on 8th because 8th is too close to the theaters. Our apartment is on 47th Street between 8th and 9th.

Following Dominic's advice, we headed down 9th Ave. to find a place to eat. Many of the delis we came across were just counters with no seating space, so we opted instead for a lunch place called Lime that had an awesome salsa bar and burritos. After lunch we stopped by the Amish Market to pick up some provisions for the apartment--mainly snacks, beverages, breakfast foods, and fruit. We want to eat out for dinners, but breakfast in the apartment is easy to do and saves so much time while all four of us take turns in the shower.

With our bellies and our cupboards full we set off on foot to explore our neighborhood. It was a struggle to resist taking a nap, but we knew that we had to persevere or we'd screw up our body clocks. Knowing that the best thing for jetlag (which is basically how we all felt even though we just had an hour time switch) is exercise and not museum hopping, we decide to take a shalking tour of the area. Shalking (pronounced shocking but spelled as a combination of shopping and walking) is a term we coined in Madrid a few years ago as a way to convince Sarah to do some sight seeing. We would promise Sarah that as we were walking around town between sights we could hop into any stores that looked interesting to check out the merchandise. Sarah rarely purchases anything, but the browsing is a nice break from dusty churches and museums. In fact, on our shalking tour of Midtown Manhattan the only purchases that we made were some iced Starbucks drinks and a pair of black Converse for Joe. He had only packed dress shoes and flip flops because he planned to purchase the Converse All Stars in New York, and he realized that he needed them sooner than later.

We ended up putting a lot of miles on that day as we made stops at a number of stores like Toys R Us with the huge Ferris wheel, the Abercrombie and Fitch store where Sarah posed with the topless male model to have a Polaroid taken and the glass Apple Store in Columbus Circle. And we saw a number of sights from Times Square to Grand Central Station to Central Park.

Starbucks in Times Square

Foot Locker for Joe

A stop at the Public Library

Grand Central StationWe stopped at St. Patrick's Cathedral but dipped before 5:30 mass.

The Apple store at Columbus Circle was on Sarah's must see list even before we left for NYC. Mike and Joe both marveled at the three pieces of 3/8 inch glass laminated together to make the walls.

After satisfying our Midtown shopping and sightseeing to do list, we decided to take a quick tour of Central Park, so we headed up Fifth Avenue--just window shopping on this portion of the shalking tour. In the middle of our shalking tour we were stopped by some police barricades at 57th Street and couldn't continue North to Central Park. Mike leaned on Joe and me as he stood on a building's fire standpipe to see what was up. We heard from the crowd that Obama, who was in town to address the NAACP, was making his way through Midtown.

Mike shot a video while teetering on the building's pipe and using my shoulder to balance. It's no Zabruder clip, but the viewer does get a sense of the entourage that accompanies Obama--at least that's what I told Sarah when she was disappointed that she didn't catch a glimpse of Barack. When we get home, we'll try to edit the video into a small enough file to upload to Blogger, but for now just imagine a sea of humanity watching nearly 50 vehicles speed by from police cars to SUVs toting reporters to an ambulance to Obama's limo with the presidential flags flying.

Once Obama was at his next location, the NYPD could let us cross 57th. Joe and Sarah had earlier lamented that NYC didn't seem as crowded as they thought it would be. Now they were getting claustrophobic as the stopped traffic--both pedestrian and cars--was allowed to move north and south again. Here's a quick shot I took while walking north right after the barricades lifted.

We soon found ourselves walking through Central Park and realized that we wanted a grander tour than our tired legs could carry us. We priced bikes, rickshaws and the horse drawn handsome cab. For four people all modes of transportation yielded equal costs. We decided that the benefit of all being together and having a tour guide to point out interesting spots swung the vote to the handsome cab. So we grabbed Tony, a New Yorker Irishman, and his horse Bobby Joe to give us a tour of Central Park, past the lake to Strawberry Fields and to The Dakota to see the spot where Lennon was shot.

Now, all we needed was dinner and to crawl into bed after a long day of travel and sights. Joe found us a Thai Restaurant near our house called Pam Real Thai. The food arrived quickly, we ate, and headed back to crash. Here are Sarah and Joe waiting for their dinner to arrive.

Wisconsin Dells: Basketball, Fire and Water

2009-07-09T09:47:00.014-05:00

Sarah's basketball team participated in a tournament in the Wisconsin Dells over the weekend of June 27-28. I picked up Sarah and her friend Olivia at Camp Wapo (a Bible camp that Sarah attended not for the Bible study but because a number of her friends from SLP were going) in Amery, Wisconsin on Friday, June 26 and then headed right to The Dells for the weekend.

Camp Wapo Group

Olivia and Sarah were exhausted, stinky and covered in swimmer's itch and mosquito bites. They rested during the drive, we went to Famous Dave's for a big dinner, and then the girls cleaned up, slathered hydrocortizone on their bodies, and slept for twelve hours. I had to wake them so that we could get a light lunch on Saturday before the first basketball game.

The team played two games on Saturday, and then had a great time Saturday night walking around Downtown Dells, challenging each other in Lazer Tag, and enjoying the rides at Timberland. The moms set a 10:00 p.m. curfew Saturday night since the girls had an 8:00 a.m. game Sunday, but Sarah and Olivia crawled back to the hotel room at 9:30, ready to hit the hay after a long day. I'm sure that they were still recovering from Wapo.

After our last two games of the tournament Sunday morning, we checked out of the Days Inn (the less than desirable hotel that the basketball team was staying at) and headed to The Wilderness Waterpark and Lodge to extend our trip. Josie joined Sarah and Olivia so that the three girls could have a good time together at the seven waterparks of The Wilderness compound.

I didn't see the girls much during our stay at The Wilderness. They found so many 14 to 16-year-old boys to hang around with that they were too busy for me. And they could eat at any of the five restaurants simply by charging their bill to the room, so they were self sufficient. I had a nice relaxing time by the pool catching up on magazines. I didn't take any trips down the waterslides, but the girls reported that The Wilderness had some of the funnest and scariest water rides that they had been on--their favorites seemed to be the Black Hole and the lazy river at Glacier Canyon that meandered around and had conveyor belts up hills.

The girls and I did end up having a few adventures. One night we were all craving Chinese food, and we realized that Asian cuisine was hard to come by in The Dells. We punched "Asian" into my GPS and found a few places listed in the next town about 10 miles away. We headed down a country road, through the Ho Chunk Indian Reservation, and ended up in Baraboo, Wisconsin. We saw the first Chinese Restaurant on the GPS and thought it looked a bit shady, so we headed to the second one--only to discover that it was closed down. After a little discussion, we decided to head back to the first one that we found and take our chances. After we pulled into the parking lot, I told the girls that if a Lexus and an Infiniti were in the parking lot, it must be at least edible. The meal was okay, but nothing spectacular, but at least we satisfied our cravings.

Here are Josie, Sarah and Olivia at the somewhat shady Chinese restaurant in Baraboo, Wisconsin.

Our biggest adventure happened on our last night in The Dells, Monday, June 29. The girls had a date with some of the boys that they met at the resort, so they headed out at 10:00 to meet up with them. I put on my pajamas and started watching an episode of The Gilmore Girls. The next thing I knew, I was awoken at 11:15 p.m. by the fire alarm in the building. Since I have been in hotels with false alarms in the past, I assumed that was the case again, but I knew that I needed to at least open the door to investigate, especially since the girls were not back in the room yet. When I opened the door, I was greeted by a hall filled with thick, smelly smoke. A Wilderness employee was yelling, "The fire department has been called. Please exit through door 9 immediately."

I went back in the room to throw on a long-sleeved shirt over my pajamas and grab my purse with my cell phone, wallet and car keys. I quickly called Sarah as I was walking down the smoky hallway, and she told me that she had evacuated from the front lobby where she had been sitting with her group of friends. I told her that the fire was right by our room and to come along to our side of the building. Sarah said that she would, but told me to ignore her since I was in my pajamas and she was on a date. She was appalled that I didn't have a bra on. Seriously Sarah? I should have taken the time to get appropriately dressed before exiting the burning building?

Olivia, Sarah, two unnamed boys, and Josie did finally acknowledge me when they realized that I had my camera, and I could capture the moment for their Facebook pages.

Anyway, we watched the fire department quickly extinguish the small fire that was contained to a storage room. The Wilderness reported that it was an electrical fire in the letter that they gave the guests who had been displaced along with a gift certificate as a token of apology. We were only out of our room for one hour, and when we returned, the smell was not bad, and fortunately, the sprinklers had not gone off in our room since our room never got that hot.

A party atmosphere nearly broke out while people waited for the fire department to give the all clear. Some people even pulled out coolers of beer and ordered Domino's pizza.

My Podcast about NUA

2009-07-03T09:38:00.003-05:00

The San Francisco School District recently signed a three million dollar contract with the National Urban Alliance for teacher training. The decision was surrounded with a lot of controversy, and one San Francisco parent watchdog group found out about me from my NUA blog, so Stan Goldberg, their podcaster, contacted me for an interview about the effectiveness of NUA in public schools.

If you have ever wondered what I'm talking about when I refer to NUA, click here to listen to my interview with Stan Goldberg.

By the way, next year I will serve as EHS's NUA part-time coach for the third year. As part of that coaching, Hamline University has accepted me as an adjunct instructor in their Graduate School of Education, and I will be offering an evening class on NUA strategies for two graduate credits.

Sarah's and Joe's Birthdays

2009-07-02T09:07:00.010-05:00

Both kids had low-key birthdays this year. I think the construction and landscaping are taking their toll on my enthusiasm for entertaining. Yesterday, Mike and I realized that we've been living in dust since last November. First it was the construction dust, and now the landscaper is cutting stones, hauling dirt, etc. Just when I think that it's time to wash the windows and clean the carpeting, something else happens to send dust hurling through the air. Maybe next week we can really clean up and start entertaining.

Once the landscaping is finished, Sarah hopes to have a backyard birthday party with her friend Audrey--the girl next door. Since Audrey's birthday is in early September, I told Sarah that a midsummer party would split their birth dates.

For Sarah's actual birthday on June 5, Audrey and Katie came over before school to give Sarah a t-shirt that they made. All three of them had matching t-shirts with SAKS on the front and a collage of photos on the back. SAKS stands for Sarah Audrey Katie Sol. Sol is the weird boy on the corner who they try to avoid at all costs. Mike and I took the three girls to Bruegger's for bagels before school.

The party continued after school when the three were joined by Claire for dinner and a sleepover at our house. Joe grilled Uncle Arnie chicken for Sarah per her request, and Joe made a quick call to Uncle Arnie in Oakland to find out the secret recipe. Instead of a cake we had apple pie--again per Sarah's request.

The next day we had a huge pancake breakfast with the sleepover girls and Sam G., Joe's friend from Brainerd, who had also spent the night.

For Joe's birthday on June 11th Kenna met Joe at Lord Fletcher's on Lake Minnetonka. Joe had spent the afternoon on a boat with the guys from Fostar (his employer), and then they boated over to meet Kenna for drinks and appetizers. The rest of the group left Kenna and Joe at Lord Fletcher's while they continued their boating expedition.

I had given Joe the $100 gift card to Lord Fletcher's that Boyer Building sent us as a thank you for hosting the SLP Home Remodeling Tour. When Joe realized that the gift card did not allow for change back or to count as the tip, he budgeted wisely--ordering a bottle of wine, appetizers and entrees to total $96.

Joe's birthday was on a Thursday soccer game night, so the rest of us celebrated with a family dinner the next day.

The Boys Baptism

2009-07-01T11:04:00.008-05:00

Matthew and Abraham were baptized on Father's Day at St. Hedwig's Church in NE Minneapolis. Baptizing toddlers proved to be an aerobic event since The Boys wanted to run around the church, and Abraham was even heard asking his godfather: "Throw me in the air Uncle Mike." And during the middle of the ceremony the Lowry Avenue Bridge blew up during its scheduled demolition. The resulting boom set off the boys in a crying jag.

The Godfather, aka Uncle Mike, with Abraham

Uncle Mike tossing Matthew in the air before the ceremony

The ceremony at one of its quieter moments

Abraham with his godparents, Pam's friend Steph and Bad Uncle Mike

After the ceremony we stopped for a view of the Lowry Bridge in its newly collapsed state.

Academic Awards Night

2009-07-01T10:19:00.013-05:00

On Wednesday, June 3rd Sarah received the President's Award for Educational Excellence. This award honors eighth-graders across the nation who have achieved an A- or better grade point average and who have scored an 85% or higher on a nationally normed exam. The event was a great capstone for Sarah's junior high years. The ceremony included speeches by students, faculty and the principal prior to recipients being called on stage for their certificate. While students were walking to the stage, their picture was displayed on the big screen and a favorite quotation was read. In Sarah's big screen shot below she is holding a soccer ball since students had their photos taken doing something they love. Sarah then received her award from her Spanish teacher, Elvis B.

After the awards ceremony Sarah, Mike and I had the opportunity to socialize with a number of friends and teachers.

Audrey and Sarah

Sarah and a group of friends

Katie, Mr. D, and Sarah. Geometry Teacher Mr. D. was a favorite of Sarah's
this year.

Sarah's Original Poetry

2009-07-01T10:13:00.002-05:00

Sarah always prints her school assignments by sending them to my email, so I have the pleasure of reading them if I like. I loved a recent original poetry assignment, especially the ode to our new oven, and Sarah said that I could share them on the blog. So enjoy!

The Jewel of a Bakery

Bagels are round
Bagels around
The world
They come and go
I love them so

Awake at dusk
As my stomach grumbles
Consume these baked goods
To cure the rumbles

But when they’re gone
My head bows in sorrow
I fight depression
As I just keep weepin’,
Sweepin’ the floors’
Of those empty
Bagel wrappers

Sonnet-

I know for me you will always be there
All worries disappear when you’re around
The precious moments that we often share
Without you I was lost, but now I’m found

Your quirks have never failed to make me laugh
Creating memories that will never fade
You’re the completion of my missing half
Our friendship more exquisite than stone jade

We’d rollerblade until our legs gave out
And laugh until our eyes grew red and wet
Your loyalty is one I’d never doubt
Somebody too amazing to forget

My love for you enough to fill a lake
If you weren’t in my life my heart would break

Haiku-

Sweet pancake batter
Steaming on the stone griddle
Warming my belly

Cinquain-

Carnival
Jubilating, upbeat
Celebrating with joy
Forgetting all one's worries
Jamboree

Ode-

Standing majestically
against a wall
So bare in comparison
to the chrome
Delight
Distracting all eyes

The oven,
smooth and powerful
with such potential
to create miracles
Radiating heat
out of its big belly

Consuming ingredients;
Bestowing delicacies:
breads, cakes, pies,
strudels, rolls, croissants.
The ovens gift to the world

After a hard days work
it must cool down
Retire
for the day
Leaving its friends satisfied
The oven is pleased
as it drifts into a
cold, metal
sleep

Landscaping Begins

2009-05-24T10:06:00.004-05:00

Now that Boyer Building has finished the house (destroying the yard in the process), we have undertaken a massive landscaping project that took out every plant and stick of grass in the yard except for our three trees. We hired Molly from Heart and Soil Landscaping to do the design and plantings. That's Molly at the picnic table planning her next move.

