Remember me?

Just kiddin'. That was the second song we sang at church today. We had to sing at both services and sit through both sermons as the song referenced above was to be sung during communion. We sounded great from the balcony, if I don't say so myself. We did without robes, but we get to wear robes on Easter, the green ones. Aaron had a great day at Sunday School today. He was straggling behind in his classroom when the second service was going to start, so I went up to get him. His teacher was up there and just beaming about Aaron's performance in class. Apparently she was going to give a lesson today about Moses, the water, and a rock and she said Aaron already knew the story, trying to blurt it out before she could tell the class. She was quite impressed at his retention of that story from our old church in Mountlake Terrace. She got him to zip his lip, though, before ruining it for the rest of his class. He was quite proud of himself, I must say.

Fellowship was nice between services with tons of banana bread and other bread I couldn't identify, but not zucchini, I don't think. Mike Lehrer was regaling us with stories of flying his plane into the Crystal airport near Minneapolis. He says he's going to have to take me up with him sometimes... I had never heard of an airport in Crystal, but he said it's tucked into a residential area nice and tight. He was commenting on that airport as Jerry Wigness was saying when the airport board met here in TRF, they voted to prohibit any and all air traffic within like 4 miles of a residential neighborhood. He thought that was funny they'd allow the airport there in Crystal, but nothing near the houses in TRF. Go figure.

Scott Grochow came down during fellowship and firmed up today's plans. We're heading over to his house so the boys can play with their kids this afternoon. Their PS2 is on the fritz, so we'll bring ours along with the Eye Toy so everyone can dance, but I imagine they'll get plenty of outdoors play too. It was lightly snowing during church, but I think it's stopped for now. It's still pretty balmy, I would guess in the 20's somewhere. Hope all our friends and family are having a great Sunday and hopefully as relaxing and enjoyable as ours.

Love,

Jim, Lisa, Andrew, and boys

The cable guy...

Hey, Dad. Remember a former student of yours named Nate Stroh? He would have been in Bill's grade at Franklin. He came over to work on our broadband connection today and recognized the last name. He had a good laugh as he asked a much younger technician at Sjoberg's (a 23-year-old) if he knew whether the Mr. Hustad at 716 Duluth was an older or younger type and the other tech said I looked "older." I guess in relative terms I would be "older." As is usual around here, he said you were probably his favorite teacher. He got a kick out of recounting how proud you were of the new stereo system at Franklin that was like four-channel with an 8-track and you would play the sound from one speaker to the next to demonstrate, etc.

We had a good time at Trinity last night for lent. They had a chicken noodle soup and homemade bread dinner before the service. No communion, so it ended a bit faster than usual. We had a great choir practice singing my new favorite piece, "I'm Going Home." We're apparently singing this Sunday in the balcony. We also found out they apparently still have the robes we all wore in the 70s and 80s. We had a good laugh as there was an argument on whether they were really blue. Everyone thought they were purple, I think, except Marilyn Wigness. The boys had a great time during the practice too like I used to a long time ago with Jennifer. Daniel pretty much explored every possible nook and cranny in the sanctuary and up in the balcony area. At one point we were all singing in the front four pews on the right side with Cathy Hagen at the grand piano off to the front right side. Daniel walked right up to the piano off to Cathy's left in the middle of the song with his hands in his pockets much like an old farmer might pose when inspecting a tractor engine and stuck his nose right in the open top of the piano to see the parts moving inside. Cathy was obviously amused, but I was just hoping he wouldn't break her concentration as I was laughing to hard to keep singing myself. He then headed up to the balcony to do some accompaniment of his own on the piano up there.

I asked Ormand how he liked the CD and he told me it's apparently "on it's way to California with another daughter." Speaking of Ormand, I noticed for the first time last night that our nice black choir music folders are stamped in gold with the words, "In memory of Iola Johnson" who passed away in 2003. Shirley Grochow was feeling much better and returned to the fold whereas Donny is still laid up a bit at home. Scott Grochow's wife, Kristi, invited the boys over for a playdate on Sunday and from what Shirley was saying last night, they want to get together with us to head to the Seven Clans Casino so the boys can go swimming, etc.

