River Football Anyone??

  

A Day at the TRF Beach

  

July Fourth at the WIderskis

  

A Scorcher of a Summer...

Wow... It's been a hot and dry summer so far. It was in the low 90s today and it's only rained good about once in the last month. We're expecting severe storms tomorrow night, but I'm not all that optimistic given our track record this month. The bright side of the heat wave is I don't have to mow the lawn hardly at all. I only mowed the back once in the last three weeks and it's been upwards of a month now since I mowed the front yard. Of course the grass is not the beautiful green it was this spring. I still enjoy it, though, as it doesn't feel all that muggy outside and the dryness with the short grass has combined for a relatively "mosquito-free" neighborhood. As for recreation in this sunny weather, we took the opportunity on the invitation of one of Aaron's buddy's from his church youth group to head down to the beach near the confluence of the Thief and Red Rivers. It's the exact same beach I remembered playing on and in the water as a kid a quarter century ago and I swear the buoys that outline the swimming area in the river are the exact same ones from the 1970s. I waded in the water while the boys went all the way in. The river was about the temperature of a bathtub last Friday and we probably spent an hour in there throwing a Nerf football around and stuff. They both enjoyed the novelty of swimming in a river for the first time and it was a much needed break from the status quo.

The boys' baseball season continues and Aaron's team has struggled a bit as they have faced a few teams that are developing at a faster pace than his team has. Couple that with 10 days off and they were a little rusty in Monday's game. Aaron managed to score a homerun, though, after a teammate brought him home with a base hit. He was grinning from ear to ear. He did get nailed in the hand from one of the coaches pitches, hitting his thumb, I think. Unfortunately they don't get to take a base when hit, so he took a break to shake off the sting in the dugout, then returned minutes later to get a base hit. I think he's learning to push through adversity and pain thanks to America's favorite pastime, which should serve him well in the future. Daniel is also doing well with his T-ball and had another game on Tuesday. Tomorrow they're both going on a bus from the Ralph Engelstad Arena to Fargo to watch the Fargo Red Hawks take on the Calgary Vipers in a semi-pro baseball game. They'll be gone until around 5:30, so Dad gets to sit in the dentist chair for a few hours while they're gone. They've been looking forward to the trip for some time.

We rode bike around town tonight and decided to take a detour over to the fairgrounds and see what's up at the Pennington County Fair. I bumped into the Drevlows including Sandy and it looks like tomorrow we'll be entering our bunny and guinea pig into the animal displays. Just gotta trim Funny Bunny's nails first... I also bumped into one of my former teachers from Franklin Middle School, Walter Redinger, whom i haven't seen in a quarter century or more. He looked just the way I remembered him and is every bit as nice as I recalled. He has four grandchildren now, one of which is Daniel's age. It was nice seeing him again. We ended up riding back at 10:00 tonight and we'll be heading back tomorrow night for the bunny thing and some more rides. They both really got a kick out of the rides they went on tonight, even more than last year.

When it was time to head to bed, Daniel asked me (as usual) to try to catch him as he ran up the stairs to bed and I caught him just before he reached the first stair landing and as he goes down for the tickle, he looks up at Aaron just ahead of him on the landing and screams up to him, "Save yourself!!!" What a zag nut...

Well, time to get some shuteye over here. Hope those reading this are having a little cooler week than we are this week. :o)

What a Fantastic Fourth!!!!

This has to be one of the best Fourth of July holidays I've had in quite a long time. We started the festivities off by watching the space shuttle launch and it was kind of a funny coincidence that I witnessed the first ever launch of a space shuttle (Challenger) in 8th grade from of all places, Thief River Falls and here I was again witnessing the first ever "Fourth of July launch" right here in TRF again. Come to think of it, the boys also watched their first ever live shuttle launch also in TRF.

We got together with the Widerskis bringing out all the fixins for a nice cookout including hamburgers and pork loins with hickory chips and finished it off with fresh watermelon (from Texas), chocolate chip bars and fruit Jello. Before the cookout, I stopped by the Murphy's gazebo and Fern Williams was out there with Wanda Murphy, Mrs. Folger, and one other lady I didn't recognize and I said, "So here's where the lady's auxiliary is meeting..." :o) I wanted to check on Ken as he had his knee replacement done on the left side last week and has been out of the hospital just recently and apparently has already been walking the sidewalk on the new knee. I guess last night was pretty tough with the pain and all, but he's managing pretty well.

We set off a slew of fireworks out front of the Widerski house and in the middle of the show, Wanda Murphy walked over and presented half of a birthday cake to share with the kids. Speaking of kids, there were quite a few taking in the fireworks. There was Daniel and Aaron, Drew, Tyler, Johnnie, Austin, Kaylynn, and Kaylynn/Austin's sister, and two other neighbor kids I didn't get the names of. There were at least two elderly couples that rode by on old-fashioned one-speed bikes with those big whitewall tires and waved as they went by watching the display. It was small town Americana at its finest. And not a single siren could be heard all evening. Of course they don't have any bottle rockets, so probably no house fires.