Molly hooked us up with Simon from Patios Plus to do the pavers for all the walks and front and back patios. We will end up with a lot of the yard in stone. Here's Simon preparing the yard for the back patio.

And Matt, Simon's bloke, runs the backhoe, clearing space for the front walk, which is so wide that it's more like a freeway.

Soccer Season Underway

2009-05-22T19:47:00.002-05:00

Stalking Sarah on Facebook can pay off huge dividends. Tonight as I was browsing through pictures where Sarah was tagged I came across two great photos that Mo's dad must have taken at our recent Shakopee tournament. The U14 girls won both of their games last Saturday, despite the freezing winds. It was so cold that day with such brisk winds that the fans were completely miserable and the girls legs were beet red.

The two photos of Sarah below were taken at the 1:00 p.m. game with the sun shining. That allowed the girls to take off their gloves and sweat pants, but you can see that the fans are still bundled up. Sarah is playing defense with her buddy Audrey again this year; however, in the second game of the tournament, the girls were up by 8 goals so the coach let Sarah and Audrey play in the striker position. They were all smiles, especially when Sarah did score a goal--a much-coveted gift for a defender.

Kenna's Graduation and Mother's Day

2009-05-10T19:29:00.009-05:00

The family celebrated Kenna's graduation from the College of St. Benedict on Saturday, May 9. Kenna earned her B.A. in Management and starts work in two weeks as a financial assistant for Northwestern Mutual Insurance Company.

Mike, Sarah and I drove up later in the day to time it so that we'd be at CSB as the ceremony was letting out. We even got there in time to eat a Special K bar (the old Bennie staple) before meeting up with Joe and Kenna on the grassy knoll between the gym and the Benedicta Arts Center.

For a celebratory dinner we went to Cafe Renaissance in Waite Park with Kenna's mother Mary and her brother Colin. Then Mike, Sarah and I headed to Mora to spend Mother's Day with Baba. Pam, Jimmy, and The Boys stopped by for the Mother's Day celebration that featured the famous family breakfast. Bad Uncle Mike was a big hit, tossing Matthew and Abraham in the air. Abraham kept saying, "One more time Uncle Mike," while holding up his index finger and smiling as large as he could. We also had a Tetris tournament on the big screen. We literally dusted off the Retro Nintendo, and I took the high score with 59,000. Not bad after a 12-year hiatus. And the day was capped off with Auntie Amy scrubbing the kitchen floor for her mother since Baba still has not regained the use of her right arm and hand after last week's freak futon accident that landed her in the hospital for two days. But that's another story.

495 of Our Closest Friends

2009-05-03T20:11:00.003-05:00

Mike and I volunteered our home to be featured in the SLP Home Remodeling Fair. Thankfully, the weather was 65 and sunny, so we didn't have dripping wet people traipsing around. Jim, the city planning director, greeted folks on the front porch and made them take off their shoes or don surgical booties before they could enter, but I'm still glad it was sunny. Jim also signed in people who had not yet visited one of the other five homes on the SLP tour, and he clicked in each person entering so that the city could get an accurate count--Jim's final count on the afternoon was 495 people.

Two representatives from Boyer Building Corp, our contractors, and another city employee were here too. So with Mike and I added to the hosting mix, we could cover most areas of the house. I staked out the master suite and fielded questions on the bathroom and closets. The main inquiry, "Why did your husband get the huge, new closest?" So many people loved the upstairs. I even heard one woman comment to her friend, "If I lived here, I wouldn't ever want to leave and go to work." I also entered into a number of conversations where I was trying to convince young families to stay in the Park and simply add on to their small home to accommodate the kids. I told one man, "Where else can you live where you can pop on the bike trail one block from here, and bike straight to the new Twins stadium in ten minutes without leaving a bike trail?"

Those conversations were the reason that Mike and I agreed to participate in the show. We wanted to promote living in the Park and improving your home. City Planner Jim, on the front porch, was also putting on the full court press about remodeling, even pulling out low interest city financing home improvement applications.

We ended up seeing a lot of people we know from youth sports (about 20), school (even one of my former students and also the retired Edina teacher who oversaw my student teaching), and the neighborhood (a number of our block mates). Pam and Janet came to represent the relatives. When one of Joe's baseball dad's thanked me for having him over, I simply replied, "Yeah, you and 500 of our closest friends."

One regret we have of the day is that one woman did not introduce herself to Mike and me (Hey, it was hectic and we didn't even get a chance to talk to some our friends when the pace was over one person entering each minute). Anyway, we would have loved to talk to this woman because she was one of the Dudley children who grew up in this house before we bought it in 1988. The Dudleys raised 10 kids in the house with one bathroom, and we have often wondered where they all slept. We only found out later that a Dudley had been here when Sarah mentioned at dinner that it was neat to talk to the woman who used to live here. Mike and I said, "What the heck are you talking about?" The Dudley daughter had stopped to talk to Sarah in her bedroom and said, "This is the room that my parents slept in. I slept in the adjacent bedroom with two of my sisters." We are amazed that they packed in three girls in the small 8 x 10 bedroom, but we imagined that they must have had such an arrangement to get 10 kids in the house. The upstairs half-story must have been a bunk room for all the boys. And someone slept in the basement because an illegal bedroom (our office for many years) was built at some point.

Even though we are exhausted, we are glad that we participated in the event. Now, it's time for the landscaping to begin. Molly, our designer from Heart and Soil, and Simon, our paver guy from Patios Plus, are hoping to break ground sometime this week. They think it will be a solid month of work since we are taking everything down to the bare dirt and starting over, concentrating on native flowers and grasses along with a backyard of mostly edibles. The current plans have a cherry orchard along the side of the house, a vegetable garden off the patio that Simon is building in the backyard, and a raspberry patch in the back corner by my clothes line. The front will be grasses and flowers with a hint of lawn to mow. Stay tuned for photos of that project's progress.

Playa del Carmen: Stalking the B's

2009-04-08T06:17:00.042-05:00

We had a great week of sun, surf and sights in Playa del Carmen over spring break, March 28 to April 4, thanks to meeting up with two families from SLP. When planning a spring break destination this year, Sarah gave me two options—London or Playa del Carmen to stay at the same resort as her friend Charlie B. I really wanted to relax on a beach instead of traipsing around the dusty churches and museums of the UK—even if the British pound’s devalued state would make a trip there more economical than past years.

Even though I preferred the relaxation that Playa would have offered, I was hesitant to stalk a family that we didn’t know. But Sarah was persistent in her claims that the week would prove to be fun and that Charlie B’s family would not care. So we booked our week at the Riu Playacar through Fun Jet Vacations, dba Lomas Travel in Mexico.

Sarah, Mike and I woke early on March 28 to catch a 4:30 a.m. cab to Humphrey Terminal for our 7:00 a.m. Sun Country flight. The land and air travel portion of our trip to Cancun International went off without a hitch, and my suitcase even weighed in at 48 pounds. Whew! Two pounds to spare. (On the way home I was over by a few pounds, so I had to move some items to Sarah's bag.)

Once on the ground in Cancun we were bombarded by the heat, humidity, and folks selling timeshares, but we found our way to the welcome teal shirts of our Lomas Travel representatives who whisked us away in an air-conditioned van with eight other tourists on their way to Playa del Carmen. In the van we encountered our first ugly American and overheard the following conversation (abbreviated for your reading pleasure):

Ugly American from Minneapolis to woman sitting next to him on the van: What nationality are you?

Perplexed woman: I am originally from India but have lived in Detroit most of my life.

Ugly Am: I thought so. I know a Hindu.

Perplexed: Oh.

Ugly Am: I went to a Hindu funeral once. They did some weird things there.

Perplexed: Yes, there are some certain customs.

Ugly Am: Bus driver, I want to buy my 18-year-old son a beer. I can do so legally here.

Well, the conversation and beers continued the entire hour long trip to Playa del Carmen with the man trying to impress the woman with his knowledge of Hindu culture and his consumption of Coronas.

So when we arrived at Riu Playacar, we were glad that Ugly Am and his family stayed behind in the van to get off at another resort.

With the 7:00 a.m. flight, passing through immigration and customs, collecting our bags, and traveling the hour via van from Cancun, we arrived at the Riu Playacar’s front desk at 1:00 local time (no daylight savings time here). We checked in, got our wrist bands, and stowed our bags since our room wasn’t ready yet. We did keep back our bathing suits and sunscreen though so that we could enjoy the beach and pool until we could head to our room.

But first we needed to replenish our fuel tanks, so we headed for our first encounter with the all-inclusive lunch buffet. We had not even sat down for lunch when Mike met up with another criminal defense attorney from Minneapolis—Robert O. What a small world. Robert, his wife Maria, and their son Nicky, had arrived from Minneapolis a few hours ahead of us. We quickly learned that the O’s lived in SLP and they also knew the B’s (Charlie’s family). Robert and Maria knew that the B’s would be staying at the Riu Playacar—although the O’s were not stalking the B’s like we were. They just happened to book the same resort, learning later that the B’s would also be there.

A typical lunch buffet.

We took it easy the first day, sitting in the shade with sunscreen and making a brief foray into the Caribbean. The B’s were not scheduled to arrive at the hotel until around 10:00 p.m., and we knew that our early morning flight would have us in bed long before they checked in. So Sarah left Charlie a note at the front desk to pick up when he arrived, letting him know our room number.

Mike and I caught up with the O’s at dinner that first night and found out that Nicky (a 6th grader in SLP) plays hockey and baseball, so we could swap many sports stories and “do you know so and so’s.”

Mike, Sarah and I were asleep that Saturday night by 9:00 to be awoken by the phone at 11:00 p.m. I nudged Sarah (we all had to sleep in one huge bed (two extra-wide twin beds pushed together) and told her, “Answer the phone. It must be Charlie.” Sarah grunted, but we all fell back to sleep before the phone even stopped ringing. We were that tired.

Sunday morning we awoke to beautiful skies and an awesome breakfast buffet, complete with churros and chocolate, fruit smoothies, tons of fresh fruit, and just about every type of egg and meat dish that one could imagine.

We sat in Geider’s section for breakfast that day, and we sat in his section every morning after that because he soon learned that I wanted a full pot of coffee, a pitcher of hot milk, and even a cappuccino on the side. At breakfast that Sunday morning all three families from SLP were united and went to the beach together. We became a gang of ten—the BR’s (Jackie, Mike and Sarah), the B’s (Scott, Nancy, Charlie and Maggie), and the O’s (Robert, Maria, and Nicky).

Our routine was the same most days. The O’s and BR’s breakfasted in Geider’s indoor section while the B’s risked a neighboring smoker so that they could eat in the sun on the porch. Mexico now has indoor air no-smoking laws, but the open air tables allow smoking.

Sarah and the other kids liked stalking folks with their cameras. I found the photo below on Sarah's camera. I have no idea when she shot this one of me pondering my breakfast.

In the photo below Mike joins the B's on the porch one morning. I'm sure he's planning building a human pyramid. Photo courtesy of Stalker Sarah.

After breakfast was the beach with Maggie (I think she was a mermaid in her former life), Charlie, Nicky and Sarah only leaving the ocean to move to the pool or to join in with the entertainment staff of the Riu Playacar for all of the organized activities. Some favorite kid activities were rifle shooting (Sarah took second place one day), the free scuba lessons, badminton (Nicky took first one day), bocce ball, water polo and ping pong.

Mermaid Maggie

Eagle-eyed Sarah on the rifle range.

Scuba lesson

Water polo got a little rough one day.

The kids became fast friends with Aly, one of the Riu's entertainment staff members, spending a considerable amount of time stalking Aly to see what she was organizing and trying to convince her to get them some Riu fanny packs as rewards for their outstanding achievements on the rifle range and badminton court. On the last day, the fanny packs finally surfaced, and Sarah, Charlie and Nicky wore theirs to the first day back at the junior high.

Sarah, Aly and Charlie.

Sarah poses with Aly and another Riu staffer on Mayan Night.

The three dads played a lot of volleyball and were often found body surfing. Since the dads were in the ocean so much that left the moms time to read books, walk on the beach, and just relax and talk. Occasionally on the beach, the group would get a crazy idea, like burying Scott and putting corn chips on top of him for the seagulls to attack or making a ten-person pyramid.

We took a long lunch each day to recharge the batteries and get out of the sun. Guacamole, salsa and chips were lunchtime favorites.

Robert and Maria

Nancy and Scott

After a great day in the sun and surf, the families would gather each night for dinner at 6:45 p.m. That was when the restaurants would open, and trust me, we were all very hungry by then. We usually ate at the buffet so that there was something to eat for everyone, but we tried two other restaurants at the Riu Playacar. One night we went to the steak house, and most of us ordered BBQ pork ribs. They were awesome. Here are the kids that night with our waiter.

But most nights we simply ate at the buffet, relaxing and enjoying each other's company.

After dinner it was time for the Riu entertainment staff's evening games and show. That event started at 8:45 p.m. with kids games. One night our four decided to participate in a grouping game. And one night the adults unfortunately got called up for a fruit salad game under the hot stage lights. I was paired with an Eden Prairie hockey mom for team watermelon. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the Eden Prairie hockey team along with their families and girlfriends had descended on the Riu Playacar for the week. Fortunately, the kids slept most of the day, so we were only annoyed a few times when they hit the bar for some loud festivities.

The kids on stage for the grouping game.

We played Crazy 8's one night while we waited for the floor show to begin.

On Wednesday of our week away, Mike organized a zip line tour at Adventureland which was halfway between Cancun and Playa. Sarah's good friend Audrey, who lives across the street from us, was in Cancun for the week and the girls wanted to meet. Audrey's little brother Max is good friends with Nicky, so the O's went along too.

Nicky, Robert, Max, Karen, Mike, Audrey and Sarah at Adventureland.

