A Record For Icicles?

This week has been rather eventful what with the snow and recent transportation problems. It's snowed about three out of the five days this week and I've shoveled and shoveled and shoveled some more. At least I'm making good friends with our neighborhood mail carriers (Kjell's replacement included). I started the week off good by shoveling the public sidewalk out front of the house all the way south to the next block over, as the corner house hadn't been shoveling theirs at all (Kjell had some choice words for that house and said he would just skip that one). He told me not to shovel it next time and just leave it be. Apparently the municipal code here in TRF allows the City to give one warning and if the sidewalk remains unshoveled in any 24-hour period following a "snow event," they are then allowed to hire someone to remove the snow and the homeowner is then given the bill for snow removal, so a good incentive to keep the sidewalks clear. As I started the week off good, though, by shoveling the neighbors' walks on both sides of me, Mike, my neighbor to the south of us fired up his old snowblower and headed out at 9 p.m. Wednesday night and cleared off my sidewalk, the mailman's path between our houses that runs across our front lawns, as well as the sidewalk up and down the street, so I guess I earned some good kharma there.

In the middle of all this beautiful winter weather, the Weasel started acting up with a broken heater core. I realized on Sunday that we had no heat and I smelled antifreeze, which kind of narrowed the problem down a little. By Wednesday, I got it in to the Ford dealer and it was hanging on by only a pulley. They told me it would be a good five hours of labor, because they have to pull the whole dash out to get to the part and even if they did that, it wouldn't guarantee I'd have a working vehicle a year from now, so I figured I'd get every last mile out of it without the repair and then dispose of it. Turns out "every last mile" really meant about 10 miles... Come Thursday, the boys had early dismissal because of the snow and Aaron begged me to come pick them up at school, so against my better judgment, I hopped in the Weasel and headed off to Challenger. I made it only to Trinity before it stalled and after another 30 or so turns of the key, I got it started again, but decided to turn around instead of continue on to Challenger and it's a good thing I did. I managed to go back about three blocks and was turning right on Knight right where Terri Cuppett's house sits and before I could complete the turn, I heard the heater core fall off and the car stopped in mid-turn. One of Aaron's buddies from youth group, Jeff, lives just a couple houses over by Subway, though, and as his siblings are home schooled, I was able to head over there and use their phone to call Joe for help. As the car was blocking the intersection, Jeff (12) and his little sister (about 9) came out and helped try to push it, but it was not going to budge, so I then realized one of Thief River's finest was parked over at the China Buffet and had just gotten into his car to leave. I ran over and got his attention and he was nice enough to give me a shove off to the side of the road with his police cruiser. Joe arrived soon after and gave me a lift home.

I called the police department and they told me if I didn't move the car from Knight, I would not only be ticketed, but they would tow and impound it because of calendar parking for the snow plows the following morning. I called the wrecking yard and the guy told me he "won't even go out in this weather," so I went with Falls Radiator and when I told them the wrecking yard wouldn't do it, they muttered, "cheapskate." In the end, I got the car towed for $40 to the wrecker and the wrecker said he will pay me $50 for the scrap metal, so I guess I came out $10 ahead there... Joe came over this morning and we headed off to clear out the Weasel and then I yanked the old battery from the Blazer and embarked on the beginning of my unexpected journey to "resurrect" the wounded but not forgotten SUV. Steve at the Ford dealership said he'd work with me to repair or replace the transmission on it so I wouldn't have to come up with the entire expense at one time and I figure it's the best route to go because I have replaced just about all the other major parts on it including the whole exhaust system, brakes, serpentine belt, air conditioning, etc. so it should give me a good 3 to 4 years without major problems once I fix the tranny. I'm just looking forward to having four operating doors, power windows and locks, and above all having a better view of the roadway from the higher seats. Hopefully then this summer I can get it in to the local community college auto body program to get some of the kinks worked out and perhaps a new paint job, as it's fairly inexpensive.

So to get the Blazer fixed, I had to get a new battery for it and Joe drove me over to Wally World and we went in directly to the automotive area and there was no one in sight but an older lady in the car service area who pretty much ignored us. We stood there for an extended period after selecting a new battery and placing it on the counter and after a while Joe walked behind the counter, picked up Wal-Mart's phone and announced over the PA system that someone was needed in automotive. When nobody answered after another five minutes, he went back again and made another PA announcement, this time stating, "This is a customer in the automotive department. If anyone works here, we could use some assistance in the automotive department." It was pretty funny until the automotive manager came walking up and said it was "bad" that "we" did the PA announcement like that. Thankfully I knew the manager, though, as it was Leland Mott's little brother, Lonnie... :) A few other employees had come over at the same time and Joe managed to smooth it over, basically covering for Lonnie not being there so all was well that ended well.

In any event, we headed back home and I sunk the new battery into the Blazer and Joe helped me push it out of the garage. You know Joe and I are pretty big guys when just the two of us pushed it backwards out of the garage over the piled up snow. He was pushing by himself at first with not much movement, but then I came around front with him and in seconds it was out of the garage. It was like the football front line pushing a pair of tackling dummies out of the way. I'd guess we weigh in at a combined 665 pounds, a good match for the task at hand. I managed to start it up after it had been sitting for almost two years now and it still would only go forward in one gear, so I called the same tow truck (I'm going to put them on speed dial at this point with two tows in as many days) and had it towed to the dealer this afternoon. I'm hoping I can have it fixed by this time next week. Joe has been pretty nice with ferrying us around where we need to be. We'll probably just hoof it to church on Sunday, though, in our LPCs (Leather Personnel Carriers - shoes).

This afternoon was a good Kodak moment, I must say. Daniel promptly threw his backpack down on the front porch upon returning from school and headed outside to shovel snow from one pile to another and I headed over to the next door neighbor's to take a picture of the front of their house. I have never seen such a sight as that - their entire front entrance of the house was shielded by a string of icicles each measuring a good three feet minimum in length and I pulled one of them off that was actually one LONG one in excess of four feet that had melted together with three or four smaller ones and carried it over to Daniel and his buddy, Samuel. They held it between the two of them like a log so I could take a picture, then I put it upside down in our front yard with the pointed edges sticking up and it looked rather majestic that way. I'll post pictures of it hopefully this weekend. I would guess it weighs in at about 20 pounds and is a good four inches in diameter at its base.

