Had to get this down before I forget. We went to Danny's Pizza this afternoon for lunch and while there, sat in the back partitioned area where they have pinball and video games. There were three young girls sitting back there about 6, 4, and 2 respectively. They were all chatterboxes, but I have to admit I didn't understand much of anything they were saying. They looked like most other children, but something was different I couldn't quite figure out, living in this Minnesota equivalent of Siberia. In the midst of one of the eldest girl's sentences, though, I picked out the words, "Ich bin," which finally clued me in to the fact they were German. A guy about Dad's age came back to check on them and mentioned to me they were staying in TRF with his family and he "can't understand a word they're saying" because they speak nothing but German. A few minutes later, their German father returns and summons them with a whole string of German language followed by "bitte" and the middle girl told the others, "SCHNELL!" I thought for a moment of Hogan's Heroes and just after their father was out of earshot, Daniel looks at Aaron and me and exclaims, "What the heck was THAT?!!" I'm guessing that was the first time he was exposed to a foreign language. Living in this remote area, it's kind of refreshing to see different ethnicities and hear different languages from time to time. I think we or at least I had become so accustomed to the melting pot they call Seattle that I had come to take diversity for granted. Now I'm learning all over again.
The other funny remark out of Daniel happened this past week when Daniel was playing in the neighbor boys' fort on the corner. He comes running home for a roll of my clear duct tape to "fix" the fort, calling it an "emergency." Once back at the fort, he tells the other boys, "We need a BIG dog now to kill people if they attack our fort." One of the boys responds, "But dogs are expensive. They're like $100!" Daniel then says, "Will they take a check??"
In other events to round out this weekend, it's been a long day of rain thus far and Daniel has successfully muddied up both his new jeans and his khakhi cargo pants I bought Friday night, so this guy's going to be busy doing laundry tonight, it appears. We also picked up a ball return thing that hangs on the rim of the basketball hoop so we can practice shooting this week. K-Mart finally stocked their basketball hoops today so we were able to get one of those to replace the worn one out there now. We also got a glow-in-the-dark basketball so we can shoot hoops at night. Now if this darn rain would stop... :o(
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Greater Than The Greatest Show On Earth?
We just got back from a long day in Grand Forks today. Joe mentioned going to the 7 p.m. showing of the KEM Shrine Circus at the Ralph Englestad Arena in Grand Forks and so I figured it would be a nice morning to sleep in today, but the phone rang at 8:45 a.m. and Joe was on the line to tell me he had good news and bad news. The good news was he had a free ticket for me to the circus from his father-in-law, Jim Goldsberry, as he is a Shriner, and the bad news was I had about 2 minutes to get dressed and out the door to drive to Grand Forks. We managed to get there about 5 minutes before the show started.
It was a three-ring circus complete with high-wire acts, tigers, elephants, ponies, and trained dogs. I was just as entertained by this circus as the old Barnum & Bailey Circus back at Key Arena. The main difference between circuses, though, was during the admission they gave the kids rides on the elephants, though we didn't do it this time. The arena was huge compared to the Ralph here in TRF. I was awestruck by the leaps in technology UND has made since I grew up around here. They have Subway, Dominoe's Pizza, and a huge gift shop where all three of us got Fighting Sioux hockey jerseys, matching green for the boys with white and black accents and white for me with green and back accents and an embroidered head of a Sioux warrior on the front.
We hit the road back to TRF about 1:00 this afternoon and on the way back just before the old farm, I drove by a nice brick sign with the name "Black River Lutheran" on it, so I pulled a U-turn and drove down the gravel road to the little church I haven't seen in some 22 years and visited Ray Mosbeck, my Godfather. For those of you "non-Hustad family" readers, Black River is a tiny rural church, one of those white steeple churches you see in the countryside when you take a roadtrip. It has a small cemetery next to it where the pioneering farmers of the area and their families are buried, including my Godfather. It dates back to the last decade or so of the 1800's and the building remains much the same as it did when I left in the early 80s. Aaron wanted to see the inside of the church and surprisingly the doors were unlocked, though nobody was there. We strolled through the church and I pointed out some things to the boys I remembered when growing up, including the sanctuary we had a Christmas program in for Sunday School. I signed the guestbook there and talk about a small world... About three or four lines above my entry was the entry of a couple that had visited last fall from Auburn, Washington of all places. There was another couple from as far away as Oregon and a lady from Galveston, Texas. It's just amazing how far flung the church's ties are given it's size and very remote location.