In more mundane news, I finally got the Blazer parked in the garage the other night. A couple days later, though, the garage door opener conked out and even after changing batteries in the controller it still wouldn't work. I may have mentioned it earlier, but when we first moved in, I was unable to get the stupid door open and waited several days to get a hold of the remote, thinking it wouldn't work without it. Last weekend, though, I reached up and pulled on the rope to disengage the drive on the opener and sure enough, it slid right open... Go figure.

I've been keeping busy with transcription this week, training by day and working by night. Tomorrow is the last day of training it looks like and I'll be thrown to the wolves. My personal coach, though, teaches transcription at a local community college and has been a very valuable resource and mentor thus far. She said the quality of my work indicates I'll go as far as I want in the field.

Hope everyone's doing well out there. I don't know if you're on the internet at all in Japan, Mom and Dad, but figured I'll keep updating the blog as much as possible just in case you check in now and then.

New Horizons in Transcription...

Today was a momentous occasion. The equipment arrived in two large boxes from Transolutions, the new medical transcription company I'll be employed by based out of Lake Bluff, Illinois. They sent me a computer, keyboard, modem, 5 thick binders of information including a whole mess of information on medical terminology, pharmacology, directories of local medical facilities, etc. so I'll be able to understand what's being dictated. They have assigned a group named Connecticut Physicians for me to start on and training begins tomorrow morning at 9:00 am. I'm updating the blog here now as I may not be able to give a regular update during the week what with training and all. I'll be maintaining my evening transcription schedule from 8 to midnight as well with e-Transcription.net out of Texas, so I'll be rather busy, I figure. We got Andrew busy too it looks like. I picked up an Eye Toy game on clearance from K-mart yesterday named Eye Toy Groove. It's a webcam type camera that sits on your TV and projects your image on the TV for the PS2 (Playstation) game system and you are essentially "inside" the game. This particular game is dancing, so Andrew's been groovin' to Kool and the Gang, Jackson 5, and a few others. It can really burn the calories when it's too cold to head outside and it looks kinda funny when you get to see a replay of your dance moves on the screen.

Well, that's pretty much all to tell. The boys are in bed and I'm about to head back up there a third time to open up a can of whoop #!@ on them again to get them to go to sleep. Hope all of you out there have a great week in the great State of Washington or wherever you happen to be... :o)

A Nice Day at Church

We had a nice respite this Sunday from choir duty as they didn't sing today. The boys did great throughout the service and Aaron was kinda cute up front when it was time for the Children's Sermon. Gerry Eggers had the kids come up for the message and was asking them about butterflies and how they are "born again." Aaron piped up with a little statement about caterpillars and what he did with them in kindergarten or something like that. He was pretty cute up there... I gave Ormand Johnson the CD of his daughter, Dad. He was pretty darn happy if I don't say so myself. He made a point of thanking me/you twice for it in short succession. I could tell he's really going to enjoy listening too it and he said he would be letting his daughter know he has it. Mike Lehrer sang a nice solo, actually I think two different solos, both accompanied by Marilyn Wigness. I forgot how nice of a tenor voice he has from when he sang that solo, Oh Rest In The Lord when we did The Elijah. The one he did during the offering begin with a variation of Jesus Loves Me This I Know. He had admonished me to be sure and hum during the song. Other news you might be interested in, Mom and Dad, is Jerry Wigness' birthday is tomorrow/Presidents' Day and it's going to be the 20th anniversary of his 49th birthday...

We got some more of the main living area cleared away of some items and managed to get some more pictures mounted in the living room. I noticed, though, Jen, that I don't have any decent sized picture of your family I can frame and mount. I only have a 3x5, I think. If I could put a special request in for the next photo shoot, that would be great! I have a nice portrait of mom and dad and grandpa at this point. I also cleared the garage a bit tonight, actually it's about 1:30 am Monday. I wanted to finally get the Blazer under cover so it may start a little easier and hopefully I don't have to scrape the windshield as much. It was kinda funny last week as I was sitting in the Blazer waiting for it to warm up and noticing how the windshield appeared frozen on the outside. I even got out to scrape it, but when I started scraping, I noticed there was no ice whatsoever on the outside, this time it was all on the inside... I don't seem to remember that happening when I was growing up over here. Since Presidents' Day is today, the boys don't have any school. For those interested in the weather, the boys have more than enough snow to play in now. It's been snowing the past day and a half so there's a fresh blanket on just about everything except the roof of our house. The snowmobilers should be happy...