So that should about do it for this week's update. We'll be learning the Drevlow's paper route for the Grand Forks Herald next week so we can cover for them starting a week from Sunday, so that will probably be the next update, i.e. how we manage to get up at 4 a.m. on a school day...

The Snow Has Finally Revealed Itself...

After one of the drier Minnesota winters on record (little snow), we have just been hit with some major snowfall this weekend. It's now going on about 6 hours of nonstop snow as I type this and I've shoveled the front walkway a good three times thus far. We went to Redeemer this afternoon for the combined choir performance of Trinity and Zion's choirs (not sure what happened to Redeemer's choir) and it was an adventure getting back and forth in this thick snow. As we were leaving, Christina, her son, Mateo, and the boys all piled into the Weasel and when they weren't looking, I bent over to grab a big handful of snow to nail the back window of the car with to surprise the boys. As I recoiled my arm to let loose the nicely rounded snowball, I heard Jerry Wigness from just behind me shout, "Don't throw it!!!" followed by laughter, as he rolled his window back up. With all the snow on the cars, I didn't have a clue he was parked right next to us. I had all but given up hope for a genuine snowy winter until now. I figure we have enough now to make it to spring without another snow storm. The timing of the snow is perfect too, as the Sunday school classes K-5 will be going on a sled outing we planned for Armory Hill tomorrow after church. We had planned it about three weeks ago really having no idea if there'd be any snow and half expecting a mediocre experience, but with this nice new base of snow it should be a blast. Aaron got a new inflatable "Snow Wedge" from his birthday that he's going to break in.

We've managed to stay fairly busy this month even in the absence of all the basketball practices and such. The boys still have Kingdom kids every other Thurday and that's always a good way to spend a couple of hours after school. Both boys had their parent-teacher conferences recently and it was a very positive report for them with Daniel further outpacing his peers in his reading at next year's level a year early and Aaron has made up major ground in his standardized test results that frankly was astonishing from only a year ago. Mr. Schafer had surgery on his shoulder just a few short weeks ago and is already out of his sling. Aaron had an art unit where they made figures out of modeling clay and one kid from Trinity in Aaron's class made a rather artistic rendering of a guy with his arm in a sling and it was called, "Schafer in a sling..." I didn't realize it until just recently, but Aaron's class actually has both fourth and fifth graders in it at the same time. I new Mr. Schafer was a "multi-age" teacher, but I didn't exactly know they were in the same room; I thought he rotated from one classroom to another, so that's kind of nice for Aaron to socialize with the kids a year ahead of him and see a broader range of material.

Before I forget, Daniel was rather witty again tonight with a rather intelligent comeback, proving that cartoons do sometimes have some educational material in them. The boys were playing in the Redeemer youth room and Aaron told me Daniel's thumb was "bleeding." I went in and checked on him to find him crying his eyes out with his thumb wrapped in a paper towel. Of course I expected there was some kind of hemorrhage I was going to be dealing with, but I had him pull the paper towel away and found he had somehow pinched his thumb in the door and had some minor divots taken out of the skin on either side of the thumb's knuckle, but no blood to speak of. I of course used the standard humor to relieve the pain and agony of the moment, suggesting I may have to "amputate" his thumb. He asked, "What's amputate, Dad?" I responded, "It's just removing your finger is all. You don't need it anymore now, do you??" Daniel then answered with a serious look on his face, "I DO need it Dad! I need an OPPOSABLE thumb!" I was speechless for a moment as I digested his most appropriate vocabulary usage at the ripe old age of 7 (almost 8) and asked him where he learned such an advanced concept and he told me "Timmy Turner" who is the star character on the Fairly Oddparents cartoon. Have no fear, though... He's not getting it all from TV. I was cleaning up some papers he had brought home from school last week and there was one page that had black and white pictures or drawings of ancient fossils on it and he was being asked to name the various periods in prehistoric times, i.e. mesozoic, cretacious, etc. I don't recall learning any of that until late middle school if not early high school, so it would appear they are cramming a lot more information in their noggins at much earlier ages than they used to.

Man, It's Cold!!!

This is my kitchen window this weekend. Note the thermometer reading in the lower right-hand corner (yes, that's a minus sign in front of the number).

Mixed Emotions...

I imagine many of you have heard the joke about the "definition of mixed emotions," i.e. watching your brand new Mercedes rolling off a cliff with your mother-in-law behind the wheel (actually I kind of like my mother-in-law). Well, today was one of those kinds of moments. Aaron had his basketball game this afternoon and they were short of coaches, so the head coach drafted me to coach the "blue" team, which happened to be playing against Aaron's team. Here I've been reffing games Aaron wasn't playing in, not being able to watch him at all and the first week in several that I was able to watch him, I ended up coaching his opposition. So... Here I was hoping Aaron would win, but also hoping the team I coached would win. In the end, Aaron's team lost, but only by 4 points, far better than most of their previous contests. The final score was 24 to 20. I was just happy to see Aaron make some real improvements, this time getting a nice clean steal and making a 12-footer. He was all smiles as his coaches cheered him on.

Daniel did great this week too, though the Wolverines played to a 16-16 tie. They have one more game, I believe, and then a pizza party right after the game. Us coaches are going to chip in some money to get some trophies and/or medals for awards. I'm really looking forward to the next season when I'll hopefully know some more about the fundamentals of the game.

Today was a great day for Aaron for another reason. He took his Minnesota achievement tests for math and reading this week and usually he has someone help with reading the test questions to him and there is something like 50 odd questions to answer and by the time the resource person arrived, Aaron had already gone through some 40-plus questions and was almost finished. He scored substantially higher than previously too, so the resource teacher was extremly impressed, at least enough to stop me on my way to basketball practice to recount his performance. A great day all around for Aaron, both athletically and academically. We finished the day with a trip to Wally World where we picked out PJs/PJ bottoms for the boys to wear tomorrow for pajama day at school. It was only 1 degree today, though, so I don't exactly envy them wearing PJ pants out there. I think I'll drive them to school rather than have them stand out at the bus stop. At least the good news on the horizon is daylight saviings will be coming along earlier than previously, on March 11, so we will be able to fit more recreation time into the weekdays.