We just now got back at 3:00 after I took the long way home and showed the boys where I used to ride horse as a boy down the gravel roads around the old farm. They're getting pretty muddy out there and it was a bit treacherous with the Weasel, but we made it through okay. Now we can think of something else to do to keep the TV off for another day, which is challenging, as it has been raining all day for two days now. I didn't know how tough it could be without any TV until we ended up with back to back rainy days. Brings to mind Dr. Seuss. I think I'll read them the Cat in the Hat, as I think that was about two bored kids stuck inside on a rainy day. I hope this weekend dries up by tomorrow, though, so we have a dry football game on Monday. I heard it was going to be cloudy with a chance of meatballs... :o)
It was a three-ring circus complete with high-wire acts, tigers, elephants, ponies, and trained dogs. I was just as entertained by this circus as the old Barnum & Bailey Circus back at Key Arena. The main difference between circuses, though, was during the admission they gave the kids rides on the elephants, though we didn't do it this time. The arena was huge compared to the Ralph here in TRF. I was awestruck by the leaps in technology UND has made since I grew up around here. They have Subway, Dominoe's Pizza, and a huge gift shop where all three of us got Fighting Sioux hockey jerseys, matching green for the boys with white and black accents and white for me with green and back accents and an embroidered head of a Sioux warrior on the front.
We hit the road back to TRF about 1:00 this afternoon and on the way back just before the old farm, I drove by a nice brick sign with the name "Black River Lutheran" on it, so I pulled a U-turn and drove down the gravel road to the little church I haven't seen in some 22 years and visited Ray Mosbeck, my Godfather. For those of you "non-Hustad family" readers, Black River is a tiny rural church, one of those white steeple churches you see in the countryside when you take a roadtrip. It has a small cemetery next to it where the pioneering farmers of the area and their families are buried, including my Godfather. It dates back to the last decade or so of the 1800's and the building remains much the same as it did when I left in the early 80s. Aaron wanted to see the inside of the church and surprisingly the doors were unlocked, though nobody was there. We strolled through the church and I pointed out some things to the boys I remembered when growing up, including the sanctuary we had a Christmas program in for Sunday School. I signed the guestbook there and talk about a small world... About three or four lines above my entry was the entry of a couple that had visited last fall from Auburn, Washington of all places. There was another couple from as far away as Oregon and a lady from Galveston, Texas. It's just amazing how far flung the church's ties are given it's size and very remote location.
We just now got back at 3:00 after I took the long way home and showed the boys where I used to ride horse as a boy down the gravel roads around the old farm. They're getting pretty muddy out there and it was a bit treacherous with the Weasel, but we made it through okay. Now we can think of something else to do to keep the TV off for another day, which is challenging, as it has been raining all day for two days now. I didn't know how tough it could be without any TV until we ended up with back to back rainy days. Brings to mind Dr. Seuss. I think I'll read them the Cat in the Hat, as I think that was about two bored kids stuck inside on a rainy day. I hope this weekend dries up by tomorrow, though, so we have a dry football game on Monday. I heard it was going to be cloudy with a chance of meatballs... :o)
Thursday, April 27, 2006
A Whole Week Without TV??
Well, it's Thursday and we've successfully made it through four complete days of absolutely no television programs. The boys' elementary school is sponsoring a "No TV Week" for the students and the boys are, believe it or not, willingly participating in it with very little complaint. As the week progresses, it's actually getting easier and easier to do without the "idiot box." I made an exception for PS2 games, but they can only play ACTIVE games, i.e. EyeToy "Play" and Dance Dance Revolution. As they haven't figured out how to do the latter, they're limited to the EyeToy with Kung Fu. If the boys make it through the whole week (ending this Sunday), they will be entered in a drawing for prizes and have their picture taken for the TRF Times.