It's now 10:30 and I just returned home, so we were gone a good four hours with all the festivities and I'm truly beat. What a day... Thank goodness we don't have baseball at 9 a.m. tomorrow. Then again, I do have to get up and go to the arena to sign the boys up for their semi-pro baseball field trip in Fargo or they'll miss out on that. Sounds like we weren't the only ones who had a nice holiday today given the e-mails I've gotten today. I'm glad everyone else had a great time too. Now back to the daily grind until Labor Day... :o)

Floyd the Barber?

Well, I finally tracked down a "traditional" barber in town here to get a nice "once over" as it were and return to my favorite stubble style. I had to renew the tabs on The Weasel at the courthouse (only two days before the deadline) and decided to stop at the barber just across the street from the Ben Franklin store. It's a hole in the wall, basically, with just two barber chairs and no wait. The barber was a friendly older gent, perhaps in his late 70s to mid 80s. I recognized him fron an old newspaper article in the Grand Forks Herald I read last spring that mentioned he had been in business for some 41 or so years at the same location and is one of a dying breed (traditional barber) who refuses to retire as long as he enjoys what he's doing. Anywho, as I sit down, he asks me where I'm from. I give him the lowdown of growing up here, then living out in Seattle and moving back to TRF. I mentioned, "My dad used to teach in town here" and after he asked who that was and telling him, he revealed that he used to sing in the choir under dad's direction back in the late 70s/early 80s and indeed knew exactly who dad was if not me specifically. Turns out we were on the same album cover when Trinity recorded way back in the day. He was a tenor at the time and reminisced how most of those fun guys back then had passed away, i.e. Walt Forney, Dennis Wegge, etc. The barber's name was Dean Hamms. He apparently still attends Trinity, though until now I never noticed.

After the haircut, we headed off to the grocery store to pick up some snacks and managed to bump into Cathy Hagen again in the produce department (bumped into her last time in the Wal-Mart produce department about a couple weeks ago) and I talked to her about Mr. Hamms. She mentioned he could be a feisty character. We both agreed we need to work on getting him back into choir. If Opal can still sing, there's no reason why he shouldn't be able to... :) It was a bit of an adventure shopping today as Daniel decided to help out in the produce selection (unbeknownst to me) by bagging about six different varieties of Washington State apples for me and putting them in the cart. When all was said and done, my initial plan of "just" a bag of Red Delicious apples had turned into a dozen different species from Braeburns to Galas to Pink Ladies to Fujis. Gotta love him... Aaron made his rounds of the free sample stands with cantaloupe, watermelon, and pineapple chunks. I think about 60 percent of the fridge is now loaded with apples, lettuce, baby spinach, shredded cheese, and other salad fixings, so we're eating like rabbits this week. Daniel was actually fighting over who got the first salad to eat the other night, so he doesn't mind the extra veggies much at all, though I'm afraid if I feed him too many veggies and not enough meat and potatoes he's going to float away with our next strong wind.

As for baseball, Aaron had another blowout loss on Monday against the Royals with a score of 10-2, but managed to hit a couple. I've tried to explain that he doesn't need to swing at every pitch (about 1 of 4 pitches were actually strikes). We'll see how he does tomorrow night in his next game against the Reds at 3:30. Daniel has another T-ball game at 9 a.m. tomorrow too. Aaron spent a half hour tonight practicing pitching with his buddy, Drew, so hopefully his fielding/throwing are progressing well. I didn't watch him, as I didn't want him getting nervous that "Dad's watching." I'm hoping we'll have time this weekend to head to the park and get some real batting practice in for a while.

Well, it's time to wash some dust-covered baseball pants, socks, and shirts now before tucking the boys in for the night, so I think I'll sign off for now...

A Sad Day Today....

Tyler, one of the pastor's kids from the corner house just came over after his family had been gone this weekend and said before now they weren't allowed to say anything, but now it's official. He and his family will be moving in August back to Alexandria where his dad has been voted by the church they originally came from to return as pastor. They've been in Thief River about 5 years now and unfortunately his dad wasn't able to make ends meet with the congregation here in TRF, so they have to move. It's a sad day, as they were Aaron and Daniel's first friends they made upon arriving in TRF last year and hundreds of hours have been spent playing with them since. They have represented about 95 percent of the boys' playmates, so it will be a tremendous void to fill once they've gone. Thankfully we still have another couple of months of baseball before they leave so it will give the boys time to assimilate the change more gradually and school will start up again soon after that, so they will hopefully make new friends quickly. With any luck, another family will move in quickly. One thing is for sure, this house and yard will be pretty quiet for at least a while without the daily comings and goings of their buddies. I'm thankful for the time we have had them here, however brief it's turned out to be.