4 feet 9 versus 6 feet 5? No problem!

Today was a good day as the choir started it off with performances of "Down To The River To Pray" and the new pastor continues to become acclimated to the congregation and our way of doing things. The present challenge is getting the congregation to move up to the front pews in the second service so those watching the TV broadcast don't have the impression that there's only the pastor and a row of acolytes attending the service. To that end, the choir filled up the back couple pews for a change. We were all saying there's several people, though, who have gone to Trinity for over 30 years who have always sat in the same pew, same spot, every single service, every single year and aren't likely to budge, which the new pastor agreed with stating, "Lutheran's are stubborn that way..." The pastor also cracked a joke in the service, "You hear about the Norwegian who loved his wife so much he almost told her?"

After services, we picked up the boys' friend, Austin, and we all headed out to Challenger for two hours of open gym. As for the title of this blog entry, we got a game of 3 on 3 going, which quickly turned to 4 on 4, than 5 on 5. I was on Aaron's and Daniel's team and the father of two of the kids on the other side was on their team so it was fairly evenly matched, though I was a good 5 inches taller than their dad. In any event, there was a boy on Aaron's team who stands probably around 4 feet 10 who guarded me like crazy. He boxed out on every shot and really did effectively prevent me from going for several rebounds. I called it "tenacious D..." He wasn't intimidated for a second by my height advantage and really was fun to play against. Aaron made several baskets and we ended up ahead, but eventually forgot the overall score. Daniel dribbled the ball a lot, but didn't really shoot much, so he just got some more basketball fundamentals practice in for his next game. I ended up running into the brother of a former classmate of mine, Craig's brother Kent Kainz. It was a fun afternoon of basketball followed by a relaxing evening of work. The snow started coming down again tonight and the wind was bitter cold today, so winter is far from over. I'll have to shovel the front walkway for the first time since probably before Christmas thanks to our new cold front. The boys only have basketball for a couple more weeks, though, so I won't be braving the cold for too much longer. Speaking of basketball, make sure you scroll down on this page to see the boys' team pictures...

The Mighty Wolverines!!

Aaron's Backcourt Basketball Team

Everyone's Healthy Again!

After a week of Daniel's bout with the flu and the rest of us staving off the mighty bug, we have managed to have a nice healthy week thus far. Daniel returned to his basketball team last night and played a good game with the Wolverines against the Hawkeyes. I was the only referee, as they were somewhat short-handed in the coach department so it was a real learning experience for me. At Daniel's team level, we don't get too technical for the most part, just stopping them when we see something wrong and not changing possession unless they go out of bounds. I finally did have to blow the whistle, though, when one of the boys kept climbing all over whoever had the ball, committing flagrant fouls. I put the victim of the foul up at the free throw line and some of the kids said, "We aren't doing fouls" to which I responded, "Um...Yes we are this time" (given how repetitious the infractions had been). The kid made his one free throw and the game went on with no further problem. There was one boy that really cracked me (and I'm sure the parents) up, as every single time the other team made a basket, he would grab the rebound and start racing down the court with the ball without having his team take the ball out, so EVERY SINGLE TIME, I had to blow the whistle hard and shout his name to bring the ball back so it could be properly inbounded. Second grade is a great level to coach, I've found, as the kids haven't quite reached the level of both thinking they know more than the coach/ref and/or knowing they know more than the coach/ref. Daniel's opponent had Kaylynn Grochow as one of the players, so that was pretty cool. He's now played against her and Sam Mosbeck. Aaron got in on the action himself, designating himself as the official timekeeper for the game, so that was pretty fun having them both involved in the same game. Aaron has his next game this afternoon at 4:00, so I gotta get his uniform shirt ready...

I've been a little more busy than usual lately in terms of my work. The local hospital has given me a number of jobs to type and after only two days were offering me a full-time job (at home) doing all of their transcription work, though with my present schedule with basketball, choir, etc., I didn't take them up on that offer. I think I'll just do long-term overflow/backlog work for the hospital now that I've got a foot in the door.

I neglected to mention on here recently, but Spike, Aaron's guinea pig from Ben Franklin, died this past week, so we're down to Rodney, the other guinea, and the two rabbits who continue to do well. We may get another guinea, but not from the pet store, given how short-lived Spike was.

That's about all the news thus far this week...

Cake May Appear Larger In Person Than in Photo...

Dylan, Fran, Aaron, Patty, Brett, and Blake

The Birthday Gang (Part of it, at least...)

A Very Successful Birthday Party Indeed...

Aaron's 10th birthday party came and went without a hitch and judging by the smiles on the faces of the 24 kids that joined Aaron and Daniel (26 total kids), I'd say they would all agree it was a great day of fun at the water park. The kids devoured two cheese pizzas, a pepperoni pizza, a sausage pizza (all of them larges), seven pitchers of pop, and half a sheet cake that normally serves 35 to 45. Aaron received half a car load of gifts from his guests in addition to half a dozen gift cards and money, so now he's probably thinking of where to spend all the gift card money. He received two basketballs, a football, hundreds of baseball cards, action figures, and a radio-controlled F-16 fighter plane to name just a few. He appeared to be having the time of his life in the pictures I took. I'm posting a picture of "most" of the gang he invited, though you will note the guest of honor is not there, as he had disappered at just about the same time I had gathered all the kids together I could find and given how antsy they were to get back to swimming, I had to take the picture when I had the chance. At least he'll have the picture for future memory and I got a number of other pictures with him in them as well as some video. We got there at 2 pm and were supposed to be there until 4:30 at the latest, but due to one boy's mother not being called to pick him up until late, we didn't get out of there until 7:00, so it was a rather long day for us. Aaron's friend, Jeff, from the Wednesday night youth group spent the night with Aaron for a slumber party that night.