On Thursday of our vacation week, Mike, Sarah, Charlie and I headed out for an eleven-hour tour to Chichen Itza, the Mayan Ruins about three hours from our hotel. The tour company was great, furnishing us with a luxury bus (complete with a bathroom) and a server who kept us supplied with drinks and snacks.

Once we reached the middle of the Yucatan Peninsula and the area around Chichen Itza, we stopped at a fresh-water underground swimming hole, known as a Cenote. Sarah, Charlie and Mike had no problems jumping from the high ledge. I just kept to the low platform.

After swimming we had lunch at a great buffet complete with dancers on stage twirling with trays of dishes on their heads.

Then it was time for the hot three-hours in the jungle sun at the Mayan ruins. We knew that it would be hot, but we weren't prepared for just how hot.

But our tour guide Martin made the hours in the heat pass quickly with all of his information on the Mayans, his highlights of the architecture, and his great humor. All day Sarah was called "the lamb" because she was destined to be the group's virgin sacrifice when we arrived at the well where the Mayans threw their sacrifices. Below is Martin tattooing Sarah as part of his re-enactment of the Mayan sacrifice.

Martin's sense of humor also came through will all his nicknames for people in our group. He kept calling Charlie . . . Tom Petty.

It was hard to see the week end because it felt like we were at summer camp with all of the friends and fun activities. So it goes!! And so we left Mexico for an uneventful flight home.

Joe Takes Off for Costa Rica

2009-03-03T05:55:00.001-06:00

I have entered the blogosphere, and created my own blog to track my trip with Danny across Central America. Visit www.thegreatlandbridgecrossing.blogspot.com to keep up with our adventures.

Construction Progress Photo Essay

2009-02-10T07:21:00.009-06:00

The construction project is nearing completion. Here are some photos showing the most recent progress.

Mike's latest adventures

2009-02-07T11:31:00.004-06:00

I am often asking Mike when he plans on growing up, and he replies, "Never. I'm going to be out playing racquetball while you're sitting on the rocking chair on the front porch reading a book." That doesn't sound like such a bad plan to me.

Anyway, his latest injury is a torn tendon "or something" in his finger from snowboarding. The finger is in the weakest cast that I've ever seen. He is on a two-month moratorium on washing dishes. How convenient that this fell during the time that I'm washing all dishes by hand while bending over the laundry tub. Thank god that the new kitchen is just a week or two away.

But not being able to get his finger wet to do dishes doesn't stop Mike from playing hockey and racquetball. I guess stinky sweat doesn't count. Below is a photo of Mike playing goalie on the third place hockey team in a recent Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services tournament at Excel Energy Center.

2008 Top Ten

2008-12-31T09:45:00.006-06:00

Today, the last day of 2008 has me reflecting on the biggest events of the year. Many of the events were captured on this blog or elsewhere on the Internet, so I've included links to my Top 10 List for 2008 for those who want a detailed review of the family adventures of 2008.

Joe's Graduation. In May Joe graduated from St. John's University with degrees in Spanish and chemistry. We celebrated the event with a pig roast the day before. Click here for all the details.

Mexican Vacations. In 2008 we took two great trips to Mexico. For Winter Break the whole family plus Kenna and Sarah's friend Rachel vacationed in Cancun. Cancun photos and stories can be found at "Cancun for Winter Break," "With the New Year Came the Winds," "Final Reflections on Mexico," and "Mexican Photo Essay." For Spring Break, Jackie Mike and Sarah headed to Acapulco. Read more about that trip at "A Series of Sunglasses," "A Series of Sunscreens," "Last Days in Mexico," and "Dolphin Video."

Home remodeling. To learn more about the five additions to the house, read "The Construction Project Gets Underway," "The Project Continues" and "Siege of the Subcontractors."

Obama's Victory. Read "State Fair 08" where the family spent lots of time accosted by political hacks and posing with an Obama cutout. The English 10 teachers also like posing with Obama and McCain.

Brandt Criminal Defense Expansion. Mike had a great year with Brandt Criminal Defense. His new website with maximized googability has really paid off as many new clients list website as their referral source. With the increased business Mike took on a law clerk and even hired Joe to do some investigative and clerical work. The extra work has helped Joe out as he searches for a job, after being laid off from his internship at ADC Telecommunications when ADC laid off 150 employees in November.
Jackie's Job. This year I have been busier than ever, teaching both English 10 and World Literature while serving as the English department chair and continuing my coaching efforts and blog with the National Urban Alliance. My NUA blog has over 10,000 visits, and I enjoy tracking how long people from all over the world spend on my blog, exploring the various culturally responsive teaching strategies. I also presented the networking capabilities of this blog to educators at a National NUA Conference this past summer, and the blog was nominated for a National EduBlog award.

Sarah's Soccer. Sarah had a great year, really coming into her own as a leading defender for her team, plus most of her best friends now are the great group of girls on the soccer team. Here's a few blog posts to check out: "Soccer Season Success," "Sarah's First Sports Ink" and "Overtime and Then Out."

Community Supported Agriculture. The family continues to enjoy the harvests from Harmony Valley Farm, even using Farmer Richard to broker our fruit, cheese and coffee consumption. Jackie's German Farm Stock organic cooking blog now boasts around 60 posts and 1,500 hits.

Kavanaugh's Retreat. For all the details, check out "Here Comes the Sun," "Kavanaugh's: Best of the Worst," and "Parting Shots of a Great Vacation."

Family Togetherness. Some of the family party highlights include "4th of July Festivities," "Mike's 50th Birthday," "Chris and Alicia's Wedding," "Fall Mini-Vacation to Wisconsin," and "Holiday Gatherings."

I hope you enjoyed those links and the entire family blog. Have a great 2009!

Siege of the Subcontractors

2008-12-31T09:02:00.007-06:00

Mike has been posting about the remodel and just finished a lengthy post called "The Project Continues," and he initially posted "The Construction Project Gets Underway"; however, I felt the need to add my two cents of interpretation on the remodel.

It's insane around here, especially lately with the subcontractors descending on the house.

For the last two months, I've been searching for a slow down in the economy, and I haven't seen any signs. The malls were packed with holiday shoppers, restaurants still require waiting to get seated, drunks are still calling Brandt Criminal Defense at alarming rates, and the Boyer Construction Crew seemed slow in getting the project started. But this week, I'm realizing that the subcontractors have all been chomping at the bit for work. Yesterday, there were over 20 people here working during the snowstorm, and the sheetrocker and painter stopped by to ask Mike the Lead Carpenter when they could start rocking since his schedule was wide open. We were not quite ready for the insulators (Mike hasn't finished his speaker and computer wiring), but the insulators said they have no work this week, so they strapped on their stilts and started insulating.

It was so crazy here that I was glad to escape for a few hours to LifeTime Fitness for a workout and a haircut. When I walked in the living room and saw the gaping hole where the new window would go, I knew that it was time to escape, leaving Sarah and her friend Claire to seek refuge in the basement.

So let me tally the workers who were here yesterday:

Boyer Carpenters: 3 (Mike and Keith plus Paul Boyer who stopped by to check on their work).

Nordic Insulators: 2

Roofers: 6

Siders: 6

City Building Inspector: 1

Dumpster hauler: 1

Sheet rocker: 1

Painter: 1

Although the sheetrocker and painter were just here briefly to see when they could start working, that was 21 men (yes, no women) who were traipsing and pounding in and around the house. No wonder Sarah asked for earplugs for Christmas.

If you look closely, you can see the roofers who were here from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. yesterday blowing snow off the roof with a leaf blower when the snow started accumulating. They roofed the entire house and garage in two days and shoveled the driveway before they left to make sure that we didn't drive over any nails when parking in the garage.

Last night we capped off a crazy construction day with dinner for six in the basement kitchen (the family plus Claire and Danny). I had made a chicken tarragon Marsala dish by starting it in a fry pan on the hot plate and then finishing it in the slow cooker. All afternoon the smells of frying chicken, garlic, onion, mushrooms and wine sauce were wafting through the house, and I chuckled as construction workers came in to warm up, commenting, "Umm, what's the lady of the house making down there?"

Holiday Gatherings

2008-12-27T11:08:00.025-06:00

The Christmas season gets longer every year, starting with a Snowbird Christmas in early November and continuing through the New Year. Here's a sampling of photos marking all of our family celebrations.

Christmas dinner found us gorging at the Boni Brandts. We were 12 for dinner--John, Gina, Ben, Maddie, Mike, Jackie, Joe, Sarah, Gina's folks (John and Bonnie), and two of my brothers (Jim and Steve.) Jackie and Mike provided a slew of appetizers--artichoke dip, shrimp cocktail, radishes on toasted rye, pickles rolled in cream cheese and ham, Frango mints, and baked tomme cheese with pears. For the main meal John roasted a pork crown roast to perfection, and Gina's side dishes included stuffing, whipped butternut squash, cabbage rolls, and asparagus. Bonnie whipped up some gravy, and I tossed an Italian salad.

The drink highlight of the day was Jim's Hebrew, the Chosen Beer. La Chaim!!

For entertainment, Joe took Sarah, Ben and Maddie sliding and then played a lot of Wii on Ben and Maddie's new system. We also each grabbed a cell phone and each called a different cell phone in Mesa, Arizona (where the rest of the family was celebrating the holiday). We called Bea, Jim Sr., Amy, Patti, Baba, Pam and Greta all at the same time. We had visions of all of the cell phones going off at the same time in Mesa while they were eating dinner. However, their dinner had been delayed and we ended up getting people at three different trailers in Mesa--not the desired effect. Oh well. Of course, we ended the night with a viewing of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

In the photo below my brothers Jim and Steve check out Bonnie's desserts--mint ice cream cake and her famous pumpkin bars.

Christmas morning saw the usual unwrapping marathon at our house. Joe and Sarah each got Ugg's and a variety of DVDs and video games--and clothes of course. Jackie and Mike received a slew of new kitchen implements for the much-awaited remodeled space. Kenna got the ever-practical college student gifts--gift certificates for gas and groceries.

On December 13, Liz and Tony hosted a brunch with Santa Claus. Liz served French toast, crab cakes, beef tenderloin, an egg dish and a host of other tasty treats. Santa entertained the kids with his corny humor and distributed some great toys and books. Santa's knees got a work out with . . .

Big Ben . . .

Maddie contemplates if the funny guy is Bad Santa or Bad Uncle Mike . . .

JoJo gives Santa a two thumbs up rating . . .

Sarah does too . . .

Matthew takes his turn on Santa's lap . . .

And so does Henry . . .

Of course, Jackie wants a turn on her Bad Santa's lap. . .

For Thanksgiving, the family headed North to Walker to spend the holiday with Jerry, Helen and Katie. Brothers Phil and Jim also joined in the Leech Lake Thanksgiving. My family stayed at the newly-remodeled Chase on the Lake in downtown Walker. The place is beautiful, and I highly recommend the place if you ever find yourself wanting to stay in downtown Walker with a view of the Pederson, Smith and Roehl accounting firm. Jerry found us a friends and family rate at the Chase, but we upgraded to a two-bedroom condo with a view of Leech Lake. The place was great, and Joe and I headed out to SuperOne foods and the Municipal Liquor store to stock up for the weekend.

On Thanksgiving Day we enjoyed Jerry's turkey roasted ala Martha Stewart's way in cheese cloth. Here Mike carves the bird under Helen's supervision:

For entertainment we played a lot of Wii, with each of using using Wii fit to determine our Mii age. Everyone laughed at my Mii age of 69--I guess the most unfit of the family. Joe scored the best with a Mii age of 25. Below Sarah, Joe and Katie enjoy the Wii with a Leech Lake sunset in the background.

One of Katie's cats checks out the Wii action too.

The first holiday event of the year was Christmas at the Mora Golf Course home before Baba and Grandpa Mike headed to Mesa, Arizona for the winter. We gathered the second weekend in November to enjoy time together. The 13 and under kids drew names so that each kid could open one gift, and the big kids traded their gift exchange this year for a collection towards animals from Heifer International. Jimmy was able to purchase the animals through his ADC matching contribution which allowed us to double our impact. After all the money was collected and the contribution was doubled we were able to purchase two llamas, two goats, and an assortment of rabbits, ducks, and bees. After gifts, food and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, we all headed to our rooms at the AmericInn. We had the swimming pool area to ourselves--and 17 of us enjoyed some water fun before heading to bed.

Here's Abraham opening the Yobi that Sarah gave him.

Basketball Season

2008-12-27T11:02:00.004-06:00

Sarah's traveling basketball team is in full swing, and they have already participated in three tournaments. The girls have only won one game, and they've lost eight. Oh well. They are improving, so I'm hoping for big things in 2009. Sarah purposefully crossed her eyes in the team photo--I guess that's a metaphor for the season.

The project continues.

2008-12-18T20:24:00.009-06:00

After going through all the preparation, changes, and re-designs, we finally inked the contract with Boyer Construction. And the fun began!

One Monday morning back in the beginning of November, I got a phone call from Paul from Boyer Construction. He said that he got the plans back from the city, and the city was requiring that we add an egress window in the basement since we were adding a full basement under the new kitchen. Paul said that the city would accept an egress window in either in the new basement addition or in our existing basement office. After kicking it around for a while, Jackie and I decided to add a window to our basement office to give us more natural light. But wait. This project has always been about the upcharge, so after thinking about the basement window situation a while longer, we decided, what the heck, why not add egress windows to both the office and the new basement as well. Jackie had visions of moving Joe to this extra, basement bedroom and reclaiming her Zen room. That decision was the first of several “change orders” that would soon mushroom the price of this project.

That Monday morning when I talked to Paul Boyer, he informed me that they were starting the project and that he was starting to tear off the deck. I had visions of Paul out there with a screw gun and a crowbar taking the deck apart--one piece at a time. Not even close. When I got home, I found a massive hole on the back of our house, and another one on the side for the future mudroom. The deck apparently came off with a few swipes from the backhoe. No screw guns & crowbars here! The excitement of the project starting was cut short: we didn’t have a key for the front door and we couldn’t get to our usual side door because there was a big hole there. I had to lean a ladder up to the threshold of our side door and scale across the ladder (in a suit) to get the back door open. A quick trip to the hardware store for front door keys for everyone.

Not only was the backyard now a giant dirt pile, we had a roadway across the front lawn leading to the street. Over the past month, a lot of heavy equipment has used this new road. I guess if we’re going to make an omelet, we have to break a few eggs. And retain a landscaper to be ready when the snow melts.