Update on TRF education...

We had a meeting with Aaron's teacher and some of Challenger Elementary's support staff, including the staff psychologist and a couple of therapists yesterday. It's been a couple years since Aaron had a formal evaluation at Chase Lake. They're going to go ahead with another eval and see where he's at now as they think the results from a couple years ago are probably inaccurate. It should take up to a month to complete the testing and then we'll meet again to go over the results and formulate a game plan. They do it a little different here in Minnesota in terms of intensive learning/education support. They have Aaron in his regular classroom instead of separated in one for intensive learning with a home room for only part of the day. They appear to use a few more screening tools as well for identifying learning disabilities. Who's to know if it's "better" than what's been done thus far, but one thing's for sure, how committed they are to kids here.

I caught up with Howard Thorson, my old principal from the country school I went to, St. Hilaire. He ushers quite a bit for Trinity Lutheran and I also see him out at Challenger now. I think I now have an update on all of our teachers, Jen. There should have been 6 teachers total, K - 5. I think I already mentioned my fifth grade teacher, Tom Schaefer, is still teaching in the school district, still teaching fifth grade at Challenger. Sue or "Mrs. Froiland" who taught fourth grade at St. Hilaire now teaches at Challenger, though it may be third now. Our old third grade teacher, Mrs. Poole, is retired and apparently living in the St. Hilaire area. She's getting up in years now and Mr. Thorson mentioned she's been in failing health and perhaps some memory problems. The second grade teacher, Mrs. Cerkowniak (sp?) who taught me how to sing "Do your ears hang low," and "Head, shoulders, knees, and toes" was killed approximately 13 years ago before her 40th birthday in Arizona, the result of a head-on collision with a drunk driver. She unfortunately had children of her own left to grow up without their mom. As for the first grade teacher in St. Hilaire, Mrs. Miller, she's Aaron's second grade teacher at Challenger now. I didn't recognize her, but she remembers me and all the times Mrs. Froiland would drag me up to her classroom by the ear and force me to do my homework with the first graders. She was good friends with my second grade teacher. Sharon Iverson, the kindergarten teacher, is now still teaching at Challenger.

It's been snowing today, though the temperature is back above zero at 15.8 degrees. Aaron has a half day at school today and I'll be meeting his bus at 1:15 instead of 3:15 whereas Daniel had no school today, so he's home with us and playing racecar games on the PS2 with Andrew. Other than church continuing to be a fun activity with Lent services and choir practice, there's not much else to update on at this point. Just counting the days til spring is all.

Ye Olde Farm House...

Andrew, the boys, and I went up to the old homestead about 3 miles out of St. Hilaire, MN and 47 miles east of Grand Forks, ND. The place looked a bit different than in 1984, the last time I visited, but in many ways it was still the same. I took Andrew and the boys on a mini tour of sorts after talking to the current owners for a bit. The current owner is a lieutenant in the Minnesota Highway Patrol and his wife coincidentally (for me at least) is the head of the RN nursing program at the local college, Northland Community. She told me I could finish an LPN program there in only 3 quarters… (Don’t get any ideas, Wil) Something to think about in the future perhaps... Their son was team captain, I think, on the high school swim team in town. The whole family is just the nicest (like just about everyone else around here) and one of the first sentences out of her mouth was "No, you can't have the house!"

We went through the old path in the woods to the back 40-acre field and checked that area out. The old farm equipment was gone, but I think I made out the handle that I used to engage the plow sticking out of the snow. It may be the same plow I used on the field at 11 or 12 years old. The current owners have built a huge fort out back with a tree house and dozens of barriers to hide behind for paintball including some discarded car hoods and plywood sheets. The trees I planted with sister Jennifer way back when at 2 feet tall are now well over 20 feet and a good 8 inches around at the base. The current owners expressed great appreciation for us having planted those there. We also made it out to the 80 acres further back and met the owner of a new cabin that's been built right next to it. Last name was Hansen, but I didn't remember his first name. He apparently has been living in Nancy Mosbeck's and Tony Ricci's old house a couple farms over. He had plowed the access road with his tractor so we didn’t have problems driving on the snow.