We enjoyed a day of lounging around on Monday given the holiday and no school for the boys. It was 0.1 degree outside that day and Aaron, bless his little soul, decided that was perfect weather for a football scrimmage on the front snow-covered lawn, so he picked up the phone and called Samuel (Daniel's best friend), Austin (a 9-year-old about four houses down), and Blake (an 11-year-old fifth grader in Mr. Schafer's class about four blocks north on Arnold Ave.) to come play. Of course they managed to get me to throw a sweatshirt on and head out with them for the game and it didn't take long before we all had cheeks redder than Rudolph's nose. Our fingers would go numb within seconds of removing them from our gloves to throw the football. I found 40-gram Thinsulate gloves satisfactory for throwing a junior football, but the 100-gram gloves are far too thick for handling the ball. The younger kids couldn't grip the ball at all with gloves, so they were constantly taking them off and putting them back on immediately afterward so they could catch the ball. It was a little more entertaining than our summer and fall games to say the least.

The past couple days have been a little more low key, as Daniel came down with a high fever Tuesday morning and I kept him home from school. The doctor said he tested positive for "influenza type A," which was sort of a moot point, as you can't really do anything for it anyway. That brings me to my soap box for today: The way pharmaceutical companies draw on the subjective emotions of parents with sick children. I was at Hugo's that morning to pick up medicine and was about to pick up some cough/cold medicine in a bottle for Daniel when I thought back on the research they've published in the last year that it's of no more benefit to a child than sugar water, so I put it back on the rack electing to keep $5.77 from the drug companies and got him some Children's Advil instead to deal with the most important problem (the fever). It's funny how years of habit and the heavy marketing with the pretty packaging on children's over-the-counter medication can sway a parent's buying decisions, particularly when your child is miserable and you would do anything to make them feel better, but on this particular day, science would trump impulse. It's gotten even more difficult for parents to resist the new ploys of drug companies as they keep coming up with more and more "convenient" and "pleasant" medication delivery methods such as "Meltaway" Tylenol that dissolves in the mouth, Benadryl and cold medicines that are impregnated in thin strips much the same as those Listerine breath strips (what's wrong with chewables????), etc. I think that's about enough proselytizing for now, though...

We had more snuggle time than usual as he convalesced at home in bed, on the couch, and on the beanbag and he seems to be on the mend after taking a lengthy nap this afternoon. He did have to miss his third basketball game today and the Wolverines had to do without me as one of their coaches, but that was the first practice or game he's missed all season. Hopefully he's able to return to school tomorrow or at least can watch Aaron's game in the afternoon. We had a rather cold snap around here since late last week with daily temps a good 5 to 15 degrees below zero and today was about 22 above, so it would be nice if that trend holds for a while so we can enjoy the outdoors a little bit more. Now to start thinking about plans for Daniel's birthday party... One of the parents at Aaron's party said I was going to have a hard time topping this year's when his next one rolls around.

A New Record?

Aaron had his first basketball game yesterday at Challenger, team 4 against team 2. The first half went really well with Aaron's team hanging in just two points behind team 2. At the half, it was 14-12, but in the second half team 2 really took off and left team 4 in their dust. I was really impressed, though, with the improvement of all the players who have started to put the fundamentals together and play like real teams. Aaron in particular had a great game handling the ball a lot more than he ever had in scrimmages. He dribbled well all the way down the court keeping the ball in good control, passed to his teammates, caught passes using his height advantage over the other kids, and even managed to steal a few balls. He was very nervous going into the game not having gotten much playing time or the ball passed to him when he was practicing, so it was especially nice to see him grinning from the time the game started to the final buzzer last night. He appeared to be having the time of his life on the court, win or lose.

We went to the Prowler hockey game last night against the Crookston Pirates to round out our evening and threw some pucks out on the ice for the girls' hockey fundraiser. They had several friends at the hockey game and I quickly found myself sitting alone in the upper seating next to our goal and when I turned around, I saw Daniel playing an improvised game of "floor" hockey with a buddy on the floor next to the wall of the arena using a black pop bottle cap and plastic spoon as a hockey stick. We ended up leaving after the second period, as the Prowlers appeared to have the game well in hand with a score of 5-1 and it was getting late. We enjoyed the somewhat rare treat of the pep band there too, as they recruited some alumni band members to create a fuller sound. What really cracked me up was sitting right behind them listening to them play an old Husky favorite, "Louie Louie."

As for the title of this blog post, one of the other parents/coaches last night mentioned I seemed to be rather busy at Challenger lately, this week having been there "almost" every night. I hadn't given it any thought up until then, but when I did think back, I actually have been there every single night this week. Monday was Aaron's basketball practice, Tuesday was Running & Reading in the gym and library/media center, Wednesday was Daniel's first basketball game, Thursday was Aaron's game, and today I'll have my usual lunch appointment with Aaron to round out a full week. I was surprised to realize I will have gone to school as many days as the boys have this week. I imagine I probably came close to or even matched the record previously, but this was the first time I really noticed how often I've been out there. I guess that explains the gas needle in the car going down faster than I thought was normal recently.

In other news, we woke up to an outside temperature of 19.4 BELOW zero. It's so cold this morning that my solid wood front door has frost around the lower INSIDE edges and the INSIDE of the double pane kitchen windows are frozen. I'm enjoying my insulated morning here inside thinking it will take a tiny bit more motivation to get myself out onto the tundra again to have lunch with Aaron at Challenger. For that matter, I may need to warm the car up for a while this time. The transmission took about 3 seconds to engage yesterday evening and today is even colder. At least we haven't had any more snowfall or recent rain so we have just the cold to endure.

Now that it's Friday, we've received the majority of the RSVPs we're probably goin g to get for Aaron's birthday party tomorrow afternoon. I think we've easily exceeded the 15 we needed for the water park passes, so there should be no shortage of kids to help celebrate Aaron's 10th. He's getting pretty excited for his big day, which reminds me... I gotta try to get a pirate cake put together in time for the party... Wish me luck.