In other news, Daniel tied his T-ball game last week 14-14 and Aaron's Orioles lost to the Brewers 16-8. Aaron was 3 for 4, but they managed to throw him out at first on each hit. The Brewers were a pretty good fielding team and they apparently had one fifth grader on their team. Aaron returns to action tonight against the Royals in a rematch with his buddy, Tyler. He has another game on Thursday against the Reds and Daniel has another T-ball game on that day as well.

I think it's about time to go get some errands done now, so I'll sign off for now. Looks like it may be a day of rain today (finally).

A Busy Week...

The boys got their pictures taken yesterday at the Huck for baseball. They now have their official uniforms, Aaron in orange T-shirt with "TRF Orioles" on the front and the number 7 on the back in black lettering with a major league baseball cap with the Orioles mascot on it and Daniel in royal blue with yellow "TRF" across the front with a matching blue hat with embroidered "T" on the front. Of course all 30 some T-ball kids showed up for pictures, so Daniel was the very last boy of the whole bunch to get his individual picture taken yesterday after a long hour of standing around. He took the wait in stride, though, and even managed a couple good smiles. Aaron's pictures went much faster as there were a lot fewer players. The only two girls on the team, though, came wearing light blue t-shirts and different colored street pants/jeans, so when they saw the rest of the Orioles dapperly dressed in their matching orange T-shirts and caps, their dad got an earful. I felt kind of sorry for him as he wasn't aware he was supposed to order them up front from the screen printing place. The girls didn't seem to mind after a while, though.

Tomorrow is game three for Aaron, this time against the "Brewers" and Danny has his second T-ball game bright and early at 9 a.m. We'll see if the Orioles remain unbeaten and move to 3-0. Perhaps the Twins winning the past eight games in a row is a good omen?

The Start of a Winning Streak?

Just thought I'd do a quick update here before I forget and all these games blend into one blur. Aaron played the Cubs today in his second game and his Orioles won their second game, this time a little closer at 9-8. He was two for three with two singles. We went back to the field at 6:30 to 8 p.m. tonight to watch his buddy Drew play his game as well, so it's been a long day. Daniel has T-ball at 9 a.m. tomorrow and Aaron will be back at practice at 10:30. Sometime after that we'll be running back and forth to the Ralph Arena to get their team pictures done. I just hope it's a little cooler outside tomorrow.

Aaron on First Base

  

Daniel at First Base

  

America's Favorite Pastime...

  

Last Day of School

  

Take Me Out To The Ballgame....

What a busy June it's been so far since school let out. The boys started Little League/T-ball season on the 12th and haven't looked back. They're on a schedule of four practices a week and last Thursday was their first game. Aaron's team, the Orioles, beat the Royals 14-9 and Aaron got a base hit with every at bat. Daniel seems to enjoy fielding, especially first base from the way he kept jumping up and down hollering "throw it to first!!!" I'm driving back and forth to the community college at least twice and sometimes three times a day dependong on the schedule to drop off and pick up the boys and their friends. Aaron has made huge strides in his physical ability, most striking in his catching ability followed by batting and throwing. I think he'll surprise some of his teachers come school in the fall. I picked up a dozen practice balls that are basically wiffle balls the size of a regulation baseball and we're able to hold batting practice out front without worrying about breaking the neighbors' windows or ruining their prize gardens. I think we may have the narrowest baseball diamond in TRF. Home plate is on the north end of my lawn, first base just south of my front walkway next to the Dutch elm out front, second base is the tree in my south neighbor's front yard, and third base is the red children's bench in front of the porch. I typically handle pitching and Drew plays catcher for the most part. Given how few of us on any given day, we tend to run out of batters, so there's a bit of base stealing going on so we assured of another batter up. Aaron's second game of the summer is on Tuesday, I think, against the Cubs and their team pictures are that day as well.

We had the 10:30 service at Trinity outdoors this morning on the south lawn. The clouds rolled in and we were expressing our thanks to God just as the thunder rolled in. We made it through the whole service with high winds and no rain, though. The new pastor advised the ushers to stand east of him and try to catch any of his sermon notes should they fly away; otherwise, he'd cut the sermon short. We had a Mexican fiesta afterwood hosted by the youth who are attending the national gathering in San Antonio this month complete the pinata. I sat next to Sandy and Dan Drevlow with Fella in between them wtih his daughter. Sandi asked if I was busy on the weekends and suggested if we were interested having the boys and I as guests at their place in Erskine where they have a paddle boat, swimming, etc. That sounds like a nice way to unwind. Sandy also mentioned we can enter Funny Bunny in the county fair this year and assured me she would be well cared for, as they water and feed them every hour on the hour to ensure they made it through the heat okay. That should be fun having our first ever animal exhibit at the fair. I know the boys are proud of that rabbit.