It didn’t take Boyer long to get the footings poured for the two additions. Then came the block work. However, the weather didn’t cooperate. In the middle of the excavation and block work, we had two or three days of solid rain! The backyard was a muddy swamp, and they couldn’t do any block work because of the rain. Well, once the rain let up, the block workers got the footings finished for the foundations.

After the footings they framed in the decking for the front porch and the decking for the back deck. They were concerned because we didn’t have any stairs to get into the house and the ramps leading up to the doors were a little hairy on frosty mornings. Bob the Builder watched Sarah leave for school one morning, doing the usual slide down the icy ramp, and Bob immediately told Mike the Lead Carpenter to get the decks and stairs built. Whenever Bob the Builder stops by, he has lots of suggestions for the crew.

With the framing started, Jackie and I had more decisions to make. What color siding did we want? We knew that we wanted cement board siding because it's amazingly durable, and we wanted to go with a stock color. Heck, we were tired of all the upcharges--and a custom color was a big upcharge. After poring over the samples, we decided on “Monterey Taupe.” I’m not sure if the color swatch on the Scherer Bros. website really gives a feel for the color, but we felt this color would go good with the white trim around the windows, the soffit, and fascia. Plus, on National Night Out in August, Karen our neighbor had her siding samples out, and the neighbors on our end of the block started comparing notes. We decided that the reality is that the neighbors' house colors are just as important--and because of that May 31 hail storm, the entire block was basically being re-sided and re-roofed. So we wanted to go with a stock color that we liked, but that wasn't being overdone on our end of the block.

With the stock color not forcing an upcharge, I was itching for some more change orders. Jackie keeps shaking her head, asking, "What did you upcharge today?" We decided that we wanted to replace the front door, and Bob the Builder suggested a WoodHarbor door. We decided on a solid cherry door. So, what the heck, if we were going to replace the front door, why not replace the front, picture window as well. Change order number three. But wait, if we are putting new siding on the house, it sure wouldn't look right to have old siding on the garage. Change order number four. Whoops! New roofing for the garage wasn't figured in the original bid; change order number five, re-roofing the garage to match the house.

As Mike the Carpenter started doing the framing, little issues popped in and out of our lives. When Mike framed up the exterior rear walls for the new part of the kitchen, he framed them using 2 x 6 lumber. However, both walls needed to line up with the current walls in the house which were made with 2 x 4 lumber. Whoops! They had to trim down the 2 x 6 boards to 2 x 4's to match the existing walls. Next, came a surprise with the existing floor joists above the old kitchen. The ends of the floor joists had been cut off at an angle to match the pitch of the roof. That didn’t leave enough wood to catch the end of the floor joists for my upstairs closet, so the crew had to run all new floor joists alongside the old floor joists. Below is a shot of the kitchen ceiling with double floor joists and microlam beams to hold the weight of my closet above. A constant joke around the jobsite is simply saying "Mike's closet" in a certain tone. The crew can't believe that I am getting this huge closet, and the "Lady of the House" is relegated to the old closet. The Boyer crew keeps telling all the subcontractors about "Mike's closet," so after this newly reinforced closet floor was installed, the new joke was, "Now, Mike can dance in his closet."

Needless to say, it's been a bit of a challenge having our house in a constant state of mess with workers tracking in and out. A few weeks ago we had to vacate our kitchen, so we set up a temporary kitchen in my basement work room. I cleaned out some of my storage cupboards, and I put contact paper on the shelves to clean them up a little bit. I also put contact paper on the workbench, which would now be our kitchen counter. It’s not quite a gourmet kitchen, but we're able to create some great dinners with our two-burner hot plate, the grill outside, the crock pot, and the microwave/toaster oven. We really haven't had to eat out as much as we anticipated. The kids' friends still come for dinner in our basement kitchen and are fairly amazed at what we create. Our friend Ron told Jackie the other day, "I bet you're still cooking up a bigger storm on this hot plate, than Nancy and I are cooking up in our kitchen." Visit http://www.germanfarmstock.blogspot.com/ to see some recent remodeling recipes from Jackie.

One major mishap--the carpenters began the framing for my closet upstairs, but didn't finish it by the weekend. They had two of the walls built, and they simply covered the exposed flooring with tarps and plastic to get through the weekend. I guess they didn’t read the weather report which predicted rain on Sunday morning. I woke up Sunday morning to find a torrential downpour in the kitchen with rain leaking in all over through the new floor in the closet. After putting out every container we had to catch water, I finally decided to go up on the roof and see if I could do anything about the situation. I quickly dispatched the tarp and plastic they had put down and took some of their “Tyvek” house wrap and made a roof out of it, which allowed the rain to run off the roof. That seemed to keep things dry. Shortly after I did that, Mike the Carpenter called and wanted to know if we were having any trouble with water. When I told him what was happening, he went out and bought a huge tarp and put it over the addition to keep all the rain out.

Well, all of the additions are now closed in, the windows are installed, and the floor in the new basement addition has been poured. The plumber, heating guy, and electricians have all finished with their rough-ins. The roofers are finished. The insulation is almost finished, and the exterior siding begins with the new year. Here are some photos.

This exterior shot shows the kitchen off back, the mudroom for the side door, the closet upstairs, and a hint of the front porch.

The home of Joe's future bedroom in the new basement under the kitchen addition. Joe will have to wait for Grampa Mike to return from Snowbirding in Arizona so that Grandpa can help Joe finish the space with sheet rock, a closet, and a suspended ceiling.

This interior kitchen shot displays another oops. Keith the Under-Carpenter shattered one of the new sliding door windows when an errant board flew off his saw, so Boyer has to replace the entire door.

This shot from the driveway out back shows the kitchen bay window, the future home of Jackie's indoor herb and spout garden.

The front porch and new covered entry.

The construction project gets underway!

2008-11-09T11:07:00.020-06:00

Where It All Began

May 31, 2008. A major thunderstorm sweeps across the western suburbs of Minneapolis, dropping baseball-sized hail on homes and causing millions of dollars worth of damage to roofs, siding, and landscaping. Our house was not exempt from the damage, and after we realized our siding needed to be replaced, we decided to upgrade to a better siding. But wait, it didn’t end there. We had been talking for a long time about putting a front porch on the house, and we figured that if we were going to re-side the house, we might as well put the front porch on before we do the siding. Well, as long as we were going to be doing the front porch, we might as well think about adding on for a bigger kitchen as we had been talking about doing that for a long time. The next thing you know, we have ended up doing a major renovation of our house.

The Process Starts

After we had our insurance adjuster out to look at the damage, we started meeting with contractors. We finally settled on Boyer Building Corporation. This company was recommended to me by a friend as they had just finished adding on to his garage. I was aware of Boyer from my days working with the tools and knew that they had been around for decades, had a stellar reputation, and did quality work. We set up a meeting with Bob Boyer, affectionately known as Bob the Builder way before we ever heard of Joe the Plumber. We started talking about the scope of the project, what we wanted to accomplish, and Bob started putting together some ideas. After several meetings with Bob, numerous revisions, Bob put together a set of plans along with the bid for the project. What started out as replacing our siding, turned into adding the following to our house:

A 10’ x 15’ addition to our kitchen

A full basement underneath that new kitchen that can be used as a bedroom since it will have an egress window.

A completely gutted and remodeled kitchen with state-of-the-art appliances, new cabinets, and granite countertops

An 8’ x 8’ mudroom added onto the side with built-in cabinets for storing coats, boots, and other outerwear

An 8' x 8' crawl space under the mudroom for box storage

A 9’ x 15’ deck added to the south side

An 8’ by 11’ walk-in closet added to our bedroom

A covered front porch and a portico over the front door

Here are some sketches from Bob the Builder, and computer renderings of the new kitchen from Liz the Cabinet Designer.

Hammering Out The Details

Before undertaking this renovation, we looked at homes for sale in St. Louis Park and concluded that for what the addition would cost, we would not be able to buy a home as nice as that which we would end up with after the project.

Once we finalized the plans, next came the decisions. First, we had to decide what type of cabinets we wanted so that they could be ordered. The choices were almost overwhelming, but we finally decided on a mission style cabinet made by Dura Supreme. Here is a sample of the cabinets in quarter-sawn oak.

Next, we had to decide on our appliances. The cabinets had to be built to accommodate the size of the appliances, so this entailed a trip to Ferguson’s to start the process. We get hooked up with an awesome salesman by the name of Kent. Kent was extremely knowledgeable about stoves, dishwashers, refrigerators, microwaves and was able to answer all our inane questions about our project. We finally decided on a Wolf dual fuel range,

a Kitchen Aid bottom freezer refrigerator with French doors (ala the new Mora homestead).

The builder had originally specified the microwave being a pullout drawer type in the island. However, we opted for a GE space saver microwave that will fit into a Cabinet slot, and will not stick out beyond the face of the cabinets.

The dishwasher was a little tricky. We wanted to be able to put a Cabinet panel on the face of the dishwasher to hide it and not have its stick out past the cabinets. This limited our choices to Asko, Bosch, or Miele. We opted for the Asco. We’re a little nervous about the reliability as there were numerous complaints by people from Consumer Reports. However, it comes with a three-year warranty, and if there’s going to be any problems, they should happen in that first three years.

The island will be a sage green, and the countertops will be a granite with black and brown design. Both of those are below.

Fall Mini Vacation to Chippewa Falls WI

2008-11-09T08:23:00.039-06:00

The crew took a mini vacation for MEA weekend to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. The trip was prompted by Mike's cousin Janet who informed us that another one of Mike's cousins, Sarah, who owns a dairy farm in Wisconsin, had a Halloween festival every year. We headed out on a beautiful fall Saturday morning to Chippewa. Mike, Jackie, Sarah, and Amy led the caravan with Gina, Ben, and Maddie following up after Ben finished his hockey tryouts. We all met up in Menominee for lunch before taking the last leg of the trip.

We moseyed up the road to Chippewa Falls, and when we made our way to the farm, we were greeted by Mike's cousin Ken who was directing traffic into the overflowing parking area. The first order of business was making a scarecrow out of clothing that was sewn together by cousin Sarah, just perfect for stuffing with hay.

After stuffing the scarecrows,we added a head and a hat for a finished scarecrow. Sarah named her scarecrow, Chief Feathernecker of the Wig Wam Tribe. (Political correctness be damned!)
Other activities for the day included a corn maze that stretched across ten acres of a cornfield. A lot of places make their corn mazes with a GPS and automated equipment. Not in Chippewa Falls! Mike's cousin Sarah manually created the corn maze by walking through with a weed whacker, cutting down the stalks by hand. Ouch! What a tedious project. Cousin Sarah had gathered various artifacts from the farm and other documents relating to the Chippewa Falls area in general, and family ancestors specifically, for a little historical display. Our Sarah posed in front of an original trunk from Norway that her great-great grandmother Oline used when she came over from Norway. We capped off the day’s activities on a wagon ride pulled by two draft horses.

Next it was off to the Chippewa Falls AmericInn for swimming and dinner. There was a small water park at the hotel and the kids went sliding and swimming, the adults read magazines, and the adult kid (Mike) played in the pool. Dinner was a Mexican feast at the Cancun Grill, Chippewa Falls' Mexican hot spot. They claim the drinks the kids had did not have alcohol, but we wonder….

Sunday morning was another beautiful day and after breakfast at the hotel, we headed off to the Leinenkugel brewery for a tour of their facility. The brewery was started in the 1867 and has maintained itself (more or less) in the Chippewa Falls area ever since (making soda pop during prohibition). Part of the tour provided for a sampling of the wares. Those too young to drink alcohol got a sampling of draft root beer from a local bottler.

We stopped for lunch at the Bridge Street Station at the recommendation of the gang at Leinenkugels. At first we thought the place was a dive as there was hardly anyone there eating. I guess we just had god timing because by the time we ordered and were waiting for our food, the line was out the door. I guess it was the town hot spot. Our last stop was at the Elk Mound Lutheran Church In Elk Mound, Wisconsin. This church has a lot of history to our family. We have attended numerous weddings and a couple funerals here, and it has been the "family" church for generations. Next to the church is a small graveyard where my grandmother Borghild and other family members are buried. Sarah, Ben and Maddie pose by their great-grandmother's grave.

State Fair 2008

2008-09-27T17:16:00.008-05:00

The family four enjoyed a gorgeous Saturday at the Minnesota State Fair this past August, joining thousands of people at the great get-together. We sampled tons of food, including Cousin Cindy's sausage sampler, bull bites, cheese curds, roasted corn, Sweet Martha's cookies, french fries and pronto pups. The beauty of having the whole family there was that we could just buy one serving of cheese curds, bull bites, etc. and split those items four ways. That allowed us to enjoy a greater variety of foods.

We enjoyed touring the eco-home, the agriculture building, the animal barns, the creative arts building and the education building. Jackie once again became a cowhand expert in the cow barn, impressing the family with her knowledge of cattle farms. But I was only an intermediate cowhand with the dairy quiz. And at the alpaca booth, Sarah and Joe begged us to buy them each an $80 alpaca hat, but we refused and had them settle for this photo.

We ran into three EHS teachers--Sarah J., Steve S. and Colleen R.--and even caught the EHS marching band in the daily fair parade. Just in front of the band was a horse group, and they didn't have cleaners following them, so I enjoyed watching the bandies not even miss a beat as they marched right through the piles of dung.

Politicians were out in full force. We caught an Al Franken radio interview, and we bought Obama t-shirts at the DFL booth.

Joe and Sarah also joined the crowd when the Back Street Boys were being interviewed on the radio so that they could get an up-close look at the has-been rock group.

Chris & Alicia's Wedding

2008-09-27T14:22:00.025-05:00

The family celebrated the marriage of Mike's step-brother Chris to Alicia on August 22. The ceremony took place at Minnehaha Falls, and fortunately, only a light drizzle occurred during the ceremony. The skies looked threatening, but umbrellas were only needed for a few minutes of the ceremony. The reception took place in Burnsville, and Alicia's dad DJ'd the dance. Joe, Kenna, Sarah, Mike and I helped close down the dance when only a few family members were left. The photo essay below tells the rest of the story.

Alicia and Chris exchange rings.

The family mugs for the holiday greeting card photo. So do PJAM and the Boni's.

Abraham and Jimmy, and then Jackie and Sarah take the time to pose by Minnehaha Falls.

Reception fun--Sarah and Joe, Kenna and Jackie, and Abraham (Seriously Abe, a beer?)

And then the dance begins . . .

Fred and Ginger, aka Jackie and Mike spent way too much time on the dance floor. Does our hair really look this gray when we wear black?