He’s been clearing out a lot of trees on the land out there and the current owners of our old farm wished it wasn't happening. They said he's a retiree, so he probably makes money that way, though they wished he wouldn't destroy so many trees out there. As for the rest of the place, the old barn/shed we used to have at one edge of the front yard is gone, replaced by a newer building and the garden is gone as well. I think I also found the exact same birch tree, though, that Jen and I used to eat lunch in way back when on a lazy afternoon. Pet cemetery is pretty much gone too, or covered by the new building. I'll have to bring Lisa out there later, once the snow's gone perhaps and we can see more. I was thinkin’ for an adventure with the boys this summer we could head to the ditch on the opposite side of the highway from the farm with a metal detector and see if we can find the wrench or vice grip dad threw over there when he got injured putting the dual tires on the old tractor a quarter century ago… J

We had a good time at church this Sunday and this time Daniel walked straight into his Sunday school classroom and let the teacher take off his coat, etc. with not so much as a whimper or whine. We socialized downstairs with some of the senior choir members and older members of the congregation. We sat with Don and Shirley Grochow and Ormond Johnson. The choir did great singing from the balcony and I can’t get over how good the acoustics are in that old church. They have a new soundboard and color TV system there to in order to televise services on Sundays. They have communion there every Sunday now too.

Dawn came out from the Humane Society and gave Duchess her latest shot and transferred ownership officially to us today. We also will be picking up a new bunny from her this week named Funny Bunny. It’s a mini rex. We’ll be putting her out on the covered porch in a spacious cage so the neighbor boys and Aaron and Daniel should enjoy that. So once the fish tank is up and running we’ll look like a pet store… That’s pretty much all that’s happened this weekend that’s worth printing. I hope I don’t repeat myself too much on this blog as I don’t go back and read my old posts. Feel free to add a comment, though, if I do. Take care, all, and I hope everything is well with all of you as it is here.

Jim, Lisa, Aaron, Daniel, Andrew, and Duchess

We're dreaming of a white Easter...

Time to catch up a little more here... We attended Ash Wednesday services at Trinity last night and were officially inducted in the senior choir. Many of the other members were there the last time I sang around 1981/1982, i.e. Ormand Johnson, Shirley Grochow, Marilyn and Jerry Wigness, etc. We made some new friends and didn't do too bad considering we only had 30 minutes to practice prior to performing. We ended up staying after the service to practice for Sunday too. We'll be singing from the balcony that day.

As for today, it was another eventful one. I am no longer self-employed... I pretty much secured a position with an online transcription company that will pay me an hourly wage plus a bonus for every line over 175 an hour I type (piece of cake). I'll also get benefits that are extremely affordable for a family including medical and dental for well under $300 a month. They should cover the Dakota Clinic here in town too. I will set my own hours and they'll provide a computer, phone line, and software as well as medical references. They're based in Lake Bluff, Illinois. They also pay holidays too. Finally...a job where I have a boss, but I get to set my own hours and don't have to worry about paying self-employment taxes, finding my own insurance plan, etc. Hooray!!

It snowed a good inch to an inch and a half today, so the boys were out with the neighbors playing after school today. Makes for good after school recreation. That's all for now...

Back above zero (for now)...