How Quick a Decade Flies By...

I've been busy preparing for the momentous occasion of Aaron's 10th birthday this week. I made the reservations at the water park last Friday and ever since have been thinking back on the past 10 years, thinking of the first time I wrapped him up like a burrito in his blanket at the hospital, the 1 to 3 a.m. feedings, midnight visits to Children's, thousands of diaper changes, gallons of apple juice, pushing his stroller at the zoo, bringing him to the neighborhood park, a snuggle on the couch after a long day at work, falling asleep on the floor next to his toddler bed with an arm draped over him so he'd go to sleep as he transitioned from the crib, and watching him grow like a weed (now 5 feet 1-1/2). It seems like yesterday I was videotaping him as he walked in to Chase Lake for his first day of kindergarten and now he's a mere year and a half from middle school and another five from his driving permit. Through all of his first decade of life, though, one thing stands out above all others, that being his broad smile and happy go lucky attitude. To know Aaron is certainly to love him, as he becomes fast friends with everyone he meets. It would be a vast understatement to just say I'm proud of him as a son. He brightens just about any room he walks into and that grin of his makes every day start and end on a pleasant note. It is virtually impossible to frown when he's within smiling distance. I'm really looking forward to what his second decade of life will bring.

Okay... Enough reminiscing for now... Time for an update on the rest of our activities in this new year of 2007. The boys are now in the thick of basketball season, Daniel having just played his second game already this afternoon. His team, the Wolverines, beat the Gophers and Daniel showed a lot of improvement in his basketball fundamentals and shooting skills. They both had their team pictures taken on Monday and today so they can focus on their games from now on. Aaron's first game is tomorrow, I believe. We have taken a break this year from Prowler hockey thanks to the busier schedule with basketball, youth groups, etc., but tomorrow night we're planning on catching a varsity hockey game at The Ralph, as they'll have the pep band, which is somewhat unusual for Lincoln. They have asked all alumni of the pep band to come play with them, so I'm hoping for a good turnout. The band really fires up the crowd and the Prowlers can use it this year. It's been a rebuilding year of sorts for the Prowlers after last year's trip to state.

We have enjoyed a much milder than usual winter over here lately with only one night of freezing rain, one night of snow, and warmer than normal temperatures for the past month, though we're expecting sub-zero lows over the next week. It seems to be a bumper crop of used snowmobiles this year, as there is really nowhere to ride them this year other than the ice. I've already had the adventure of doing a 540-degree spin on the ice in the station wagon, which I don't care to repeat anytime soon, so I'm looking forward already to the spring thaw.

We went to the Running and Reading program at Challenger last night where we played floor hockey the first half hour and read in the library/media center the second half hour. We had a good time, though that's the last time they'll have it this year. It was a nice change from last year and we're looking forward to the next season. It's fun to get back to basics and read some good books. I actually learned some history about the civil war and what life was like on the frontier way back when. The boys got a lot of books for Christmas, so they'll be well occupied for weeks to come. I was just noticing a little while ago how fast the boys have progressed in their reading as evidenced one evening as I was thumbing through the on-screen TV guide on the satellite TV. They had read through a half dozen of the show titles before I even got to them and had chosen which channel they wanted before I could think. Again, it seems like just yesterday it was three-word sentences, then realizing the day you're in the car talking to another adult and spelling out what you're saying, then realizing that they can now spell and now they're reading just about anything they look at. There I go with the reminiscing again...

We are about to enter a new chapter at Trinity with the installation of our new permanent pastor this coming Sunday. We're saying Be Strong In The Lord at both services with our new director, Vanessa, and we're looking forward to our next combined choir performance with Zion and Redeemer, apparently sometime around the end of February. Our first practice with Vanessa tonight went great and we had a lot of fun singing for her.

I think that just about covers all the latest and greatest from TRF. I probably would have written a lot more had I been able to sign in to this blog, but I upgraded the blog through Google and then forgot my new log in info until just this afternoon. Hopefully I can get back on the stick now, though, since I figured out how to get back in. Take care everyone...

Merry Christmas!!

It's been an interesting couple of weeks over here to say the least... After weeks and weeks of practice, we finally finished our performance of The Messiah at Lincoln High last Sunday. Immediatey following that, I came down with a bad cold and spent a week getting reacquainted with Kleenex. I was pretty miserable, but managed to drag myself to each of the boys' three basketball practices last week at school, though I only coached one of them for Daniel on Wednesday. Just when I thought I couldn’t feel worse that day, I was leading Daniel’s Wolverines through a practice scrimmage and one of is female classmates ended up behind me just as I was trying to get away from an errant pass and next thing I know I’m doing a half cartwheel over the girl landing rather heavily on the gym floor. I think I got tangled up mostly on her foot, though, so I didn’t really do any damage to her, just my low back, so I’ve been having a great time trying to stand up straight every time I’ve bent over or had to sit on a straight chair. Advil is my best friend this week, I’m afraid. The week hasn’t been all bad, though, as I have been preparing for the Christmas festivities. The boys helped me get most of the out-of-town deliveries to the Post Office in time to arrive by the big day and we managed to get ourselves a nice artificial tree this year, a white Norwegian pine already strung with clear lights, which really looks better in our living room than a traditional live tree. We’ve been slow with the decorations, though. The boys hung candy canes all over it to get it started.

Daniel spent the night at a buddy’s house last night a couple of blocks away, so it was just Aaron and me and an evening of snuggling on the couch as we watched Christmas programs on TV. We didn’t do much of anything today (Saturday) other than hanging out around the house. I did meet my former gym teacher’s son today, Joe Folger, who mentioned Dad was his favorite teacher. He really liked the video Dad made of an old school performance back in the day. He came up from Texas for the holidays, so it was nice to meet him and his son, Brayden.