As for what we've been doing with our time without TV, the boys have been outside virtually the entire week bouncing on the trampoline and working on batting, fielding, and football throwing and catching skills with me. Last night, the boys had AWANA Club at the Free Church and it was "Father-Son" night with a Nintendo GameCube "Super-Mario" challenge. Each of us teamed up with our sons (Aaron) and played on one controller. No father won, unfortunately. A pleasant surprise was when the Drevlow boys showed up with Joe. He used to take them to AWANA, but hasn't for a while due to family scheduling conflicts, so it was nice to see him there again. He mentioned they're about to have Brett's birthday party, which will actually consist of "football." They are going to take the kids out to Franklin's practice field next Monday night and play flag football. He says more often than not that's what his oldest boys ask for in terms of a birthday "party." Joe said the only problem is every boy wants to be the quarterback, but given Joe's size (about my size, or the size of a Mack truck), he's afraid the smaller kids will stop right in front of him suddenly and he'll end up mowing them down. He says he can still run faster than half of them, hence the problem (He used to play guard for the Brown University football team). Joe therefore plays quarterback. He said I can then play quarterback for the other team, so this sounds like it's going to be a pretty good night of play next week.
Carol Delap stopped by after I put the boys to bed last night and dropped off leftover sloppy joe fixings from the activity they had at Trinity last night. They were putting together some kind of care packages for Hurricane Katrina victims and she had invited Aaron to bring Daniel and I, but we had the AWANA group. It was rather nice of her to drive over and drop off the food, though.
Daniel has been quite the character this week with a few funny remarks. I'll just record a couple that I can remember here. The other night when I went to bed, I roused Daniel a little bit and he looks up at me with sleepy eyes and asks me, "How's your burger?" The other chuckle came yesterday morning when I got him up for school. He had overslept and I was helping him get ready, putting a pair of shorts on him as it's been rather nice weather here lately. After I got them on he says, "NO! I don't want to wear shorts...I want LONG-SLEEVED pants. I'll freeze!"
Aaron has his field trip tomorrow to Bemidji State University with his gym class so he'll get to learn how to climb a rock wall down there and interact with college physical education majors. I have to drive him to Challenger first thing in the morning so they can head out right away for Bemidji. Should be fun for him.
This weekend is the Shriner's Circus and we're still deciding whether we'll go or not. Joe's family is going, so we may do it, but depends on scheduling, etc.
That's about all that's happening or has happened this week. It's supposed to be 67 degrees for a high today and sunny skies, perfect for after school sports... :o)
As for what we've been doing with our time without TV, the boys have been outside virtually the entire week bouncing on the trampoline and working on batting, fielding, and football throwing and catching skills with me. Last night, the boys had AWANA Club at the Free Church and it was "Father-Son" night with a Nintendo GameCube "Super-Mario" challenge. Each of us teamed up with our sons (Aaron) and played on one controller. No father won, unfortunately. A pleasant surprise was when the Drevlow boys showed up with Joe. He used to take them to AWANA, but hasn't for a while due to family scheduling conflicts, so it was nice to see him there again. He mentioned they're about to have Brett's birthday party, which will actually consist of "football." They are going to take the kids out to Franklin's practice field next Monday night and play flag football. He says more often than not that's what his oldest boys ask for in terms of a birthday "party." Joe said the only problem is every boy wants to be the quarterback, but given Joe's size (about my size, or the size of a Mack truck), he's afraid the smaller kids will stop right in front of him suddenly and he'll end up mowing them down. He says he can still run faster than half of them, hence the problem (He used to play guard for the Brown University football team). Joe therefore plays quarterback. He said I can then play quarterback for the other team, so this sounds like it's going to be a pretty good night of play next week.