I think I'll kick my feet up on the couch here now and enjoy the few hours I have left of Father's Day. It's one of the quietest days of the week thus far, so I'm going to take advantage of the silence as long as it lasts. Catch up with ya all later....

A River Runs Through It...(Zach, Daniel, and Johnny)

  

Tyler, Aaron, Jessie, and Drew

  

No More School!!!

It's Friday and the last day of school at Challenger. Hurray! The neighbor boys that are home schooled and have been done with their schooling for over a week have been counting the days until Aaron and Daniel get out of school so they can have somebody to play with during the day. I'll be heading out to Challenger at noon for one final school lunch with Aaron.

It's been an eventful few weeks since the last blog entry. Too many things to remember, so I'll touch on the highlights.

We made it through a rather hot spell last weekend with temperatures into the mid 90s. The central air conditioning wasn't working, so I had the ceiling fan plus a floor fan running downstairs and three fans running in my bedroom and just barely taking the edge off the heat. It was about 45 percent humidity, so that was better than Florida heat, I guess. We've had a straight week now of about 78-degree temps, so a lot more comfortable lately.

This past week we've had the opportunity to visit with Fern Williams' daughter, Debbie, and her children Matt (14) and Jessie (8). We fired up the grill the other night and had hamburgers and beer brats with the Murphys on the corner at Fern's house. Debbie had to leave for Arizona yesterday morning. That was a busy night for us (Wednesday) as I got the boys signed up at the last minute for T-ball/Little League through the Parks & Recreation Dept. at the Ralph Arena. They had "clinics" for baseball that night with Daniel's running from 4 to 5:10 and Aaron's from 6:40 to 8:00, so we had to eat between 5:10 and 6:40. That day sure filled up rather quickly. The baseball is being played out at the college fields. I think there were perhaps a half dozen less kids in Aaron's program than Daniel's, but both teems had close to 20 kids. They had five coaches, so plenty of individual attention. Both boys have made great strides in physical ability with thorwing and catching and it was obvious they both had the times of their lives out there on the field. Aaron had a huge grin on his face as he ran the bases in one of the drills. We'll be heading out to Wal-Mart tonight to pick up some baseball accessories, i.e. the special pants Aaron's been dying to get, cleat shoes, etc. and then to Universal Screen Print to order the custom shirts and hats before team pictures.

Come next week, Aaron will be attending Safety Camp sponsored by the Pennington County Sheriff's Department and Thief River Falls Police Department where he'll be learning all about safety in sports, around the house, and around town culminating in a ride on the Canadian Pacific Railroad to Plummer, Minnesota and back where he'll learn about railroad safety. The camp is open to 2nd and 3rd graders only, so this is the only chance Aaron has to go. Daniel will be able to go both years if he wants.

The Parks & Recreation Dept. has a number of other summer activties I hope to get the boys involved in which include a trip to Fargo-Moorhead to watch a semi-pro hockey game between Fargo-Moorhead and Winnipeg, Manitoba in mid-July plus trips to the Pioneer Village in town and some wildlife sightseeing trips. THere's also a trip where they bring a sack lunch and their fishing poles and head to the dock here in town for a day of learning how to fish. Somewhere in between,we hope to fit in some swimming lessons at the Franklin Pool.

Hopefully between all of the above I'll get a chance to keep this blog relatively updated. I apologize in advance if I don't... :o)

Challenger Carnival

We just got back from the annual Challenger Elementary Carnival. It was quite a bit bigger than the ones we had at St. Hilaire. Howard Thorson was there with his wife Julie and I bumped into Shirley and Kristi Grochow and the Jorgensons. They had a silent auction with over 100 items to bid on including an Arctic Cat four-wheeler ($1,500) and a hockey stick donated by Mary Fran Twistol that had been autographed by Team USA when they were in town last winter. I had the winning bid for the hockey stick, so Aaron has that along with a State Hockey Tournament T-shirt and official program from the tournament. I bid on an Arctic Cat T-shirt with Arctic Cat sunglasses for Daniel so they both came away with something. The boys enjoyed all the games there and Daniel really shocked me with his golf prowess... He did a mini-golf putt from at least 8 feet away from the cup and he got two out of three putts in the cup! One of them bounced off an obstacle and I just turned away thinking he didn't get it, but the crowd standing around made a lot of unexpected noise and I turned back to see he had actually made it. A little Tiger Woods he was... Mr. Thorson told me the old carnivals in St. Hilaire were quite the money maker for the school, allowing them to buy some nice playground equipment and he said they wished they had done them earlier as a fundraiser.