We’ve been testing out the telescope Aunt Mary Jo sent us and have yet to see the moon over here, though we’ll probably be outside the first night it reappears. I took it out on the street this afternoon here in front of the house and was able to read the license plate on a car some six blocks down the street. Depending on its configuration, it can magnify images to over 500 times their original size. I’m looking forward to seeing the craters on the moon for the first time and showing the boys what’s up there in space.

The boys are now on Christmas break from school for a good week and a half and they’ll be starting their official basketball season in terms of games once they return. Aaron’s practices will be on Mondays and games on Thursday and Daniel’s will be on Wednesdays. I’m one of two coaches for Daniel’s team, the Wolverines, and I’m one of many for Aaron’s team, which at this point is yet unnamed. If you want to see how they’re doing in school or just want to say hi directly, you can now e-mail them at their own e-mail address. If you need their address, feel free “add a comment” to this blog post and be sure to include your own e-mail address in your comment and I will e-mail you their current address. I figure that’s the best way to cut down on spam and ensure they only hear from people they know.

The boys already had their Christmas program about 10 days ago, so we only have the Christmas service to go to at Trinity tomorrow and Christmas Day. I think they may get a break from Sunday School tomorrow, which they really deserve, as they each were recognized this week for a fourth month in a row of perfect attendance. Speaking of church activities, they both participated in the “Candy Cane Lane” program this past Wednesday night at Trinity that was put on by the 6-12 youth for the kids in K-5. They learned the significance of the candy cane colors in Christianity and followed the program with a dinner of mac & cheese with hotdog slices and dessert of their own homemade white chocolate treats sprinkled with candy cane bits.

I’m looking forward to Christmas Eve and no longer having to say “no” several times a day when the boys ask, “Can we open a present???” We will be heading over to the Wignesses on Monday afternoon and spend most of the day over there, so the next couple of days will be pretty fun and entertaining for us. Unfortunately, it hasn’t really snowed up here in weeks, so we just have some ice on the roads and patches of snow here and there, nothing like what it was last year. Not that I’m complaining by any means, though.

May you all have a very merry and blessed Christmas this year and a great start to 2007!!

Great Job, Aaron!!

  

Daniel Hangin With The Home Team... (Look at his buddy's Prowler Hair!)

  

Hunter, Daniel, and Parker

  

Daniel and Mateo Enjoying the Minnesota Winter

  

  

Hallelujah!!

We are now in the midst of a genuine Minnesota winter having sustained snowfall in excess of six inches and subzero temperatures for a while now. I didn't think I'd be comparing winters to Seattle this early, but it appears Seattle may have had it worse than us, at least for a while. Today was an aberration, though, as the temperatures climbed well into the 20s and 30s and we had a bit of slush out on the roads. I doubt it will last for long, though. The ice houses are back in force on the river just a quarter mile away. I don't know if I'll ever get used to seeing half and three-quarter-ton pickup trucks parked out on what used to be a river less than a month ago. Takes a bit of a mind shift.

I imagine some of you are wondering again why it's taken so long to get this site updated. I can tell you it's been a rather tremendously busy few weeks since I was last on here what with the recent visit of Mom and Dad and getting into the thick of winter basketball. I have been out at Challenger a couple of days a week for several weeks now helping coach both the second and fourth grade teams along with the Thursday after school Kingdom Kids program and combining those activities with all the rehearsing I've been doing for both Trinity Choir and for the upcoming performance of The Messiah, it doesn't leave much time for routine things like updating a blog. Speaking of The Messiah, it's now one week from tomorrow until the performance and I've only practiced twice with the community adult performers, the rest of the time practicing with the kids at Northland with the Northland Chamber Choir. I think I'm about as close to ready as I can get, though. We will have four days of practice this week to wrap up the loose ends and then Sunday, the boys will be spending the afternoon at their friend Mateo's place to celebrate his birthday as I sing at Lincoln High. After the performance, there's going to be a "cast party" of sorts for the performers with meat, crackers, cheese, etc. and after that is the annual Trinity Senior Choir Christmas party, this year being held at the home of Steve and his wife. Joe and Jodi said they would watch the boys so I can attend the party this time around. This will be my first attendance at that annual shindig.

The boys continue to make progress in basketball and last Wednesday they picked teams for Daniel and he was selected to be a "Wolverine." All teams are named after Big-10 teams, i.e. Gophers, Buckeyes, Badgers, Wolverines, etc. He has a grey (though he calls it "ash") colored t-shirt with "Wolverines" on the front and his name and the number 11 on the back in black letters/numbers. Aaron won't start playing his games until the first of the year. Right now they're still working on fundamentals, but getting in some scrimmage time as well. I prefer scrimmage time, as I don't have to know too much about the game other than being able to spot a double dribble or travel whereupon I can blow the whistle. I did pick up a couple of DVDs, though, put out by Magic Johnson that teach the fundamentals of basketball skills and basketball conditioning, which the coach of Aaron's group said he would show the kids and I plan to watch it several times to pick up the knowledge I lack of the game.

I already told some of you the story about choir practice last week, but I'll recap here for those who haven't heard. I was sitting down in the youth room with the choir keeping warm by the new gas fireplace down there and I moved over to a couch alongside the choir where Daniel was sitting. I plopped Daniel's legs across my lap and wrapped an arm around him as I sang along with the Hallelujah Chorus. Halfway through, Daniel started singing the "Hallelujahs" right along with me until the end of the song. Some of the choir saw/heard him and thought he was pretty cute with that. He really enjoys music, as was evidenced in his recent informance the end of November.

The boys got their report cards on Friday for the first trimester and both did pretty well in their studies. Perhaps equally or even more important is they both earned high marks in areas of social skills (the "plays well with others categories). One of Aaron's strengths was stated to be his willingness to work hard at achieving the goals set for him. Daniel is presently reading at approximately the end of third grade level, a whole year in front of where he is supposed to be for his age, so he continues to make leaps and bounds in that area. Aaron received a postcard in the mail the last week or so from the Principal and Assistant Principal of Challenger commending him on his work ethic as indicated by his teachers. That was an unusual surprise to see that in the mailbox and a most pleasant surprise at that. I've posted it here for interested parties to see.