Carol Delap stopped by after I put the boys to bed last night and dropped off leftover sloppy joe fixings from the activity they had at Trinity last night. They were putting together some kind of care packages for Hurricane Katrina victims and she had invited Aaron to bring Daniel and I, but we had the AWANA group. It was rather nice of her to drive over and drop off the food, though.
Daniel has been quite the character this week with a few funny remarks. I'll just record a couple that I can remember here. The other night when I went to bed, I roused Daniel a little bit and he looks up at me with sleepy eyes and asks me, "How's your burger?" The other chuckle came yesterday morning when I got him up for school. He had overslept and I was helping him get ready, putting a pair of shorts on him as it's been rather nice weather here lately. After I got them on he says, "NO! I don't want to wear shorts...I want LONG-SLEEVED pants. I'll freeze!"
Aaron has his field trip tomorrow to Bemidji State University with his gym class so he'll get to learn how to climb a rock wall down there and interact with college physical education majors. I have to drive him to Challenger first thing in the morning so they can head out right away for Bemidji. Should be fun for him.
This weekend is the Shriner's Circus and we're still deciding whether we'll go or not. Joe's family is going, so we may do it, but depends on scheduling, etc.
That's about all that's happening or has happened this week. It's supposed to be 67 degrees for a high today and sunny skies, perfect for after school sports... :o)
Monday, April 24, 2006
The Green Green Grass of Home...
Everything looks so beautiful this spring with the grass all around returning to a lush green and the birds chirping again in the mornings. We had a quite active weekend around here with Dusty Grochow spending the night on Saturday after a day spent out at the park next to the old Washington Elementary then playing down at the Armory Hill park by the river. We played some baseball for the most part and shot a few hoops. Aaron hit quite a few line drives as I worked on my scalp sunburn (no hat). It's amazing how quickly Aaron has picked up the concept of "eye on the ball" and power hitting. We went out in the back yard yesterday while the other neighbor boys played on the trampoline and I threw a few pitches to Aaron with a SOFT ball and he at one point hit the ball all the way up to the top of our house's roof and also hit the neighbor's wall about 25 yards away near the eave of the roof, way above the 6 foot fence around the back yard. I think the boys were on and off the trampoline about 90 percent of the weekend when we weren't out playing ball, so it was a good prelude to this coming week's activities.
Yes, it's "turn off the tube" week here in TRF where all students are asked to "turn off the television" for an entire week, ending next Sunday. We talked a bit about it last night, things we can do other than turn on the TV and I think we'll be doing a fair amount of batting practice and throwing the football around along with the trampoline activity. I'm thinking we'll put some puzzles together and get some overdue reading done. They were reluctant at first about the concept, but realize there are other things they can do besides watching the box. I'm sure there will be some wailing and gnashing of teeth from time to time as we venture through a week without TV, but we'll all be better for it, I'm sure. If they make it through the whole week, they get rewards such as certificates for pizza, picture in the paper, etc.
I'll attach a few more pictures here of last weekend's activities and call it a day (in terms of blogging).
Yes, it's "turn off the tube" week here in TRF where all students are asked to "turn off the television" for an entire week, ending next Sunday. We talked a bit about it last night, things we can do other than turn on the TV and I think we'll be doing a fair amount of batting practice and throwing the football around along with the trampoline activity. I'm thinking we'll put some puzzles together and get some overdue reading done. They were reluctant at first about the concept, but realize there are other things they can do besides watching the box. I'm sure there will be some wailing and gnashing of teeth from time to time as we venture through a week without TV, but we'll all be better for it, I'm sure. If they make it through the whole week, they get rewards such as certificates for pizza, picture in the paper, etc.
I'll attach a few more pictures here of last weekend's activities and call it a day (in terms of blogging).
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Tic-Tac, Sir?
Daniel said something pretty funny the other night that I thought would make a good opening to this "catch-up" blog entry of sorts. He was talking to Aaron and they were discussing numbers of words and in the middle of the conversation, I burped and announced to Daniel, "That's ONE word." Daniel looks up at me and says, "Two words, Dad...BREATH MINT!"