Last night the three of us went out and shot some baskets against the garage hoop and both boys were amazing in their ability to make baskets. Daniel must have made a good 4 shots in a row and Aaron did the same. Very impressive indeed. The boys have invented a number of games recently to play on the trampoline including "snake" and "popcorn." Now that the sun is back out, they're on the tramp daily with the neighbor kids. It's getting harder to get them off it these days, which isn't a bad thing.

The boys had their Spring music "informance" program this past Tuesday, Daniel in Mr. Wigg's class and Aaron in Ms. Knuttila's. They both obviously enjoy music and Daniel is learning keyboarding in Mr. Wigg's class. It's a pretty neat classroom with these electronic keyboards that are each split in half with half devoted to each student. They're designed for just the fundamentals of finger numbering and where the different notes are. In Ms. Knuttila's class, they learn such concepts as dominant 7th chords, minor and major chords, etc. I think they're both learning stuff I was never taught at such an early level. It was quite impressive to see how well all the kids do together as a group considering how little time the teachers get to spend with them. I managed to tape record it, so if anyone wants a DVD, let me know and I'll send you one.

This weekend is combined choir time for Zion, Redeemer, and Trinity. We start tonight at the 5:00 service of Redeemer and continue with tomorrow morning at Zion (8:00) and Trinity at (10:00). We'll be singing "Rain Down" again and two other pieces under the direction of Ruth Stenson and Diane Johnson. I've been suffering from a case of bronchitis and throat stuff this past week, but thankfully it's quieted down enough to sing tonight, I think. I think I picked up the bug from Daniel this week as he wasn't feeling well at all on Wednesday night and spent Thursday at home with me.

I managed to break in the lawnmower for the 2006 lawnmowing season yesterday. I now have a very good map of Duchess' favorite haunts in the back yard. I'll do the front probably next week as the grass doesn't grow as fast out front. I was thinking the trampoline would save me from mowing a 12-foot swath of lawn this summer, but grass appears to grow under it just fine... :o( I think next year I'll start a vegetable garden out back. I found you can rent a gas tiller for a couple hours for $20, so I'll probably do that earlier in the year next time around in time for planting. I could probably get a fair amount of veggies out of the available patch back there, at least a dozen head of lettuce or spinach and quite a few carrots or peas. I think that would make a nice learning project for the boys too. Speaking of growing stuff, only one week ago, there were itty bitty sprouts of rhubarb coming up and this week, they are at least 8 to 10 inches long with full green leaves, so I think the soil back there must be pretty good for growing.

Daniel made another funny remark this week. I had given the boys "lunchbox" notes in their backpacks to read once they got to school. They're whimsical note papers you write on to let kids know how special they are and to encourage them to do their best in school. When I told Daniel, "Don't read it until you get to school," he says, "But I can't read!" As I know he hasn't reached the level of a fluent reader yet, but still holds his own rather well, I just told him, "Do the best you can," and his response was, "Is it in cursive???" It just sounded so grown up when he used the word "cursive."

It's about time to start getting ready for choir, so I better sign off for now. Hopefully all of you are having a fun time this weekend and the weather is as nice for you as it is here right now.

Funny Quips From Daniel...

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(

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)

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)

Dusty, Tyler, Aaron, Daniel and Drew on the (original?) merry-go-round at the former Washington Elementary School.  

Daniel at Armory Hill Park on Sunday, 4/23.  

Batter up!! 

Tyler Widerski at bat with Daniel and Dusty Grochow looking on. 

Aaron with Tyler Widerski in the background. 

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).

No, not all five will be using it at one time... 

The new summer exercise/entertainment equipment... 

Easter Tennis... 

Daniel's friend Samantha and Drew and Tyler Widerski at Seven Clans. 

Daniel and Brendan 

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!

Happy 7th Birthday, Daniel!!

The day has finally arrived... I was up late last night helping Aaron with his science project for school and true to form, Daniel didn't seem to think much of turning another year older, at first saying he didn't want to open any presents in the morning. Upon awakening this morning, though, he had to open up the "big" box from Aunt Jen and a huge smile appeared when he realized what was inside, a Hotwheels Razor-style foldable scooter. He proceeded to open the present from Nanna and Grandpa and after seeing his present, he grabs the birthday card envelope and tears into it saying, "I hope it's birthday money!" At 7, he's already expecting money...go figure. I dropped the boys off at school this morning as Aaron's science fair display board about Duchess was too big to take on the bus. The fair is from 5 to 7 p.m. tonight at Challenger, so we'll be heading back to school then. Reservations have been made (finally) at the waterpark for the big party tomorrow night and now I just need to find a birthday cake and some ice cream.