I learned a little more trivia about the "who's who" in TRF this past week. On Friday, I went for my usual lunch engagement with Aaron at Challenger. As I sat eating at his table, Francis, one of the girls who played on Aaron's Orioles baseball team this summer and who plays the cello at Challenger just starting this year came and sat down across from me and engaged me in a Minnesota "sidebar" of sorts just chatting about the cello, asking me how long I've played, etc. As we were sitting there, she mentioned something about her mom and I asked what her mom's name was, as I had never seen her at the baseball games this past summer only having met her dad who told me they spent a lot of time out in Seattle and more specifically Whidbey Island in the past. Turns out her mom is the new (since this summer) CEO of Northwest Hospital credited with turning the hospital's financial situation around in a few short months bringing it back into the black again for the first time in years. She's an RN with an MBA and years of healthcare management experience. I had not put two and two together before as her last name is different from the rest of the family's, perhaps retaining her maiden name. In any event, it was interesting to finally make the connection there. Speaking of lunch, I suprised both boys on different days last week. I went to Wal-Mart one day and picked up one of those Icee drinks on the way out and brought it to Aaron at lunchtime so all the other kids were jealous. Then I figured I'd surprise Daniel with the same thing. It was a quite unexpected surprise for both of them, though I made sure they know it's not going to happen every week... It's nice to just shake things up every once in a while.

I think that's about all I can come up with for now in the way of updates. I have to get up bright and early for choir tomorrow morning, so I'm going to cut this short. I imagine my next update may not be until after Christmas with all the upcoming music events and if so, I wish you all a very merry Christmas.

Sunday, December 17, 2006, 4 p.m. at Lincoln High

  

And Another Thing...

I guess I wasn't busy enough... At rehearsal before this morning's early service, they announced they are gathering those who play a brass or string instrument to perform in the combined Thanksgiving service at Trinity on th 22nd, so I will be dusting off my cello and hauling it to practice this Wednesday night. Thankfully, the group will be from middle school on up, so I should be able to polish off enough rust to perform at the 8th grade level (knock on rosewood). In other news, as I was on the ramp leading into the sanctuary this morning, Daniel's Sunday School teacher came up to me and told me, "Daniel's really starting to talk to me a lot now. He's come out of his shell!" She was tickled pink with his newfound courage to open up in class, something that surprised even me. She was his teacher when he first moved here, so she's had the opportunity to watch him grow since the latter half of kindergarten. I'll have to ask his teacher at school if he's been more outgoing there as well. Of course he has his fall/winter music informance in just a week or two, so it'll be fun to see how he does with his class for that.

Carpe Turkem....

Turkey Day is just around the corner and with each passing day we seem to get busier and busier. Basketball is in full swing now for the boys and with that I've been drafted to help coach both the 2nd and 4th graders, the most difficult task being the 2nd graders as it's a constant raised voice for the full hour over the noise of all the kids talking at the same time. We spent the first week going over pretty much only the fundamentals including passing, dribbling, defense, and only minimal shooting. Daniel appears to have a knack for shooting, getting I'd bet at least 80 percent of his free throws. I think it's a fantastic opportunity thus far for Aaron to learn eye/hand coordination and understand that basketball isn't all about "shooting." It was kind of funny when we went the first couple of practices and some of the other coaches were asking about my experience to which I would reply, "1978 St. Hilaire boys' "B" Squad." Now that they're in basketball, though, they have to split time on Thursdays so they go to Kingdom Kids for the first hour after school and the second hour is Aaron's practice. Daniel thankfully only has practice once a week.

I think the most time-consuming activity at this point for me is all the singing. I've been attending Messiah rehearsals very regularly at Northland lately with Jerry and Marilyn joining in the last week. I spoke with Les Torgerson last Wednesday who is presently directing the area honor band in place of Linda Samuelson, my director from Trinity Choir who is presently on Sabbatical from her position as band director at Northland. Les is actually retired from his former position as band director at Northland. Linda's son, coincidentally, is in basketball with Aaron. We're down to about three weeks now until the performance, which will be in the Lincoln High auditorium. We start our combined choir rehearsals next Wednesday for the combined Thanksgiving service at Trinity, including Redeemer, Zion, and Trinity.

Today has been more leisurely than most days. I took the boys out for brunch at Dee's and then we drove out to Black River Lutheran to join in the celebration of Donald and Ruthie Mosbeck's 50th wedding anniversary. We watched a very nice computer slide show with many pictures of the Mosbeck clan, mostly Diane, Alan, and Marcie and all the grand and great grandkids. In the midst of watching the slide show, Melvin Meline came up to the area leading to the sanctuary and sat down so I had a nice chat with him. He complained his "recall isn't quite what it used to be," but with minimal prompting he was able to come up with the location of our old farm and mom's name, etc. After talking with him a while, I went back downstairs to the fellowhip hall and Diane Mosbeck Johnson introduced me to Alan (a little different than I had remembered him) and I had her introduce me to Melvin's wife Rayma. Rayma is now confined to a wheelchair and is living at Oakland Park while Melvin remains on his farm, though one of the Mosbeck clan now farms the land there. Rayma, although getting up there in years is still pretty alert and clearly recognized me, though it has been quite a long time since I last saw her on their farm. Donald and Ruthie were standing near the entrance of the fellowship hall and I walked up and asked if they were the guests of honor and Ruthie looks up at me with a big smile and wonders, "Who is this?" It was instant recognition when she heard my last name, though, and they were both very pleased to see me again. They mentioned visiting quite often with Phyllis these days and how they've enjoyed Bob's cooking (I gotta make my way over there sometime...). Sam Mosbeck from Daniei's grade and a few other Mosbeck kids we recognized were there as well. I think we stayed and visited about an hour before heading home. We're now inside on this cold autumn afternoon/evening watching some quality family entertainment on TV (will be the original Wizard of Oz tonight followed by Home Alone).