Sarah is all smiles when she gets to dance with Grandpa Mike and learn a few moves from the ballroom dance master.

Baba has some moves of her own and can give Joe a few pointers.

Greta and Cole helped close down the party.

Kenna is wondering when this crazy family ever stops dancing.

Last call for the late night dance crew.

Parting Shots of a Great Vacation

2008-08-17T18:15:00.012-05:00

Sarah, Claire, Katie, Grace, Mike and Jackie say goodbye to Kavanaugh's.

Mike enjoys the million dollar view from one of the nature trails.

The grounds and landscaping at Kavanaugh's are so well maintained.

And they clean their two beaches every day.

Friday night the fridge was pretty bare, so we took the girls to Famous Dave's for dinner.

The girls enjoy their last night together.

Kavanaugh's: Best of the Worst

2008-08-15T19:27:00.010-05:00

With any vacation comes a few moments that snap you back to reality, reminding you that life is not all paradise. The week at Kavanaugh's was great, but here are the worst events of the week:

The Sizzling Ghost

Joe and Kenna's bedroom was haunted by a ghost that we affectionately referred to as the sizzling ghost because Kenna said it sounded like the ghost was frying bacon. After the first two nights we kept laughing at Kenna, saying, "Sure, Kenna. The cabin's haunted." In fact, on night two, she barely slept a wink and kept turning on the light to see the ghost. Kenna turned out not to be alone in her paranormal encounters. On night three Joe and Kenna abandoned their bedroom to sleep on the living room floor because now Joe was even hearing the sizzling ghost and couldn't sleep in that bedroom. By night five, Sarah woke to inform me that she too is hearing the sizzling ghost. I honestly think that the noise they were all hearing was some animal living in the walls of the cabin--maybe a family of bats.

The Energizer Battery

On the first day of the trip, Mike and I were headed to the grocery store to stock up on the week's provisions. I was in a hurry since we needed to feed the six hungry mouths back at Kavanaugh's, but Mike convinced me to take a "five minute detour" to Target to get a new watch battery. Five minutes became 50, no exaggeration. It took 50 minutes and three Target employees to change Mike's watch battery. The jewelry counter employees and later the manager would never let Mike touch the screw driver himself because that was against store policy. So there we sat, Mike's watch held hostage as the kids waited back home to be fed.

Sunglasses on the Bottom of Sylvan Lake

On Wednesday, Mike was spending a leisurely afternoon floating around Sylvan Lake on his Diva raft and reading a book. Mike couldn't read with his prescription sunglasses, so he perched the glasses on his hat as he paddled and read. At one point he made a quick turn to look at something, and off flew his sunglasses, sinking fast in ten feet of water and two feet of weeds. Mike borrowed a snorkel and mask from someone on the beach, but the weeds proved to be too thick, and he never recovered his prescription sunglasses, and he had to spend the rest of the week squinting.

Stalking Skateboarder

When I asked the girls what was the worst of the week, they all agreed that Josh, the 15-year-old skateboarder who spent much of the week stalking the four girls, was by far the worst of the week.

Rashes Everywhere

Four of us were stricken with rashes over the week. Kenna had a bad reaction to the lotion used during her massage, I ended up getting a terrible sun rash, and both Claire and Sarah got road rash from innertubing. One of the Kavanaugh's guests invited the four girls for a long tube ride, and the each had a tube of their own. The girls all agreed that tubing was the best of the week.

Here Comes the Sun--A Week at Kavanaughs

2008-08-14T11:47:00.007-05:00

The girls at the campfire.

For our summer vacation this year, we rented a three-bedroom cabin at Kavanaugh’s Resort on Sylvan Lake in the Brainerd Lakes Area of Northern Minnesota. Since we had plenty of space (the cabin sleeps 8 comfortably), we told Sarah to bring three friends. Kenna and Joe took one bedroom, Mike and I had the Master Suite, and Sarah, Grace, Katie and Claire crashed in the third bedroom.

After a little remodeling, putting the sofa bed mattress on the floor and hanging Zac Efron and Jonas Brother posters, the teen hangout was established. I hate to even look in there since the place has bikinis, towels and t-shirts everywhere. Sarah’s retainer and Katie’s cell phone are lost somewhere in the mess, but we figure that all will be found when we pack for home.

I don’t think the girls have quit laughing, and we are already on day five. We can usually find them in the resort by following the sound of the high-pitched banter. The girls move from beach to beach, from pool to pool, and from resort to resort, always finding their way back to the cabin just as dinner is being served, or as the last dish is being dried. I’m convinced that they have a spy somewhere in the cabin.

The girls haven’t hooked up with any boys yet, but skateboarder Josh (a 15-year-old) has been stalking them. One day Josh chased them all over Sylvan Lake in his kayak as the girls tried to out-kayak him. Mike and I were canoeing that day, and Sarah asked me why we didn’t rescue them from the stalker. Heck, if we would have gone over to them, Sarah would have asked why we had interrupted their flirting. A mother really never knows the right thing to do in a situation like that.

Another fun activity for the girls is rubber duck racing. On Tuesday, the girls entered the Kavanaugh’s Rubber Duck Race, and each of them received a small, numbered, rubber duck to place in the top of the stream. Kavanaugh’s has done some outstanding landscaping, and they have built a babbling brook that meanders through the resort, ending in a pond with a fountain. On Tuesday’s official rubber duck race, the entire resort turned out, and they started the race mid-stream. People ran along the brook, yelling encouragement at their duck. Katie’s duck took second place, and all of the girls were allowed to keep their ducks. I bet the Kavanaugh boys (the resort—in its second generation--is run by four brothers) regret the decision to let our gaggle of girls keep their ducks. You can often hear the screeches of encouragement as the girls race their four ducks. They even start at the top of the stream (stretching the original course) so that the ducks have to make their way through a culvert under the bridge for the road. I get such a kick out of the bridge crossing since it reminds me of playing pooh sticks. Once the ducks have entered the culvert, the girls run to the other side of the bridge to see which duck emerges first—to be greeted by a loud squeal. The girls each bought a Kavanaugh’s Duck Race T-shirt, and they have vowed to wear them on the first day of school. Here are Sarah, Claire, Katie and Grace sporting the latest in back-to-school wear:

Joe and Kenna had such a great time during their four days here. They left Tuesday night to return to their internships. Kenna pleaded with Joe to call in sick since she didn’t want to leave, but Joe wouldn’t capitulate. Joe and Mike golfed every day, and Joe posted an 85 for his lowest score of the week. Mike’s low score was 98, but he’s just happy to be out there after the sidelining torn calf muscle earlier this summer. The boys have been golfing on the traditional Madden’s East and West courses because they can do that at a heavily discounted rate with the Madden’s/Kavanaugh’s agreement. Mike got up early today to be the first one on the course, and he finished his round in just over two hours, getting home before I had even finished the morning paper.

Kenna and I entertained ourselves each morning that the boys were golfing by exploring the miles of paved trails through the woods and along the lakes here. The City of East Gull Lake has been busy paving trails between the resorts and the Classic and Legacy golf courses. Kenna has been running, so she covers the route much faster than me. The first day I walked for about three hours, and I have been sore ever since, having to cut down my miles.

Mike and I treated Kenna to a full body massage one day at Gull Lake Spa, and she just loved it, even though the lotions did cause her to break out, and she ended up spending a day in a Benadryl fog. Mike also had a full body massage that day at Gull Lake Spa, and he’s thinking of going back tomorrow for another rub down. Joe and Kenna have really helped with the cooking and dishes during their stay. Joe was especially proud of his nacho creation.

We’ve been eating well all week. Since we couldn’t check in until 4:00 p.m. Saturday, we made a quick dinner after Mike and I returned from Cub. We had Alfredo tortellini, roasted chickens from the deli, a salad, and bread. On Sunday Mike grilled up his world famous ribs and sweet corn. I made roasted potatoes and cole slaw. We invited Joe’s friend from Brainerd, Sam G., over for dinner. And Sam stayed for the campfire and smores with the big kids quizzing the girls on life. Mike and I just stopped by the fire for a quick visit on our evening walk.

Other dinners this week included tacos, grilled brats and hot dogs, and grilled burgers. Mike is using hickory chips on the grill, and everything is turning out so tasty. We’ve made a few big breakfasts, having to roust the girls, but usually we just let them sleep in and they fend for themselves. They've been making scrambled eggs, corn dogs, fries, and all types of tasty vittles for themselves.

The loons practically outnumber the humans on Sylvan Lake, and I love falling asleep to their calls each night. The loons are even out during the day, swimming close to shore, and in the photo below even next to a water skier.

Besides golf and hours and hours of swimming, we’ve also managed to get in an afternoon of beach volleyball. We switched up the teams for various matches, and Joe and Mike even took on the whole female contingent, and the Y Chromosomes prevailed.

Joe and I took on Mike and Kenna in tennis doubles, and my boys were shocked at my tennis skills. What do they think I am, chopped liver? Joe and I took home the gold, winning the set 6-3. But the highlight of the match was my unforeseen wardrobe malfunction. When the boys asked us to play tennis, I was already in my bikini reading by the beach, so I just joined them on the court after slipping on my tennis shorts. At one point after hitting a smashing forehand, my top clasp came undone, and low and behold I looked down to see that I was completely exposed. Fortunately, there were only a few folks walking by, and the ever-competitive Mike was concentrating so much on returning my shot that he didn’t even notice the topless tennis player on the opposite side of the net.

The girls haven’t been too keen on game night, so we’ve only had one. In Cancun over winter break, we played games every night, so we brought tons of games along on this trip. The one night we did play the over 21 set took on the teenagers at a rowdy game of Cranium, and the teenagers beat us. We had a blast, and I don’t think that I have laughed so hard all year. I even had to take a walk outside two times because I couldn’t catch my breath from laughing so hard.

Most nights after dinner, instead of playing games, we have been watching the Olympics. Michael Phelps and Shawn Johnson are everyone’s favorites. We didn’t miss a Michael Phelps race, watching him capture the most gold medals by any athlete ever after his butterfly race. And we watched the Chinese gymnasts, who were obviously younger than the required age of 16, beat out our Shawn Johnson favorite in the team competition.

The weather has alternated between days of intense sun and partly cloudy with a smattering of rain. This morning it is cloudy and cool, so we’re having our second breakfast at noon—the girls will be having their first. I’ve got to go wake up the gaggle now so that they can eat breakfast now, and then get to the Kavanaugh’s cook out at 12:30—if they even want to eat two meals in a row. They will probably go just to see what cute boys show up. I’m off to roust the girls.

A Summer Evening with the Saints (St. Paul Saints that is)

2008-08-13T21:15:00.016-05:00

Outdoor baseball is alive and well in Minnesota! Okay, not the Twins (yet), but the St. Paul Saints--Minnesota's minor league team owned in part by Bill Murray. The Anoka County Bar Association has a yearly outing to enjoy outdoor baseball. The event includes a picnic of hot dogs & chips and a visit by with Wally the Beerman selling $1 beers. Mike, Jackie, Sarah, Joe & Kenna made the trek across the river for the outing.

Among the highlights of the game were fans competing in various competitions between innings including silly races and inane trivia. The Saints use a pig dressed in a variety of outfits to deliver the new balls to the umpire so there's kind of a "pig" theme to the event. Sarah spotted one of the pig mascots & decided that her souvenir was a picture taken with the pig.

This Is What My Kids Hear

2008-08-08T20:59:00.004-05:00

You will love this video. It's me most days.

Mike's Apology

2008-08-08T20:25:00.002-05:00

Mike sent me this video about "what not to say to your wife" to apologize for the "synthetic fabrics don't shrink" comment. Enjoy.

Facebook: The New Obsession

2008-08-04T10:14:00.005-05:00

So thanks to KC, I'm now obsessed with Facebook. Considering that KC was influential in my blog writing frenzy, I hope that she plans to read books to me when I'm old and going blind--which I fear too much screen time is doing.

Anyway, for people who have never used Facebook, it's all about keeping up with friends from the past along with your current friends. I have 31 friends after my first week on Facebook, but only one is from my high school years. When I searched Facebook Orono Class of 1983, the pickings were pretty slim. That discovery prompted me to think that I must be too old for Facebook, but Rachel, my other friend who pushes me in the digital world, insisted that I was not too old and that I should stick with it.

Joe thinks that I'm too old. He fears that with all these moms friending folks on Facebook (Code and Kenna are my friends too), that Facebook will start cleaning itself up. Like that's a bad thing.
I'm pleased to report that both of my children accepted me as Facebook friends along with four nieces and nephews. And my brush with fame came when Mary-Louise Parker, the star of Showtime's Weeds, accepted me as a friend. Joe and Sarah told me that it was just some poser or PR staffer running that Facebook page, and that Mary-Louise Parker was not actually my Facebook Friend. Oh well, a girl can dream, can't she?

Unbeknowst to me, Mike had started a Facebook page because a few former clients had poked him and asked him to be friends. So Mike set up a page. I am still wondering why Mike thinks being Facebook Friends with former clients in his criminal defense practice is a good idea. Anyway, Mike's Facebook page was so lame. But peer pressure prompted him to poke some friends (he now has 16) and add a photo of himself.

I was also discouraged with the whole Facebook friends aspect of the website because I noticed that Joe has 480 or so friends. I didn't even think I knew that many people live, let alone online. But KC told me that "so many friends" is a college thing. I don't need to be that connected. And I noticed that my niece Greta had over 500 friends. And today, a former student accepted me as a friend, and I saw that Hagar has 934 online friends.

Hagar's Facebook Friends list is a virtual United Nations collection. After graduating from high school, Hagar spent two years in the Israeli military to fulfill her citizenship requirement, and for the past year she's been traveling all over the world, meeting people and adding them to her Facebook list. I loved scanning all 934 of Hagar's friends, noticing so many former students and their college and university designations and discovering so many people from around the world that Hagar has met. She was online at the time I was visiting her profile; she was in Nambia this morning.

Cousin Lizbeth was also online at the time, commenting how she was watching egrets land on the pond in Florida. And KC was online eating breakfast and surfing the web. Through Facebook's chat with friends who are online now feature, KC and I arranged a date to go to the splash pad at noon with her two kids.

How cool are all those connections? That's the power of the Internet and the connectedness of Facebook. I'm hooked!

Synthetic Fabrics Don't Shrink

2008-08-04T09:53:00.004-05:00

Okay, so what's with Mike's behavior now that he's turned 50? Is he having senior moments or is a split personality developing?