Before signing off on this quick blog update, I had a funny interaction with Aaron last night to relate. I was downstairs putting the finishing touches on Aaron's science project when I heard bloodcurdling screams from Daniel followed by the characteristic crying when Aaron's gone a bit too far in their play. I charge up the stairs to see what's amiss and find Daniel crying and accusing Aaron of pushing him into the toy room where he fell on something. I sent Daniel in to the bathroom to brush his teeth as he had earlier been told to do and then sat Aaron down in my room to have a chat. In the sternest voice I can muster, I explain to him that a little brother is someone to be protected by a big brother, not hurt by careless actions and when I asked him to confirm what I said, he gave me a smart aleck response. I put my forehead to his and staring in his eyes I ask him, "What will it take to get you to take me seriously?!" He looks back at me with a sober face and says, "Pushups??" I made it about halfway back down the stairs before breaking into laughter at his latest witticism. It was just about as funny as his offer of donuts to a policeman we drove by in Washington a couple years ago. I just gotta remember to get all these things down so I can write a book of them after he's all grown up.

As for the weather here, the grass is at least half exposed in almost all areas and we saw a rollerblader on the street coming back from Lent dinner at Trinity last night. It reached about 42 degrees yesterday, so it's confirmed the cold temperatures are history for at least another 6 months. Wal-Mart is on track to open come the last week or so in May too, so there's lots going on in this little town...

Winter Melts Away...

It's hard to believe, but only three weeks ago, I was wondering if Winter would ever end, but here we are and the streets are almost entirely free of snow and ice, the sidewalks as well in front of the house, and people have come out of their hibernation to begin walking the streets again. I even see grass in both the front and back of the house and the back alley is all mud and water. The boys decided to take the opportunity to pull their bikes off the porch yesterday and start biking with the Widerski boys yesterday afternoon, which they also did today after church. I was finally able to prove my statement to the boys last summer that "once you learn to ride a bike, you never forget." It's nice to finally have another fitness option for the kids other than just "go play in the snow."

A lot of time has passed since my last blog update and I'm sure I'll miss most of it trying to update everyone. The boys have just over a month to a month and a half left of school and they'll be in 4th/2nd grades respectively. I have made it a regular Friday lunch date with Aaron at Challenger where I get an update on all the goings on at school. More often than not we're sitting at a table with Braeden Drevlow from Aaron's grade and a couple other of his friends. I like Fridays there because it's chef salad day... Last week it was tomato soup, breaded fish in the shape of fish, and the chef salad. I always end up leaving their stuffed even with the dinky portions and the little carton of chocolate milk. I manage to bump into at least one former teacher of mine about every time to go, so that's a bright spot in the week too.

Trinity will be getting a new "intentional" interim minister by June it looks like and the choir will be extending into that time period so the new pastor has a nice welcome from Trinity. In other church news, the youth have been serving Lent dinner every Wednesday night and raised over $1,200 last week alone to apply towards the national youth gathering in San Antonio in June. The church put in nice new gas fireplaces in the library upstairs and the "fireside" room downstairs for the youth area. They look pretty nice, though now with it warming up, we won't get to enjoy them much until next fall and winter. They're also replacing upwards of 70-plus windows in the Sunday school area with new vinyl and welded steel windows so the the building will be much more heat efficient in both summer and winter. I think that's the last major improvement project since they've already fixed the bell tower, the organ, and relaid carpeting in the fellowship hall and painted.

Now that the Prowler hockey season is over, the Prowlers went to Challenger and Aaron got an autographed felt cloth with all their signatures on it. I'm going to find one of those two-inch thick frames to display it in in his room as it's not very often the Prowlers make it to State. Aaron's still kicking around different sports ideas. Last month it was soccer, soccer, soccer, and this month it's, "How about baseball?" He really wants to take in a Twins game this year.

Tonight we had dinner at the old Calvary Lutheran Church in St. Hilaire, a church so small the sanctuary is little bigger than the main floor of my house. They put on a benefit dinner with ham, mashed potatoes, and all the fixin's as they're raising funds for a new furnace. I saw a few people from Trinity there. It's yet another thing underlying the difference between the big cities and here. There's at least three different benefit dinners in any given week here, so rather than giving money to a fastfood restaurant, we're getting home-cooked meals and doing good for the community. Last week they had a dinner to benefit a young mother of about 22 who had an aneurysm after giving birth to her daughter at Northwest Hospital and had to be flown to the Cities for emergency surgery. Her dinner was at the VFW and there were pictures all over the paper for it and posted on flyers in almost every store in town. In a big city, she would have been but a footnote in the paper if she even made it in there, so it's comforting to know how tightknit our community is, how they will rally around anyone and everyone in need and nobody is "just a number." Reminds me of college days in Pullman... It's nice to be a small part of that.

