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!