On Saturday night he surprised me with an awesome romantic dinner (since both Sarah and Joe were gone for the evening). He grilled up a feast, and you can read all about the menu on German Farm Stock. Mike even purchased a bottle of alcohol free wine and had that cooling in an ice bucket on the deck.

But then, after dinner I was trying on a dress that I had purchased a few months ago to see if Mike approved of it for an upcoming family wedding. Mike loved the dress, but I thought it was a bit too tight. I commented that I didn't think the dress was that tight two months ago when I bought it from Opitz.

I mused, "The dress must have shrunk when I washed it."

Mike answered, "Synthetic fabrics don't shrink."

What the . . . ? I thought husbands were always supposed to tell you that your ass looks just fine in those jeans, and stuff like that. Isn't that written in the wedding vows?

Oh well, here's a photo of us during the awesome grill master meal.

Over 50 and Fit

2008-08-02T10:29:00.011-05:00

We celebrated Mike's 50th birthday on Sunday, July 27. Mike had been reluctant all summer to acknowledge the big milestone, so I simply had a small gathering for him Sunday night when he returned from a golf weekend with his friends. Guests included PJAM, Auntie Amy, Grandpa Jim, the Boni Brandts, Kenna, and Ron, Nancy and Code Sternal.

For dinner Joe grilled shrimp, salmon with fennel, and steaks. Gina made a salad and sauces for the shrimp. John brought an au jus for the steak. Nancy made guacomole, and Grandpa Jim made salsa. Pam brought a veggie tray, and Jimmy made his pinwheel tortilla roll-ups. Auntie Amy made her world famous potato salad. Kenna made a rice pilaf. All I did was buy a carrot cake and open a can of baked beans. Now that's what I call an easy dinner for me.

The evening was capped off with Mike's speech on the four most important things in his first 50 years--his sobriety, his family of origin, me, and Joe & Sarah. The photo essay tells the rest of the story.

English Department Gathering #2

2008-07-29T10:33:00.008-05:00

Susan and Tim

The English Department has had two official gatherings this summer. The first was a beach day at Lake Nokomis last month, and we had a great time watching the kids build sand castles and paddle around on a hot day. Even Elizabeth's Baby Ben took to the water for a swim.

Our second gathering was a baby shower last week to celebrate the impending arrival of T. Klob Jr., aka Gunner's little brother or sister. KC, Rachel and Elizabeth hosted the affair at KC's house, and we had so many delicious, cool salads to eat on a hot night.

KC and Mac

And we only had to play one game, which was completely painless. Participants had to guess the wrapped baby essentials that were then given to Tim and Susan for baby K. Of course, my competitive streak came out, and I took home the grand prize, a big bag of M&M's. Shef was a bit concerned that the M&M's were leaving his house; however, I assured him that they would be out in a big bowl when he comes to my house on August 1 for the English 10 lunch.

Elizabeth and Kristin

Tim, Rachel, Erik, Rob and Susan

My Grandma's Hydrangea

2008-07-28T09:28:00.003-05:00

My Grandma Sue died nearly 15 years ago, and the last gift that she gave me shortly before she died was a 6-inch hydrangea that she brought over one night when she came for dinner. Instead, of keeping the plant as a centerpiece, I planted the flower the next day in front of the house. Green leaves appeared on the small plant for the next few years, but the plant never flowered.

One summer, when Mike decided he would weed the flower garden (that must have been his one and only time), Mike cut off the plant because he thought that it was a stray tree sapling. Yikes! There was hell to pay that night.

I never gave up on the small hydrangea, diligently watering it each year, and each summer when the plant reappeared it was larger than the year before. After 15 years and a hectic life, the plant is in bloom for the first time. It brings a smile to my face every time I walk by not only because it reminds me of Grandma Sue, but also because the little hydrangea that could is a metaphor for persistence pays off.

Overtime and then Out

2008-07-28T09:15:00.003-05:00

Sarah's soccer season came to a crashing end last week. In the first playoff game of the district tournament, Sarah's team was tied with Plymouth Wings 0-0 after two overtimes. Enough with the ties already. So after two OT's our team went down in a shootout. John Sherman, veteran Sun Sailor Sportswriter, was on hand to capture the story in photos and words.

Sarah received press again in this article with her coach commenting:

"Gurewitz stressed that all of his girls contributed to the success of the team. He praised the girls for stellar defensive play throughout the season. 'Our sweeper, Sarah B., is as solid as can be.'"

To read the full article, click here.

Fall soccer season starts in two weeks, so stay tuned.

Google Yourself: You Never Know What You Might Find

2008-07-21T14:41:00.002-05:00

Every month or so I Google my name to see what comes up. Mainly, I want to check that I have great googability if my students or parents use the Internet to find out about me. And I want to make sure that I haven't slipped up and used my last name in No Time for Stoplights (since I really don't want my students reading this blog).

This past year, I've been pleased that the sites that pop up on Google are all about my high school and my work with the National Urban alliance.

Well, I've been away from my computer for 10 days, so I've been googling things like crazy today, including my name.

I usually only explore the first few pages of Google hits, but today I dug deeper into pages three and four, skipping past all of the Jacqueline R%$#@ marathon results. (That's not me, obviously). And I found a page that lit up my world.

My name popped up on a free essay sight in a paper entitled: "Good vs. Evil in Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula." Since I have never taught those books, I was curious and skimmed the entire paper. I found my name in the concluding paragraph of the paper. The line: "It is best summed up by the famous quote of the renown British Literature instructor Mrs. Jacqueline R#$%@, "Sometimes a book is just a book."

I cracked up. I haven't taught British Literature for eight years, and I have no idea who the student is who wrote the paper. But the line reference is crystal clear. Back in the Brit Lit days, I often said when analyzing literature, "Sometimes a book is just a book" and many statements similar to that. For example, when studying Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and analyzing the significance of the cucumber sandwiches, I coined the parody, "Sometimes a cucumber is just a cucumber." Years later students would stop by to visit me, leaving with the line, "Sometimes a cucumber is just a cucumber."

If you want to skim the online free essay with my name referenced in the conclusion, click here.

I couldn't find out the essay author's name. But I really must have to work in the line "Sometimes a book is just a book" this year. I never knew that it had such a lasting impact.

Home From Albany

2008-07-20T17:51:00.002-05:00

Jackie, Mary and Rhonda at NUA

I arrived home yesterday from a week in Albany, New York where I attended the National Urban Alliance Summer Academy. This was my second year studying culturally responsive teaching strategies with leading educators in that field. Eight teachers and two administrators from Edina Public Schools attended the conference, and we ended up getting a lot accomplished on a plan to sustain the work of NUA in our schools.

To read more about the highlights of my week in Albany, visit my Top 10 Academy Highlights list on my NUA blog.

Climate Change = Disaster Survival Kit

2008-07-10T12:55:00.006-05:00

I just finished throwing the essentials of our lives into the family's fireproof black box, aka our disaster survival kit. After Hurricane Katrina I purchased a fireproof briefcase to store our valuable documents to grab and go in case of a disaster. However, the case has sat empty since then, but today, as yet another storm rages outside, I'm stuffing the box with all of the essentials--passports, extra credit cards, birth certificates, my teaching license, insurance policies, a spare safe deposit box key, copies of our wills, our Outlook address books, and photos of every member of the family.

A couple events happened yesterday that finally sprung me into action.

First, Mike and I were meeting with a contractor about the hail damage that our house sustained in the horrible, golf-ball size hailstorm of May 31. The contractor, who has been in the construction business for thirty years, told me that his first hail repair was only about twelve years ago, and now hail repairs are commonplace because of climate change with nearly 100,000 claims in the Minneapolis area as a result of this spring's storms. He continued, that people who don't believe in climate change just have to look at the trends in insurance claims and the construction industry.

Second, while the family was enjoying a jucy lucy hamburger at Matt's Bar for dinner last night, we were discussing the man who was arrested for interfering with fire fighters when he returned to his burning home to rescue his computer. Mike thought it was odd that the man grabbed his computer, but I thought that was reasonable since your life is basically on your computer. Mike said that all of our computer files are backed up off-site so that we wouldn't need to grab our computer. I also told the story of how Baba, the only family member with direct experience in this area, grabbed a paper that she was writing for school when 2711 Marshall caught on fire when a young Mike decided to wash paint brushes in gasoline near the water heater's pilot light. Then, we all discussed what we would grab from the burning house. For the item that I would grab, I settled on my disaster survival kit that contains all the papers that we would need to rebuild our lives and our careers.

But alas, the kit was not assembled yet, so today I did just that. And low and behold, as I was assembling the kit, the skies opened up with another deluge and Joe called from ADC, saying that the employees were being evacuated to the basement because of the tornado warning.

Oh, climate change.

Health Benefits of Blogging

2008-07-08T10:59:00.004-05:00

I loved a June 30, 2008 Newsweek article that discussed the mental health benefits of blogging. Jessica Bennett reports that blogging is therapeutic and "a step up from plain old diaries" because of the "built-in audience." I just hope that my brother Jerry, an avid No Time for Stoplights reader, doesn't start billing me for his time, ala an hourly session with a shrink.

Click here to read Bennett's article, "My Shrink Says . . . Blog!"

Bat Mitzvah Season

2008-07-08T10:33:00.004-05:00

This summer Sarah has attended two Bat Mitzvah's for friends from school. Sarah has had a great time eating, dancing, and playing games at both Piper's and Maddie's big days. A highlight of the events is finding the right dress to wear. Since Sarah had a soccer tournament on the day of Piper's Bat Mitzvah, she missed the temple and only attended the dinner and dance. However, for Maddie's celebration, Sarah attended the two-hour temple service, the kosher luncheon for the entire congregation after the service, and the big dinner and dance. So Sarah needed two separate outfits for Maddie's day.

The photos below show Sarah modeling her purple evening gown and her blue day dress. Where Sarah first came out with her purple evening dress, Joe asked her, "Sarah, where is the rest of your dress?" Oh, you've gotta love older brothers.

4th of July Festivities

2008-07-08T09:17:00.003-05:00

We spent the Fourth of July at Pulaski again, and this year the weather was picture perfect. As we sat on the sunny deck this year at the end of a gorgeous day, Catherine, Mike, Jim and Phil relived the terror of the rain coming straight through the windows during last year's 4th of July storm. I guess I had blocked the storm from my memory, and Phil prodded, "Don't you remember when Mike and I were holding the windows shut because the rain was just piling in?" Catherine continued, "It was so bad that I even thought that our time might be up." It was then that I recalled my blog, of all things, and the post that I wrote last year with the photo of the flag pole bending over during the storm.

This year, there is no weather news to report, only a skiing and swimming update. Since the spring was cool, the lake hadn't warmed up to an acceptable temperature for me; however, Zach, Lauren and Sarah braved the cool water to spend some time on the diva rafts. Lauren and Zach took a spin on the tube behind the boat, and Sarah wore out her arms waterskiing.

Back on shore, two-year-old Grand-niece Haley entertained the crowd with her beach ball tossing, coloring at the school desk, and her ability to string full sentences together, like "Gamma ya open-en da door?"

Once again there was tons of food. I made a salad with strawberries, walnuts, Asiago cheese and a poppy seed dressing, and I brought a tray of brownies, chocolate chip cookies and some fruit from the farmer. Phil provided sloppy joes and potato salad. Aunt Doris brought tons of fruit. Catherine made a bean/guacamole dip and a cucumber salad. Amy made her usual scotcharoo bars (that I actually dreamt about the night before). And Judy brought a fruit trifle dessert.

After a relaxing day of sun, water, food, and boat parade viewing, we headed home to rest up for the town fireworks. Mike and I were exhausted, but Sarah wanted to head down to the park to see if she could meet up with any friends. She met up with DJ, but the two couldn't find any other friends to hang with, so Sarah ended up sitting with Mike and me. We enjoyed popcorn while being rained on by ashes. Mike loves the front row seat right across the baseball field from the launch pad, but I'm re-thinking the location for next year since I was still picking out ash the next morning. One rocket even misfired but grounded out at second base, and we were sitting behind first base. Here are some photos that I took of the fireworks display.

Sarah's First Sports Ink

2008-07-07T15:43:00.006-05:00

The St. Louis Park Sun Sailor ran a story last week about Sarah's soccer team. I was so excited to see Sarah's name in print for the first time for an accomplishment in sports. The article highlighted the number of ties Sarah's team has had this season along with their 11 shutouts in 20 games. The article mentioned Sarah's awesome play as the defensive sweeper. To read the story online, click here.

The photos below feature the girls team celebrating after receiving the championship trophy for a recent tournament in Plymouth. In the group photo Sarah is in the back row, second from the right, just next to the goalie.

Laundry on the Line

2008-07-02T10:01:00.004-05:00

The new laundry room

Yesterday, Baba and Grandpa Mike stopped by to see the new laundry room that my husband Mike remodeled last month, and Baba asked me why my laundry was hanging on the line. Baba didn't know that I hung my clothes out, and I realized that I haven't written about my latest hobby on this blog, only on German Farm Stock.

Last year, I discussed my fascination with stiff clothes and freshly-scented sheets in "Laundry on the Line" on German Farm Stock. I also wrote a follow-up post called "My Laundry is on the Line Again."

Yesterday, my cousin Catherine called and said, "I bet your laundry is on the line." And it was. Catherine said, "My god, you are becoming your mother. And the crazy thing is that I am becoming my mother." Our mothers were sisters, so I guess Catherine and I are just carrying on the family's karma.

Karma and clothes lines are everywhere. After those two comments yesterday, I woke to the Star Tribune's article "On the Line" that discussed the shifting public opinion about drying outside.

Braces Off

2008-07-02T09:48:00.005-05:00

On Monday, Sarah got her braces off after nearly three years of sporting the hardware. Her teeth are beautiful. Sarah's first comment to me was, "Mom, they don't look real." Sarah also likes running her tongue over her teeth because she can't believe the braces are gone. Sarah left the orthodontist's office Monday with a big bag of candy that the Ortho gave her--candy that Sarah was not supposed to have eaten during her brace's tenure (caramels, tootsie rolls, bit o honey, etc.) Sarah and I laughed at that because Sarah had been eating those banned foods all along. She even ate corn on the cob during her life with braces, and Sarah never broke one brace the entire time. I guess she really does have a tooth fairy watching over her.

Boot Camp

2008-07-02T09:32:00.003-05:00

Mike's boot

Mike is entering his second week of boot camp. His torn calf muscle is not causing him pain anymore; however, he is having trouble with the change in lifestyle.