Daniel will be celebrating his birthday this Thursday (7) and I'm still figuring out whether to celebrate it on Friday at the waterpark or if we should wait a week or so as a lot of his friends including the Drevlow boys may not be able to make it. Funny thing is he's not all that concerned about it other than having fun at the waterpark. He hasn't asked about any presents more than once and it's almost shaping up to be a day like any other day in his mind. What's nice with his birthday approaching is he still looks like the same LITTLE Daniel I've always cherished and hasn't outgrown his little boy nature yet. Most importantly, I can still throw him over my shoulder for a ride up to bed without throwing my back out... :) I'm sure with another year under his belt next year, though, he'll have done a lot of catch up growing behind Aaron and be quite the handful to keep up with.

That's about all I have to write for now as I gotta get the boys in bed for school bright and early in the a.m. I'm crossing my fingers for continued warmer temperatures this week so I can finally see my yard and get moving on spring "dog doo duty" in the back yard. Sorry for the delay in blog updates...

Sledding on Armory Hill on Wednesday, March 8 (Mom & Dad's departure day).  

A warm day on Armory Hill (rolling down).  

Another night of homework... 

Uno, anyone? 

Happy St. Patty's Day?

Wow... It's been so long I almost forgot I had this blog to begin with. Nobody's sent me any nagograms to update it, so I guess it slipped by the wayside. Of course it didn't help being sick in February and recovering from that, then preparing for Mom and Dad's visit, which concluded last Wednesday. I missed the last home hockey game of the Prowlers thanks to being sick, so that was a bummer, but the Prowlers did pretty well, going to state for the first time in 41 years and section 8A champs for the first time in 46. It was almost like a Cougar Rose Bowl story.

We've had great weather for the most part with some warmer 40+ days that melted off some of the snow on the streets, but just when we started to think of spring days ahead, it snowed yesterday and all the slush turned to ice overnight. That's normally not too bad, but the neighbors across the street had an ill or injured child this morning and the Great Plains ambulance medics almost fell down a half dozen times in walking between their front porch and the ambulance, so after watching the 2nd or third near fall, I ran over there with a full bag of kitty litter and spread it all on their front walk less than a minute before they all came out together carrying the child in their arms instead of a stretcher. I don't think they saw me, but thankfully they got to the ambulance safely and hopefully all's well that ends well.

We got the house in pretty good order for Mom and Dad's visit and they stayed here at the house with us from Sunday afternoon to Wednesday afternoon, flying out of TRF. The boys really enjoyed the visit and playing games with Nanna and especially making the Crazy Chocolate Cake. It was nice to visit the boys at lunch together at Challenger on their last day of school last week. They closed the entire school district because of the boy's hockey win against Warroad and placement in the state tourney. They don't go back until Tuesday this week. We had Mike Lehrer over for a giant ham that Andrew had bought shortly before Mom and Dad's arrival and we feasted like kings. It was like Christmas dinner in March... The only downer to the visit, besides its brevity, was the roof started leaking on the house. Thankfully I had one of the boys' sleds available, though, to put up in the attic and we're relatively dry now. I think most of the snow and ice has melted off so it shouldn't be much of a problem for a while.

The Prowler Hockey Team lost their first round game with Hermantown Hawks and won the consolation game against Orono, then lost a second time to Blake yesterday, so that about does it for the season. Michael Forney, their star forward, suffered a grade II separation of his shoulder, so he wasn't able to play much of the time. Aaron has asked if we can go to every single home game next year, so I guess we'll be busy again next winter. They ended up with a 22 or 23-9 record, the most ever by any Prowler team.

The boys continue to do well in school and are having fun with the snow they have left. On their days off, I've put a cook's timer on the front porch and told them when it goes off, they can come back inside (60 minutes) and more often than not, they forget all about the time and stay out there. I had enough of the inside time and noise, so that turned out to be a good solution for all of us (and Andrew could hear himself think).

Not much else is going on these days over here. We're not due to have a combined choir performance until late April/early May, so it's pretty much just the routine stuff for the time being. I gotta find another big St. Patrick's hat for the boys to wear to school...

The 2005-2006 Prowler Boys Hockey Team 

A Blowout & A Nailbiter In One Week...