We had a relatively productive day today. I tested for an online transcription company based in Illinois and think I did pretty good. It will take up to 7 days for the results though. The nice thing is if I'm hired I'll get vacation and sick leave even as a home-based typist and perhaps even a health plan of some kind. A guy could do a lot worse, right? We made it out to Fleet Farm and Home Supply today out by the old Huck Olson arena this afternoon and spent our gift certificate (thanks Mom and Dad!) and got some good stuff for the house. We also picked up a whole house console humidifier as the dog's fur was beginning to look like a porcupine's quills after petting it. I think we could have hooked her up as an extra electricity source if we waited much longer. The eyes and skin already feel much better... We made it over to Wells Fargo today and I noticed the high school boys' swim team's last home meet was tonight against Moorhead, but wasn't able to make it over there, unfortunately. Always next year, I guess. Tomorrow we'll be heading to church for choir practice it looks like, so hopefully Daniel will do okay without us for a little bit. As for Aaron, he's all cheeky smiles as usual as we bought him a rabbit fur lined camouflage Elmer Fudd hat with the ear flaps and all. He looks a lot better than his dad in it, I must say. Couldn't talk Daniel into modeling it for more than 10 seconds though. He'd have nothing to do with it... That's about all to add other than the neighbor boys at the end of the street came over tonight after dinner and played with the boys for a while. Their dad is the pastor at First Baptist here in town. Take care everyone!

A post for Wil...

Yes, that was cold the other day alright, but last night was even colder (8 below zero with a "feels like" of 23 below). The inside of the windshield can get more frozen than the outside. Unfortunately I realized yesterday that I had left our inkjet printer out in the back of the car all this time. I'm hooking it up today to see if the cartridge exploded or not.

Trinity is just about 3 minutes from here or less than 10 if you're walking it. Yes, everyone pretty much does know everyone or at least someone who knows someone, etc. You can't get far without someone recognizing your name. Oh, and we've identified the better of the two Chinese restaurants in town too and both are within walking distance. We can wait for summer for you to visit, though, if it's too cold.... :o)

You know you're not in Seattle anymore when...

you have to get out your credit card and scrape not only the outside but also the inside of ALL windows on your vehicle. As I write this update, it's minus 3 degrees with a "feels like" temperature of 19 degrees below zero!! The dog was begging to come back after only a two-minute potty break...

We went to Trinity Lutheran this morning. Had to almost drag Daniel kicking and screaming into his Sunday school class. It was on the upper level for those of you familiar with Trinity. Aaron went in all smiles to his class and had a great time. By the time I picked Daniel up afterwards, though, he was all smiles to get a little brown sack with goodies and a little Twix bar inside. Who said a little bribery was against the rules?? Perhaps next Sunday will be easier. One of his fellow classmates at Challenger Elementary also is in his class, perhaps two.

Just before the service, we bumped into family friends from long ago, Don and Scott Grochow. Shirley was working at the hospital. The service was nice and we met with other friends afterwards including Jerry and Marilyn Wigness. They talked us into attending choir practice (I think) on Wednesday. Should be fun. I also met the former principal of Lincoln face-to-face for the first time, Frank Hammerlink. I told him I would have recognized him if I had ever been sent to his office as a Freshman and he said, "I would have remembered you too in that event."

After church, we went out to the Pennington County Humane Society to donate some cat food and fended off a request to take on a bunny rabbit. We figured we need at least a few more weeks with a dog under our belt. After that, we figured we'd head out to Don and Shirley Grochow's place on the river (frozen solid) and just pop in to say "hi" for 5 or 10 minutes. That was around 3 or 3:30, I think. We just got home 7 hours later... Shirley brought out the frozen pizza and hotwings and cooked us up a nice meal. She even provided cake and ice cream for dessert! Scott and his wife, Christy (sp?) came over too and the boys played with their kids. They have a daughter around Daniel's age in kindergarten and at least one boy around Aaron's age. Aaron went over to Scott's place since they're next-door neighbors and played video games while we visited and watched some of the Super Bowl. Shirley looks just as she did 20 some years ago and was ever the gracious hostess as always. A great time was had by all. That is, until we got home and realized how unbelievably cold it was outside. My thumbs froze within minutes outside of my gloves. Well, here goes our second week in Minnesota. Wish us luck!

Our second weekend and more snow...