Mike's boot camp involves laying on the couch and watching hours and hours of Alton Brown, his hero. He hates the phone calls from friends, telling him that they have an extra spot in a tee time. And Mike is reluctant to go on a medical leave at Lifetime. I think that he is still in the denial stage of grief over his calf.

Fortunately, Mike spoke to his cousin Brad, a sports medicine doc, and Brad also told Mike that he needs to take it easy and keep the boot on. So it isn't just his nagging wife, yelling at him when I catch him walking up the stairs without his boot. Oh, it's going to be a long summer.

Mike Sidelined for Summer

2008-06-27T10:48:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, Mike hobbled home with bad news. He tore the muscle in his left calf playing racketball, and he has to wear a huge boot (like a cast, but he can take it off to sleep and shower). The boot keeps his toes pointed down in the position that his calf muscle needs to be in to heal.

The recovery is six weeks in the boot followed by physical therapy. So with my summer vacation starting, I've lost my golfing, biking, weightlifting, wataerskiing, and swimming partner. Now, we'll have to plan a summer vacation that involves sitting by a lake somewhere and reading books.

Mike is supposed to be using crutches, but he says that they hurt his armpits too much, so today he headed off to work without them, wishing that he could find a Rascal scooter like George Castanza in Seinfeld and cursing himself for not asking his doctor for a handicap parking pass.

Sarah has promised to help be her father's "fetch and carry girl" since I soon realized last evening that Mike would need a lot of fetching and carrying. Within an hour of Mike's arriving home, I heard:

"Honey, I forgot my glasses upstairs."

"Honey, could you get me some ice cream?"

"Honey, I can't take out the garbage."

"Honey, could you get me a glass of water?"

After the fourth "Honey" I asked Mike to consider moving in with his mother, Baba, for the summer. Oh well, I guess this is what "in sickness and health" means.

But really, my annoyance is tempered by the humor that I find in the situation. Mike has been suffering from Manorexia all year, trying to be in great shape for his 50th birthday on July 27. I often find him crawling into bed at midnight after a hockey game and then setting the alarm for 6:00 a.m. to play racketball, only to return home that evening desiring to take a bike ride after his manorexic supper. My pleas to Mike to slow down fell on deaf ears. Today, I'm looking for an "I told you so" t-shirt.

The other funny story is that the sports medicine doctor that Mike saw yesterday told him that the muscle snapped, in part, because Mike is "getting old." Yes, she told a man one month shy of his 50th birthday that he was "getting old." She needs a "I'm still working on my bedside manner t-shirt."

Soccer Season Success

2008-06-27T09:55:00.007-05:00

Sarah runs up on defense during the last game of the regular season in St. Michael.

Sarah's regular soccer season came to a close this week. Her coach scheduled all regular season games before the 4th of July break since so many girls were slated to leave for camps in July. This leaves us with a month-long soccer void before the district tournament begins on Saturday, July 19th. The void is a shame since the girls have been playing outstanding soccer lately.

Overall, the soccer season was a success, with Sarah's team finishing second in the league (out of 13 teams) with a record of 6-1-5. Yes, they had five ties during regular season play. During mid-season when we were on our tying streak (all five ties occurred in a row), I turned to Mike at the end of one game and said, "This reminds me of T-Ball--when all games ended in a tie."

They ended the season with a four-game, regular season winning streak, and they took home the Championship trophy from the Plymouth Tournament this past weekend. So I hope the girls can maintain their intensity during the month-long break before districts. They have a lot of practices and some scrimmages scheduled, so that should help.

Sarah played defensive stopper this year. The stopper is the last line of defense before the goalie, and Sarah was responsible for turning on the jets and stopping any breakaways. She also took the key position for corner kicks, direct free kicks, and had to direct her teammates to mark up on any stray opponents. As stopper, Sarah was never allowed to cross the half-field line, so scoring opportunities were out of the question. Sarah did get one goal this season, though, when the coach let her take a penalty kick in last week's tournament, and Sarah capitalized on the opportunity. In the photo below Sarah prepares to steal the ball from an unsuspecting St. Michael player as the ball heads toward the goal.

It was fun to watch Sarah play defense this year with her lifetime friend from across the street, Audrey. Sarah and Audrey proved to be the cornerstone of the team's defense this season, only allowing in 10 goals in the 12 regular season games. And the defense only allowed two goals in the four games of the Plymouth tournament where the team took home the championship hardware. Sarah is pictured below (on the left) with Audrey during a sunset game in St. Michael this past week.

The Boys Love a Parade

2008-06-27T09:07:00.006-05:00

The Boys with Sparky

photo by Sarah

On June 14th Mike, Sarah, and I headed to the annual Parktacular Parade. Sarah also brought her friend Becca along.

We never miss the annual event of catching candy, shaking politician's hands, and seeing our friends march by while promoting their local organization. This year Pam, Jimmy and The Boys joined us, and we were lucky to be there for the The Boys first parade. Although the day was windy, the sun was shining, making the day a near-perfect summer event.

Abraham is all smiles.

Matthew and mom are amazed at The Boys first parade.

Matthew was simply amazed by the parade. He literally had his jaw dropped for the first half hour of the parade, and Abraham was all giggles as clowns, puppies and floats went by. Bad Uncle Mike was in typical form, tossing The Boys, making goofy faces, and feeding them nearly anything tossed from the parade marchers. The Boys especially loved the frozen ices and drinking Uncle Mike's iced tea through a straw.

Every once in a while, the parade would stop at Excelsior Boulevard to allow cars to go through, so parade viewers had a break in the action. During one of these breaks, Matthew and Abraham decided to take off down the parade route under their own crawling power. We couldn't believe that their knees were holding up against the hot brick road.

The parade ran two hours long, so The Boys were pooped by the end of it. Next year though, we're hoping that they have a little energy left so that they can visit the petting zoo and bounce houses in Wolfe Park.

Joe's Graduation

2008-06-26T10:25:00.005-05:00

St. John's University held its 151st Commencement on May 11, 2008, and Joe was thankfully part of the graduating class. I say thankfully because a few of Joe's friends did not have enough credits to walk across the stage to receive a diploma, and another friend was allowed to walk but has to take a class this summer.

We celebrated on Saturday, May 10 with a pig roast at Joe's college house. Mike went up the day before to clean the kitchen so that we could function for the meal; however, the bathroom left a little to be desired. And Baba almost pulled out a toilet brush to clean the place mid-party, so you can imagine.

We purchased the pig roast at a silent auction for Anoka Ramsey Community College because few people were bidding on it, so we could get it for a good deal. The catch was that an Anoka County Commissioner was to roast the pork, and he didn't have a lot of experience with the operation. He didn't realize that the pig had to be roasting all day, so he didn't show up until 11:00 (when we wanted to eat at 4:00). Mike ended up having to help out with the roasting duties so that we could eat at all. Grandpa Jim, Auntie Amy and Erik even had to leave before dinner since they were headed to a Twins game.

Pig Roast Saturday was cold and rainy. The tent we rented didn't help since the temperature hovered around 40 degrees. The weather was not really a surprise considering that most of Joe's parties feature typhoons or tornadoes. Joe's 16th birthday found 50 teenagers huddled in the basement with tornadoes touching down in nearby cities, and Joe's graduation party at Code's house was a virtual typhoon. After the party I told Joe that we should just plan on bridesmaids and groomsmen at his wedding carrying umbrellas as part of their outfits, and that we should get ponchos made for all the guests.

The rainy day did not help the turnout, and we were hung with pork. We sent home large bags of pork with Rachel & Jim, KC, Baba, the Pig Roaster man, and my brother Tom. And we were still left with a huge chunk for ourselves that Mike sliced, air-sealed and froze so that we can have pulled pork sandwiches, Sarah's favorite meal, all summer.

On Sunday, the sun was out for commencement. We started the day with a luncheon at St. John's and then napped in the car until the Abbey doors opened for seating. Since each graduate was only allowed three tickets, my nephew Andy headed home and Kenna volunteered to sit this one out since she had a paper due the next day anyway.

The Commencement Ceremony itself was very interesting since the speakers were varied and highly political. Two honorary degree recipients spoke to the crowd. Eric Jolly, a Native American who heads the Science Museum of Minnesota, greeted the Class of 2008 in Cherokee and told them to be good stewards of the earth. William Green, the Superintendent of Minneapolis schools, told the privileged youth before him not to leave behind their African American peers in the inner city. I've simplified their speeches, but that is my interpretation of the essence of them.

Joe's favorite speaker of the day was Rev. Elias Chacour, the Archbishop of Nazareth and Galilee. Chacour is a Palestinian Catholic and the first Israeli citizen to be made a bishop. Although Chacour has been a refugee in his own country for most of his life, he has been a voice of moderation in the conflict between Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Middle East. He urged the Class of 2008 to look at all sides of the issues in the Middle East since the media and the U.S. government feed them mainly a pro-Israeli message. As Chacour was speaking, I was pondering what a lunch conversation between Chacour and Jimmy Carter would be like.

And, of course, Commencement was capped off with the conferring of diplomas, and Joe was awarded a diploma with degrees in Spanish and Chemistry. Joe received his diploma from Br. Dietrich Reinhart, the President of St. John's University.

Joe has since moved back home, and he is working this summer as an intern at ADC Telecommunications.

Below is a photo essay of the weekend.

Kenna and her roommates at the pig roast.

Joe's Cake

Sarah, Joe and Auntie Amy relaxing in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue room. And Joe's roommates and other friends pose for the camera.

Graduation luncheon.

Photos galore before the ceremony featuring the graduate with Sarah, Kenna, Cousin Andy, the folks, and a group of his friends.

Holding My Breath Until Summer Break

2008-06-26T10:08:00.004-05:00

Every May when I flip the calendar to that fateful month, I gasp. Without fail, I gasp. It seems that every day has an event marked on the calendar, and many of them are milestones worthy of celebration.

This year's May calendar was crazier than usual, although I believe that I say that every year. I was thankful that I had to restful Mexican vacations this past year so that I could survive May by holding my breath until the end of the school year.

Unfortunately, the end of the school year did not dawn for me until June 20. With my new school responsibilities those first two weeks of summer vacation saw me at school every day. The new role as teacher coach that I took on last school year involved me teaching a class for 31 teachers for three days, June 17 to 19. Along with four other coaches from the district, I presented a workshop on Culturally Responsive Literacy and Thinking Strategies. The 31 workshop participants were enthusiastic all week and often told me that they were excited to try out these new strategies with their students in the fall. The experience was very rewarding, but it did involve hours of preparation in the days before. Plus, the economic stimulus package gained from those extra hours allowed me to convince Mike that I could purchase a deep freezer, a bread machine, and the Harmony Valley cheese share so that we could take our eating locally commitment a step higher this summer.

I also spent two hours at school hiring a new English teacher for next year since we lost Rob to the district office in early June when my district passed the Alternative Compensation plan. Rob will function as the District Alternative Compensation Facilitator for the next two years. Rob was a huge loss because Rob and I were slated to be co-chairs of the English department this
fall, and now I need to go it alone it the hotly political school climate that's unfolding at the high school with the new administration.

Anyway, I apologize to my faithful readers that I have neglected by blog posts over the past few months, but I will fill in the back story of the crazy May now that summer break has finally arrived.

Dolphin Video

2008-04-07T19:43:00.004-05:00

Catch the end of the video when the trainers jump in the pool to rescue the girls.

The Last Days in Mexico

2008-04-07T17:49:00.004-05:00

We wanted to make our last full day in Mexico worth two days, so on Friday we woke Sarah up to head to the beach early. We took a cab to Diamond Point Beach, the open Pacific south of town where all of the high-end hotels and condos are being built in what is referred to as New Acapulco. Ironically, the area of town that we were staying in was called New Acapulco, so I'm not sure how the Mexicans will work out the semantics.

Diamond Point was supposed to be the hot surf spot, and Sarah wanted to do some boogey boarding. The waves combined with the tides and heavy undertow made boogey boarding a challenge. Mike and Sarah boarded for over an hour, and Mike only caught one ride. I said let me try, and within 10 minutes I had caught a ride. I just perched myself on my board and let luck happen--none of this trying to outwit the waves like Mike. Sarah did the best and ended up catching about six rides in the two hours that she was in the water. After two hours we were all exhausted and caught a cab back to the hotel.

That afternoon we enjoyed our last swim and sunset, and we even decided to be lax about our sunscreen use. Fortunately, we didn't get too burnt. The highlight of the afternoon was the USA vs. Mexico water volleyball match. Since it was Friday afternoon and the weekenders from Mexico City were already flocking to the hotel, the U.S. was definitely outnumbered. In fact, the three of us were joined by a man from Detroit and a guy from New York to make up our entire team. Mexico fielded eight players, and the home crowd cheered their every move. The ref (aka the Activities Director) was playing to the crowd and calling everything for Mexico. Despite the ref's best efforts, team USA prevailed in a comeback victory. The box score: Game 1--USA 13, Mexico 10. Game 2--Mexico 7, USA 0 (yes, we were skunked when the five of us had to cover the deep end). Game 3--USA 14, Mexico 12.

Friday night we went out to dinner for the first time. We still had a few items in the fridge, but wanted to see what life was like at night in Acapulco. It was wild. Locals and tourists from Mexico City were everywhere. The school kids hadn't even gone home to change out of their uniforms and were just hanging out at the local mall with their friends.

On Saturday morning our NWA Worry Free Vacation bus picked us up early to get to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Fortunately, they did since our bus overheated on the way up a mountain and just died on a dangerous curve. They had to send a new bus, and all of us with our luggage had to transfer. We still made it to the airport in plenty of time to catch a bite to eat before boarding our plane for home.

We all enjoyed Acapulco very much and would vacation there again.

A Series of Sunscreens

2008-04-04T09:06:00.006-05:00

Acapulco is hot, so hot and sunny. We've been applying sunscreen whenever we even think of looking at the sun, and we usually stick to the shade when not in the pool. We even had to buy two more tubes at Wal-Mart. Although we've been using SPF 30 most of the week, yesterday we cut it down to 15, and today, the last day, I just donned some SPF 8 before heading out to Starbucks to blog in the sun at 9:00 a.m.

We finally swam in the ocean yesterday. We took a glassbottom boat across the harbor to Isla de Roqueta, an island closer to the open Pacific. The small beach there had no red tide, so we enjoyed the nearly bathtub temperature ocean and waves.