As we are midway into the first week of February, hockey season is rapidly coming to a close with juat another home game, possibly two, left until it's over for the 2005-2006 Prowlers. We attended last Tuesday night's game against Red Lake Falls and it was almost a shutout, but Red Lake Falls managed a couple of goals to make it a more respectable score of 7-2. The boys attended skate lessons a couple more days this past week on Tuesday and Thursday. Danny was all over the ice again and Aaron was again wishing he could just skate out there like a miniature Eric Heiden or Scott Hamilton (wait a sec...maybe not a "miniature" Scott Hamilton) without having to go through the grueling process of walking along the wall holding on for dear life. I rewarded them, though, with another hockey game immediately after Thursday night's practice, this time against the Crookston Pirates. It was another great game with Coach Scott Bergland saying the Prowler boys, especially Michael Forney, Robby Phillip, and others "putting on a clinic, unfortunately at Crookston's expense." Coming into tonight's game, the Prowlers were undefeated in Section 8a play in Northwestern Minnesota. Tonight would be the closest matchup in many games with the Prowlers taking on the Lake of the Woods "Bears." It was a real back and forth cat/bear fight with the first blood drawn by the Bears at the end of the first period and the Prowlers coming back quickly in the beginning of the second period to tie it at 1-1. The Prowlers then let a puck in and found themselves clawing back to make it 2-2, then pulled ahead with a quick scoring run of two goals to make it 4-2, but Lake of the Woods was not to be denied, suddenly coming back from a lackluster few minutes of play to score two goals and tie it at 4-4 as time ran out in regulation.

They went into overtime at The Ralph and within a couple of minutes or so, the Prowlers sent the puck flying into the net and the entire Prowler bench cleared with the players crowding each other on the arena pressing the glass with the fans on the other side of the arena from us. Young fans, mostly from elementary and middle school, clamored up the side of the safety glass leading down the ramp from the Prowler box to the locker rooms so they could give the players high fives as they left the ice. I think it was the noisiest and most electrifying crowd all season as they barely escaped with their perfect Section 8a record.

Aaron got to visit with the Prowler players this past week at school during "Prowler Pride," the regular event for third graders where the high school teams come in and talk to the students. He heard from Michael Forney that he has been chosen as the only non-team player from Ann Arbor, Michigan to play on the team traveling to Russia this year, so that was pretty cool. Speaking of Michael, the Prowler goalie said his favorite opponent is "practicing against Michael Forney."

Andrew is enjoying his first week of work at K-Mart, keeping rather busy between that, Domino's, and his classes at Northland. He mentioned wanting to pool some money with me on the Superbowl tomorrow as we both think the Hawks have a great chance of winning even coming in as the underdogs by 4 to 4.5. We're looking forward to watching the game tomorrow and hoping it maybe warms up a few degrees in the meantime (it was 2.5 degres below zero when we returned from the hockey game tonight). We got a lot more snow this week and we have a special path carved out of our front lawn between the neighbors on each side of us so the mailman, Kjel, doesn't have to trudge through the snowdrifts. He mentioned this block may be his favorite neighborhood to deliver in with how clear we've made our sidewalks and the little path we may christen "Kjel Drive..."

Is January Over Already??

We've been having too much fun for the first month to be over and done with already over here. It's now officially been a year since we arrived and I thought it would be fun to mark the anniversary by bringing the boys to formal skating lessons last week at the Huck Olson arena. We had been using ice walkers up until then and it appeared while Daniel was progressing nicely with them, Aaron was leaning a little heavy on them, thereby probably delaying his own progress. We were told upon arriving at lessons last week that ice walkers are not used at all and the boys would be expected to maintain balance on their own after they walked along the wall of the arena to get used to it. Danny took to it like a fish to water, stretching his arms out parallel with the ice to catch his balance and then just walking across the ice as if he were wearing regular boots. The instructor walked with Aaron along the arena wall a couple of times and that was about it for their first lessons. They have open ice about three days a week, so they should get plenty of exposure and hopefully both of them will be independent on skates by the end of winter so they can really enjoy next year's skating. Aaron understands as with learning to bike, it's going to take some effort, but he will have much fun and freedom once he's mastered the basic skills.

We attended the East Grand Forks hockey game last week and the Prowlers were beating them 5-0 by the end of the second period. We left then as it was late for a school night and the game seemed to be pretty much in the bag. They ended up winning by a total score of 7-0. Unfortunately their luck ran out some Saturday when Duluth-Marshall skated into Ralph Engelstad Arena. They are presently the #1 team in the state and their goalie showed it in a final score of 3-0 in their favor. We enjoyed watching it again, though, sitting behind the Prowler net and watching the players and/or puck slam into the boards right in front of us. Tomorrow night will be against Red Lake Falls, so hopefully we'll made it to that game after skate lessons.

Andrew has been doing well with his studies at Northland and continues work at Domino's. He has an interview tonight at K-Mart, though, to supplement his hours at Domino's. If that doesn't pan out, he's considering applying at the new Wal-Mart before it opens in May/June.

As for TRF weather, we unofficially set a new record last week with a high temperature in the 40s. The last time it got that hot in the winter was in about 1974. It got pretty slushy around here as most of the streets melted, though that was followed by wind and snow over the weekend, so it was back to shoveling for the mailman again...

Danny and friends on Armory Hill