Greetings once more... It's now supposed to be 9 degrees outside with a "feels like" temperature of 10 below zero. It started snowing earlier this evening and has pretty well covered what grass had begun to show in our backyard this past week. It was warmer for a good week with snow melting in both the backyard and on the front walk from our porch to the sidewalk and street. Aaron and Daniel went out to play today a couple of times with the boys down at the end/corner of our block, Drew (9) and Tyler (7?), as well as Drew and Tyler's friend Dorian (just have to think of Dorian Grey to remember him). The boys invited their older friend over last night for a sleepover who's presently in 6th grade at Franklin Middle School, Kevin Omdahl. He's apparently the nephew of Kathy, Greg and Vicki (Phil Hartman's wife) Omdahl. The small world continues to grow ever smaller...

The boys played in the backyard with Duchess and their friends much of the afternoon while I got some transcription work done and went through some more boxes. I probably went through some 20 boxes or so today in my ongoing search for the missing wireless router so I could get Lisa's laptop to work upstairs. Come midnight, there was one box just resting by itself in the dining room wrapped in packing material that I had seen earlier, but discounted as I had seen it in a prior move and thought I knew all its contents. I went ahead and opened it anyway and lo and behold, there was the router and DSL modem. That solves our biggest mystery of the week.

Tomorrow (actually today as it's 1:28 a.m.) we're planning to attend Trinity Lutheran for the first time since I think sometime in 1982, with the boys attending Sunday School at 9:25 a.m. Should be fun, especially if we see many people I knew growing up.

Duchess continues to become a more permanent fixture in our household with each passing day. She's a very polite dog. So polite, that if someone comes up to her on the sidewalk, she will stand on her hind legs and just barely touch them with her front paws. She doesn't jump but more like just stands in greeting. She's been well received by those who've met her thus far and we think enjoys her new home. I may have mentioned earlier she's a lousy guard dog, but she actually started barking this week when hearing strange sounds at the door, so perhaps I was mistaken. We still wish she'd go potty faster when we're standing out in 10-degree temperatures rather than sniff the standard 4-square block area first.

The plan for tomorrow is to install the two remaining smoke detectors and two carbon monoxide detectors in the basement and upper level (larger house than I thought). I also noted the former owners apparently left us a large hose reel on the side of our house out front and I need to shovel some snow off that side of the house where the vent is for the clothes dryer to make sure there's adequate ventilation. The rest of the day will probably be spent in transcription and supervising the boys as they hopefully play some more with the neighborhood boys. That's pretty much all there is to update for now...

Lots of news to catch up on!

In case you haven't heard the news yet, we did make it safely to our destination. We drove straight through on Thursday from Missoula to Bismark, North Dakota. We figured what the heck as it was only another 120 miles or so. We didn't get there until close to 4 a.m. on Friday morning, though. The roads were bare and dry most of the way with speeds reaching an average of more than I care to admit to the general public. Not bad for a 6-ton truck with an auto transport on the back, though. We hit snow once we got to Fargo and it was slower going from Fargo northbound on I-29 to Grand Forks, North Dakota. There were close to 3-foot snow drifts along the roads where the snowplows had done their work in Grand Forks. We took a rural cutacross on County Road 3 (now named something else) to St. Hilaire, MN. The truck went into a skid just at the last intersection to turn North and head into Thief River Falls. I managed to stop the truck in time thanks to anti-lock brakes (go U-Haul)... That was about the only unsettling moment in driving the moving truck.

We pulled into Thief River Friday night last week around 5:15 or so and the nice lady at the bank stayed late especially for us to complete the mortgage loan paperwork. She handed us the keys to our house and we were walking into our house by about 6 p.m. that night. The house was more than we could have imagined with only the digital pictures we had seen from afar. The home inspection pretty much pointed out the major stuff we had already expected, but there was so much more space than anticipated and the condition of the house is pretty darn good for being built around 1905. The back yard we found to be much bigger as well. The picture we had was of only one corner of it and didn't do it justice. The fence all the way around comes to about 6 feet or just shy of it, so plenty of privacy and security. We arrived to the sight and sounds of many snowmobiles (mostly Artic Cat) going back and forth through the streets of our town. We obviously weren't in Washington anymore as snow covered everything in sight. The temperature wasn't bad at around 20 above zero.