Well, since my last update, Daniel had his birthday party at the Seven Clans water park as planned and had a lot of fun with his buddies. I had 15 passes to give out and used all but one of them up. It was well worth the money for all the fun the boys had. Since then, the rest of the snow has gone and the grass has already begun to green up. I picked up a "new" used bike for Daniel at K-Mart for $25. Besides being rusted from last year's thunderstorm season, his old bike was rather on the small size given his growth spurt. I got him a 20-inch BMX-style with yellow paint and red flame decals. For Aaron, I picked up a new 24-inch 7-speed Mongoose mountain bike with dual shock suspension. This time around, bikes are being brought in to the porch at night so they don't end up with so much wear and tear from the monsoon season. The boys have been out on their bikes practically every day since the snow first melted and are spending less and less time indoors (a good thing).
To help spur along a more "active" summer this year, we picked up some tennis racquets last weekend and headed out to the tennis court in town. Daniel took to it pretty quickly, hitting at least a couple of volleys over the net with me. Aaron liked practicing against the wall on the edge of the court, but managed to hit a few over the cyclone fence and across the street (as did yours truly). We spent about an hour there on Easter Sunday, then returned on Monday as they also had that day off from school for Spring Break.
The boys finally got their yearbooks from last year for Challenger. They had to rebuild the whole thing from scratch and for a while there, the school didn't think they'd have a yearbook at all, so it was a pleasant surprise when the boys brought one home. They've gotten one every year since kindergarten, so it's nice not to have any "holes" in the succession of yearbooks.
The boys had their pictures taken for spring pictures and unfortunately I never got any warning beforehand, so yesterday Aaron dropped his pictures on his lap and I noted his hair was rather out of place and wasn't exactly prepared that day, but the more I look at the picture, the more I like it. It's not an "artificial" posed picture, but more of a candid shot, so I'm actually pretty happy with it. Daniel's picture was even better. We worked with him all winter to stop licking his lips in the cold windy weather to no avail and he ended up with a bright pink ring around his upper and lower lips, kinda looking like a pufferfish. It was mostly gone by the time pictures were taken, but he remains with a slight remnant of it in the pictures. Now that summer is here, though, he's not licking his lips near as much so the damage can finally heal in time for next winter...
The boys and I made an impromptu visit to the store last night and got hopefully our last item for summer recreation - a 12-foot trampoline with enclosure for the back yard. I spent two days so far figuring out how to put the blasted thing together. There's no less than 80 separate springs to put on and over 30 pole pieces to match up perfectly for it to function normally. I managed to get the entire frame together by myself this afternoon and then the pad to jump on by the time the boys got home from school. Now I'm just working on the safety enclosure, which I hope to complete by tomorrow night so they can start using the tramp this weekend. It's clearly a hit amongst both the boys and their buddies. I figure it will keep them quite occupied and entertained the remainder of the summer and their cousins will have something to jump on now when they come to town. I'll post a pic of it here.
In other activities, we have our combined choir performance coming up soon in early May with the choirs of Zion and Redeemer Lutheran. We'll be singing three songs as we did last year with Diane Johnson and Ruth Stenson directing the other two. We also have to sing the first service after the new pastor arrives, so it should make for a lot of singing in a short amount of time.
As for news around town, the Hardees I witnessed open back in 9th grade and ate at more than a few times as a freshman in 1981 has finally closed its doors for good. It had been losing money for quite a while to McDonald's and other restaurants as Hardees is clearly on the wrong side of town. It's good for us, though, as their food was way to fattening anyway. Wal-Mart has also put their sign up on the new store in town, so it looks like their grand opening is just around the corner. I'm thinking it'll be interesting if the lines through checkout get any faster at K-Mart after Wal-Mart's opening.
Anywho, I think we're going to go see the Drevlow kids' recital with Marcia Knuttila tomorrow night at Our Savior's Lutheran. It will be the first recital I've gone to since playing for Ms. K. myself.
I'm starting to yawn something fierce now, so I better sign off for now. Hope everyone is having a great spring and looking forward to a relaxing summer. Take care everybody!