The boat ride over was way too long though since we had to tour the harbor on the way. Very cheesy tour with a "fish whisperer" boy who would jump under the boat to herd the fish for us to see. The boy even put fish food in his mouth and swam under the boat so that we could see fish eating right out of his mouth. That, and the sunken statue of the Virgin Mary, had to be the cheesiest sights of the harbor tour. The entire tour was in Spanish, and Mike couldn't catch any of it. Sarah said that it was too boring to even bother translating for us. Basically, the boat driver was pointing out the houses of famous Mexican movie stars (that we hadn't heard of) and the hotel where Jack and Jackie Kennedy honeymooned.

Mike made a friend on the beach on Isla Roqueta--Carlos. Carlos lived for a time in LA, so his English is outstanding. Carlos worked the beach hard, offering any service you might want. He reminded me of Tarzan on Playa Norte on Isla Mujeres--another guy for you. Carlos offered his snorkeling guide service to Mike and Sarah, and with the crazy tides, rocky shoreline, and heavy boat traffic, I told Mike that he better use Carlos's services. Carlos was able to dive and bring up a sea cucumber, a sponge, and other marine life for Sarah and Mike to touch. Carlos also had a few snorkeling tips (that even Mike didn't know), and Carlos was working with Sarah on her diving and surfacing. Carlos told her that the next time he meets up with her in Acapulco, she will have her diving down.

Carlos also hooked up Mike and Sarah with a jet ski, which they used to tool around the bay. Carlos's jet ski assistant, Alfredo, sat all day holding the jet ski and trying to sell people rides. What a sad life, but I guess he's working up to be a Carlos someday.

We also enjoyed a lunch of grilled fish and rice courtesy of Juan the waiter before we caught the last boat back to the mainland. The beach closed at 5:00 p.m., basically because it disappeared with the rising tide. There were so many people packed on that last boat of the night that I thought we would sink.

We caught a bus back to the hotel. As always, the bus ride was an adventure as the driver and his shotgun side kick did the usually hawking all along the coast road to try to get riders. The sidekick was checking out Sarah. I told Mike that it was going to be rough the next couple years as she becomes more of an attraction to the locals.

We turned in early last night--as usual. I haven't been able to last longer than 9:30 p.m. any night this week.

A Series of Sunglasses

2008-04-03T09:39:00.009-05:00

I can't believe that I haven't blogged for months, but then again, I realize that the winter doldrums were especially bad this year, so I never had the energy to fit another thing into my life. The new principal at school has so many initiatives that I feel like my head is spinning, and the morale at school is so low. I feel that every day brings with it a new "opportunity" to counsel an English teacher to stay at EHS. Since the English department is relegated to the bowels of EHS, none of our classrooms have windows, so winter is always hard on the department. If you feel seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a myth, just walk my hallway in February.

Anyway, with the rough winter at school I told Mike that I needed a spring break in a warm climate. We searched for over a month for a good deal to jet off to the sun, and we finally found an NWA Worry Free Vacation in Acapulco. With domestic airfare so high, we couldn't find cheap airfare to Arizona or Florida, the two other locations we were considering, so we decided to take a second trip to Mexico this year.

Mike and I have never been to Acapulco, and the city is fast becoming one of our favorites in Mexico. Although we hate the Pacific waters during red tide season (which it is now), the town itself has a ton of charm. Red tide season hits in the spring each year, and basically the water is taken over by decaying plant life and blooming red algae. The smell is nasty, and Sarah, Mike and I have not ventured into the ocean yet. Our pool is awesome though and is constructed in such a way that you feel you are right on the beach. The back edge of the pool's sight line connects with the ocean, so one can just imagine that you are sitting by the sea. Anyway, red tide season must explain the low cost NWA package.

The great thing about Acapulco is we run into few Americans--unlike the strip in Cancun where Spanish was hardly spoken. The proximity to Mexico City makes Acapulco the resort area for the locals. A few people at our hotel, the Fiesta Americana, are from the U.S., but most just say they are from Mexico (that's what the folks call Mexico City here). The pool and hotel were packed on the weekend, and we had to fight for a deck chair. On Monday morning when we headed to the pool, the place was virtually deserted, and it remains so today (Thursday). We anticipate that the weekenders from Mexico will arrive tonight or tomorrow though to pack the joint again.

English is not spoken here is definitely the rule. The two trips to Cozumel, three to Cancun area and one to Puerta Vallarta that I have taken in my life all allowed me to survive on English. Not here. My Spanish is finally better than their English. I was especially surprised yesterday when the towel and umbrella boy didn't even know the English words for those, and I had to muddle along in Spanish because Mike and Sarah were still up in the room.

Mike has been "making friends" (as he calls it) with a few locals because they love that a gringo speaks Spanish, so he was able to get all the locals take on the red tide issue. Mike's Spanish is a great asset, but Sarah still has to do some translating like she had to in the South of Spain where even Joe couldn't understand folks. (Thanks to Spanish Immersion administration for having the foresight to assign students to a teacher with a different accent each year so that the students could communicate with just about anyone in the Spanish-speaking world--Sarah's only missing Cuban now.)

The best Sarah translation moment happened in a cab a few nights ago. Mike and the cabbie were talking about the red tide, and the cabbie was explaining the red tide season with a metaphor. Mike was struggling to get the gist of the comparison when Sarah piped up from the back seat, "Dad, he's talking about a girl's menstruation." Since I didn't have the red tide context of the conversation, I couldn't wait to get out of the cab so that Sarah could tell me what that conversation was about.

I have been enjoying the break and my life as a series of sunglasses. I can't wait until retirement when most every day can be dominated by the question, "Which sunglasses should I wear for this activity?" I have my regular prescription for walking around town or the beach, my prescription-ago glasses for swimming in the pool, and my huge prescription-less Varnets which are the ultimate reading glasses for the sun. The Varnets and wide-brimmed hat keep the sun off my face and I have no glare on the page. Mike and Sarah hate my hat, and some locals have been known to laugh at me, but I told Mike that he could buy me another hat as long as it has a wide brim--the baseball cap visor doesn't cut it for my reading pleasure.

Besides finishing two books and sitting by the pool, we have enjoyed cooking in our awesome condo. The first day we took a bus to Wal-Mart (we take the local buses most days since it's only 50 cents a person versus an $8 cab ride). Sarah had missed the Wal-Mart experience in Cancun, and she seemed to have a blast. She's so confident in her Spanish that she would just wander off to find an employee and something that she wanted to throw in the grocery cart. She came back from one of her forays and was so excited that she figured out how to translate Cheetos. Shopping for groceries is a vocabulary builder, and Sarah and Mike would discuss the wording an ingredients to figure out exactly what we were getting. Sometimes we just guessed--like when we decided which of the seven varieties of mangoes to buy or which variety of pineapple. Heck, I didn't even know that there were varieties of pineapple.

For sight seeing, Mike and I have taken a few walks right around town. The Fiesta Americana is right on the coast road in the heart of the new section of Acapulco, so there are plenty of flea markets, shops, and restaurants right by us. Old Acapulco is quite a hike from here, although Mike did walk it when he was by himself yesterday. A few days ago we cabbed it down to Old Acapulco. We were three hours before the cliff divers were scheduled to jump, but we thought we'd explore the Old Town, cathedral, etc. before the show. Our cab driver was worried about us. He said that there's not much to do down here. He was right, we did a quick tour of the square and cathedral and a homeless gringo, who smelled like dog shit and gin combined, thought that he'd be our tour guide. We said, "think again." And walked off.

Since we had time to kill, we thought we'd just sit by the ocean and reserve a great spot for the cliff diving and read our books. (I insisted that we pack them just in case downtown was a bust.) Mike made a friend with the man sitting at the entrance to the viewing platform and got all the skinny on the best vantage point for viewing the diving. We had read that the El Mirador hotel was a rip off for watching the show. They have a $15 minimum per person order, and the view is no better than the $3.50 viewing platform run by the Union of Cliff Divers Fraternity. Since we were two hours early, Mike found us the best viewing spot and his new-found friend wrangled us up each a plastic chair. We read while waiting for Act 1, the sunset over the Pacific. Sarah was reading The Secret Life of Bees, Mike was reading To Kill a Mockingbird, and I was reading The Weight of All Things.

The sunset was awesome. We have a great view over Acapulco Bay of the sunset from our condo balcony, but back here the sun sets over the mountains. From the cliff divers location, the sun sets over the open Pacific. Mike and Sarah each had their cameras which they set up on the railing in front of our chairs, and they took pictures every 15 seconds. They are making a film of the sun setting by splicing the digital still photos together. We haven't had the premier of the film yet.

The cliff divers were awesome. My tummy is still tingling. Mike and I couldn't believe how small of a crevice that they dive into. When we used to watch the cliff diving championships on the Wide World of Sports we both had the allusion that they were diving into the open sea, not a little crevice between cliffs. The show is only 15 minutes long, but worth the wait. If you are ever in Acapulco, do not skip this event.

Another highlight of the trip was the CiCi waterpark. The park has eight water slides, and since it was basically deserted, there were no lines. I only went down two slides because they were so high that I couldn't handle the scary climb up. They were all on huge towers. Sarah and Mike slid until their hearts content though. We all enjoyed the wave pool. The waves were much higher than at Bunker Park, and the low crowds left us plenty of room for body and tube surfing. The park also had a sky coaster, basically a free fall swing, that Sarah and Mike rode. I sat that one out.

CiCi also had a dolphin swim program, so Sarah and Mike swam with the dolphins for nearly an hour. I took a full memory card of photos and videos of the event. They got to pet, kiss, and hold on to the dolphins around their pool. They also got the foot push across the pool and spent some time singing and dancing with the dolphins. When they were dancing to La Cucaracha with two dolphins, the dolphins went nuts--one whopped Sarah with his tail and dunked her, the other dolphin hit Megan, a girl from Rochester, MN who happened to be in our dolphin swim hour. The two trainers jumped in the pool and grabbed the girls out of the pool, leaving Mike to fend for himself. The video of the dolphin fight is amazing. As are the shots of the dolphins jumping over Sarah, Mike and the rest of the swimmers, the foot push rides, and the trainer actually surfing on the dolphin's back.

Well, I need to get going since we are off to Isla de Roqueta today for snorkeling, a glass bottom boat ride, and a calm beach.

Mexico Photo Essay

2008-01-19T12:39:00.000-06:00

Garafon Park photo by Mike

The kids had their film developed, so I have a few more photos from the week in Cancun to share.

Sarah and Rachel each had an underwater camera, which proved to be a ton of fun when we went snorkeling at Garafon Park on Isla Mujeres. The Costco employee who developed the underwater cameras was amazed at how well the girls' photos turned out. The film developer said that usually these underwater cameras are a bust. So even though the underwater shots are dark, we're just happy that we can recognize the fish and even see colors.

Three of Sarah's Underwater fish photos and one of Sarah giving the thumbs up that Rachel took.

Kenna and Joe captured their cold day touring Isla Mujeres and their New Year's Eve party at Rainforest Cafe on their disposable camera.

Birthday Boys

2008-01-19T11:53:00.000-06:00

Abraham's toothy smile

photo by Gina

We celebrated Matthew's and Abraham's first birthday last week at their sports-themed party. Pam and Jimmy refereed the event, literally, as they both sported referee shirts. A number of guests wore their favorite sports jerseys, and the Wii was hopping with bowling and baseball in the basement.

For dinner we had concession stand food (chili dogs and nachos) along with a number of appetizers. Cup cakes featuring basketballs, soccer balls, and baseballs rounded out the buffet. The pint-sized guests went home with gift bags of sports paraphernalia--water bottles, sweat bans, and bouncy balls.

The boys were their usual charming selves except when Abraham screamed non-stop when Pam placed his birthday hat on his head, so we never did get a smiley photo of both boys in their birthday hats. In Gina's photos below Matthew contemplates his birthday cupcake while Uncle Mike entertains Abraham.

Final Reflections on Mexico

2008-01-08T20:08:00.000-06:00

Timer photo of Sarah, Rachel, Kenna, Joe, Jackie and Mike on Playa Langosta.

We returned safely to Minnesota after our week in Cancun. Although the weather was cloudy, rainy at times with howling winds, and often cloudy, we had a great trip overall. Mike and I were very impressed that the six of us had no fights all week long, especially as we saw lots of family taking out their frustrations on each other. What we lacked in sun, we made up for in family togetherness. We had great meals together in the condo and played games each night from Pictionary to Scrabble to Catch Phrase to Charades. All of those nights together were a riot, especially when I was acting out "One Minute Manager" in charades and was working on the syllable "man." The kids just about fell on the floor laughing. Fortunately, on our last full day in Cancun the sun did shine for a few hours, so we were able to get to the beach, opting for Playa Langosta since that beach had more compact sand and a quiet lagoon. However, the howling wind eventually drove us back to our pool to escape the sand storm.

Kenna and Joe were a great help on the trip, cooking some meals and often doing the dishes. And on our coldest, rainy day (when the high only got to 60 degrees), Joe and Kenna took Rachel and Sarah for a day of shopping at the mall, letting Mike and I do some shopping at the local flea market and taking a bus to Wal-Mart.

Getting on the flight home was dramatic, as Mike and I almost didn't make Sun Country 752. All six of us got to the airport in plenty of time; however, Mike waited outside of Terminal 3 for our Condo manager Miguel to stop by with our $500 damage deposit. Mike waited and waited, but Miguel never came, and Miguel never answered his cell phone. I left the gate, going back out of security when I realized that I had the key for the condo that Mike was planning to give to Miguel. Mike wanted me to wait with him for awhile, but eventually I told him it was just to close and that we needed to go back through security. As we were standing in a long security line, Miguel finally called and said he was now on the way to the airport. I didn't believe he could make it in time, so I continued to wait in the security line, but Mike headed back to the curb. The security line took much longer than I expected, so I made it through with only 15 minutes to take-off. I ran through the terminal and got to the gate just before they were going to close the jetway. All four kids, who were already on the plane, were so happy to see me, even exclaiming, "Mom, we've never been so happy to see you. We didn't think that we'd get through immigration without you, even though we had our passports." None of us thought that Mike would make it, but a few minutes later, he came running onto the plane. He had jumped to the front of the security line, and bolted himself through the terminal, arriving at the gate to the PA announcement, "Final Call for Sun Country flight 752's Mike Brandt." And Mike never did meet Miguel and recover our $500 damage deposit. Mike has sent him a DHL express package with a return envelope. We'll see if we ever get that money back.

Arriving back in Minnesota to snow and 30 degrees made us miss those cloudy Cancun days already. Mike and I did discuss often on the trip how much we enjoy Mexico's climate and culture, and we do hope to spend a lot of our retirement winters there. If only we could save enough money to retire in 10 years. I can keep hoping.

Sunset on the lagoon behind our condo on our last night.