It took us about 3 days to unload the truck as we took our time and enjoyed ourselves getting use to the town and local eateries, etc. Uncle/brother Andrew spent time in the back yard with the boys building a snow castle and palace and got the novelty of snow out of his system. Aaron made his first snow angel there last Saturday. Daniel was bundled up like the abominable snowman. Daniel had an unpleasant surprise when he went to the backyard and promptly fell waist deep in the snow back there. Quite the new experience for him to say the least.

Saturday morning I got a call from Bob, my godmother's significant other in Thief River, offering to go ice fishing with him sometime in North Red Lake or Lake of the Woods for walleye. Later that day, I got the U-Haul stuck in the alley behind the house, turning too tight into a snow bank with the right rear tires almost off the ground. We had a typical Minnesota sidebar with a few guys coming over and pretty much just standing around talking about the predicament and how best to get out of it. Six of us got behind the truck and eventually pushed it out. That was just a few minutes after I had pulled a native out of his driveway with our S-10 Blazer (he had an F-150, so go Chevy!). We got the truck unloaded by very early Monday morning so it could be returned. That morning, I found my next door neighbor across the street named Lacy had gotten her little sport coupe stuck in her driveway, bottomed out on snow. I tried pulling her out with the Blazer in 4-wheel drive, but it just spun tires. An older lady came out to help by spreading kitty litter under my tires and in the process found out who I was. She turned out to be the mother of a girl who had babysat me growing up here some 30 years or so ago. To make the world even smaller, we got a visit yesterday from another neighbor right across the street who happened to be my favorite PE teacher at Franklin Middle School here, Dale Folger.

Over the past week we've been unpacking, but also taking time to have fun and explore/re-explore our surroundings. Andrew and Lisa are getting a handle on what directions are North, South, East, West, etc. and where things stand in relation to each other. We've enjoyed shopping over here, finding only a 6.5% sales tax compared with Washington's 8.9% or higher. It's even tax-free to eat out over here... In those moments of enjoying ourselves, we paid a visit to a former classmate of mine who runs the Pennington County Humane Society here in Thief River and she had picked out a dog just for us named Duchess. She's a 4-year-old yellow lab who was given up due to an allergy in her previous family. She's a beautiful dog just the right size so Aaron enjoys being around her. His fear of dogs has almost been erased thanks to her. It's our first dog as a family and we think we got a pretty good one to start. We may add a purebred Yorkie to the mix later, but we'll have to see as we don't know how Duchess would act around another dog at home.

We took the grand tour of our kids' new elementary school, Challenger, this Tuesday, meeting old teachers of mine from elementary (5th grade with Tom Schaefer and Franklin Middle School with Ms. Knuttila). Many of the people were as nice as I had remembered and then some. The boys started school today with Aaron attending Mrs. Miller's 2nd grade class and Daniel in Mrs. Fulton's afternoon kindergarten class. This morning when dropping off Aaron at school, his teacher asked the class "who would like to show Aaron where his locker is to put his things" and almost the whole class raised their hands in unison and begged to be chosen for the honor. When I picked Aaron up after school, he had only three words for me to go with his customary broad smile: "I made friends!"

Aaron and Daniel will be taking the school bus tomorrow. I'll walk Aaron to his stop in the morning a block away on Knight Avenue and Daniel will be picked up right in front of our house. Tomorrow will be my first undivided day to allow me to focus on my work from home. It should be nice to start to get into the real swing of things here.

As for the neighbors, I've met quite a few already. The house on the end has four boys, at least two of which are Aaron and Daniel's age. Andrew and I were invited next door for a beer and chit chat with "Mike" who owns the "gingerbread" looking house next door. He works as a machinist for Artic Cat making snowmobiles and ATVs. Quite a freewheeling individual, he told us of the neighborhood barbecues they regularly have around here where they have a good 3 to 4 grills going at the same time with people throwing their own meat on if they want. Sounds like a good summer is on the way...

Sorry we weren't able to update our blog site for so long. Our house wasn't completely wired for cable internet access, so yesterday was pretty much our first day of access and I've been working since. We all miss you there in Washington, particularly those of you at Chase Lake in addition to family. We are having a great time on this "permanent vacation" as it were and look forward to reporting more good news in the near future to update you all.