Well, since my last update, Daniel had his birthday party at the Seven Clans water park as planned and had a lot of fun with his buddies. I had 15 passes to give out and used all but one of them up. It was well worth the money for all the fun the boys had. Since then, the rest of the snow has gone and the grass has already begun to green up. I picked up a "new" used bike for Daniel at K-Mart for $25. Besides being rusted from last year's thunderstorm season, his old bike was rather on the small size given his growth spurt. I got him a 20-inch BMX-style with yellow paint and red flame decals. For Aaron, I picked up a new 24-inch 7-speed Mongoose mountain bike with dual shock suspension. This time around, bikes are being brought in to the porch at night so they don't end up with so much wear and tear from the monsoon season. The boys have been out on their bikes practically every day since the snow first melted and are spending less and less time indoors (a good thing).
To help spur along a more "active" summer this year, we picked up some tennis racquets last weekend and headed out to the tennis court in town. Daniel took to it pretty quickly, hitting at least a couple of volleys over the net with me. Aaron liked practicing against the wall on the edge of the court, but managed to hit a few over the cyclone fence and across the street (as did yours truly). We spent about an hour there on Easter Sunday, then returned on Monday as they also had that day off from school for Spring Break.
The boys finally got their yearbooks from last year for Challenger. They had to rebuild the whole thing from scratch and for a while there, the school didn't think they'd have a yearbook at all, so it was a pleasant surprise when the boys brought one home. They've gotten one every year since kindergarten, so it's nice not to have any "holes" in the succession of yearbooks.
The boys had their pictures taken for spring pictures and unfortunately I never got any warning beforehand, so yesterday Aaron dropped his pictures on his lap and I noted his hair was rather out of place and wasn't exactly prepared that day, but the more I look at the picture, the more I like it. It's not an "artificial" posed picture, but more of a candid shot, so I'm actually pretty happy with it. Daniel's picture was even better. We worked with him all winter to stop licking his lips in the cold windy weather to no avail and he ended up with a bright pink ring around his upper and lower lips, kinda looking like a pufferfish. It was mostly gone by the time pictures were taken, but he remains with a slight remnant of it in the pictures. Now that summer is here, though, he's not licking his lips near as much so the damage can finally heal in time for next winter...
The boys and I made an impromptu visit to the store last night and got hopefully our last item for summer recreation - a 12-foot trampoline with enclosure for the back yard. I spent two days so far figuring out how to put the blasted thing together. There's no less than 80 separate springs to put on and over 30 pole pieces to match up perfectly for it to function normally. I managed to get the entire frame together by myself this afternoon and then the pad to jump on by the time the boys got home from school. Now I'm just working on the safety enclosure, which I hope to complete by tomorrow night so they can start using the tramp this weekend. It's clearly a hit amongst both the boys and their buddies. I figure it will keep them quite occupied and entertained the remainder of the summer and their cousins will have something to jump on now when they come to town. I'll post a pic of it here.
In other activities, we have our combined choir performance coming up soon in early May with the choirs of Zion and Redeemer Lutheran. We'll be singing three songs as we did last year with Diane Johnson and Ruth Stenson directing the other two. We also have to sing the first service after the new pastor arrives, so it should make for a lot of singing in a short amount of time.
As for news around town, the Hardees I witnessed open back in 9th grade and ate at more than a few times as a freshman in 1981 has finally closed its doors for good. It had been losing money for quite a while to McDonald's and other restaurants as Hardees is clearly on the wrong side of town. It's good for us, though, as their food was way to fattening anyway. Wal-Mart has also put their sign up on the new store in town, so it looks like their grand opening is just around the corner. I'm thinking it'll be interesting if the lines through checkout get any faster at K-Mart after Wal-Mart's opening.
Anywho, I think we're going to go see the Drevlow kids' recital with Marcia Knuttila tomorrow night at Our Savior's Lutheran. It will be the first recital I've gone to since playing for Ms. K. myself.
I'm starting to yawn something fierce now, so I better sign off for now. Hope everyone is having a great spring and looking forward to a relaxing summer. Take care everybody!
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