Almost forgot... This week was also momentous for one significant thing: I voted for the first time ever as a Minnesotan in the midterm elections. I'm still learning the political landscape of Minnesota, i.e. not the Democratic Party here, but "Democrat-Farmer-Labor" Party. We voted in a new mayor of TRF, Steve "Beaver" Nordhagen who had radio ads the past few weeks with the theme music of Leave it to Beaver in the background. I voted for a councilman who used to be a custodian at Washington Elementary. I didn't really know much about the council candidates there not being much of them, but Mr. Folger said he was a good guy, so.... The polls were at Zion and I brought the boys with me. They have something really neat here in Minnesota where the children are allowed to vote in their own mini-election of sorts. I went one direction and they went the other at Zion and each got a certificate that they had voted, so it was a nice learning experience for them about democracy and elections.

I think that's most of the highlights of things going on around here the past two weeks or so. I don't think I'll be on here much until after Thanksgiving, so I wanted to get at least this update done before then.

Trinity Youth Trip to Valley Home 10/29/06

  

Star Wars Clone...

  

The Red Ninja...

  

So Much Fun... Is It Christmas Yet?

It's hard to believe both how quick the weather has taken a turn for the whiter and colder and how quickly our fall schedule is filling up. We managed to take some time out, though, for a number of Halloween festivities. Aaron had his first party last week at school, so got to wear his costume earlier than Daniel. He went as a Star Wars clone this year, Daniel as a red ninja. This year was unusual with all the holiday activities, as they were able to wear their costumes at least four different times. On Sunday, we had a Halloween party of sorts at Trinity. We piled on the bus and in cars and drove over to Valley Home and Oakland Park (see picture) to visit the nursing home residents. It was kind of humerous at the first stop... As we get there, almost no one is in sight, so the nurse on duty gets on the PA system and says, "The kids of Trinity are here in their costumes and they will be singing you some songs..." Little did we the adults know we would be singing... Oh well. We managed to scrape together the words to a handful of songs nobody could forget, i.e. Jesus Loves Me This I Know, Go Tell It On The Mountain, This Little Light of Mine, etc. We didn't do too shabby given we had absolutely no warning or practice.

After the nursing home visits, we went back to Trinity and chowed down on some pizza and played musical chairs until it was time to go home. It was about a three-hour event and all the kids appeared to enjoy the pizza and games.

Yesterday was the official Halloween party at Challenger Elementary and last night we went out Trick-Or-Treating, but chose a different neighborhood this year. I drove the boys over to the old stomping grounds, i.e. Kneale Ave. S., Maple, etc. The Drevlows weren't homw so we ventured out on our own. We stopped out at Grochows, including Don and Shirley and they had these big Zip-Loc bags chock full of goodies for the boys. We managed to get to bed at a decent hour too (well, the boys at least).

As for my schedule, I've been getting busier in the area of music these days... As of last Thursday, I started practicing for Handel's Messiah over at Northland Community College with some other members of the community, i.e. Jerry, Marilyn, Tom Kays, etc. We will be singing together with a professional choir out of Grand Forks, the Master Works Chorale, along with the Grand Forks Symphony and will sing about 7 selected pieces of The Messiah including the Halleluja Chorus. I practiced last Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m., but that kind of is a stretch with keeping the boys occupied and all, so I elected to attend a daytime rehearsal today instead at Northland with the Northland Chamber Choir. I was somewhat out of place, what with 95 percent college-aged kids and just one other adult from the community. I sang bass this time with one other student behind a row of just three tenors from the college. Cathy Hagen was the accompanist, so it was nice to have a familiar sound to key off of in rehearsal. The daytime rehearsals are M-W-F 12 to 12:50 or 1:00, so it's a nice break in the day to go have some vocal fun. Today kind of brought me back to the days of Melloaires at Edmonds High and freshman concert choir with Mr. Morken. It's kind of invigorating to be back in the thick of music performance.

As for what's on the horizon, we are looking forward to hockey season and tomorrow night is the lutefisk dinner at Trinity. I believe on the 22nd is the combined Thanksgiving service with the congregations of Trinity, Redeemer, Black River, and Zion all worshiping together and this year it's going to be held at.....TRINITY!! It'll be nice to see the sanctuary and chapel packed once again for a change. The combined choirs will also be performing that night, so should be fun. The boys start their basketball season next Monday (I was off a week) and are continuing with Kingdom Kids after school every other Thursday. Other than that, I think that about covers it. Now to get the furniture moved in before Mom and Dad arrive for Thanksgiving...

Did I mention it's white over here??? It snowed twice this week already and the temperatures are down in the 20s again. I think the trampoline has run its course at this point. No more lawnmowing either... Well, off to choir practice now. Take care all!

Barren Trees, Autmn Leaves, and Cold Nights...

The leaf piles have rapidly grown around town and as of last Tuesday, the City of TRF trucks have been coming through and vacuuming up the piles along the side of the streets. both the big Dutch elm out front and our backyard tree are completely barren of leaves and we've had a dusting of snow here and there, though today was a wet day of drizzling rain. Aaron had his last day of football practice tonight (until dark) and his last game will be played on Saturday (actually two games that day for his team, the Panthers). Basketball will begin for the boys the first week of November, so the gym will be a nice change from the cold and wet football fields.

Last Tuesday we attended the "Running With Reading" program at Challenger, a monthly family activity at the school where they have a sporting activity the first half of the time period followed by time spent in the school library reading books, playing chess, etc. It was a very cold and windy night, though, on the first night of the program, so only about a dozen of us showed up (parents included). They plan on having the event once a month and next month's activity may be floor hockey, so that should be fun.

Yesterday was entertaining, as the boys both sang a song for the congregation at church. The church was almost as full as it gets at Christmas and Thanksgiving, so that was nice to see for a change. I sat near the front this time with Joe and Jodi and their many kids. It was a nice break from singing myself. Speaking of that, the pastor and his wife will be out of town this week, so I don't have any choir practice this week, though with the boys out of school all week, I get a week of fun with them at home instead. In terms of fall activities to look forward to, the annual Trinity Lutefisk Dinner will be held in just a few short weeks in November. They had sign up sheets for serving and donation of Cool Whip, pies, and 70 pounds of butter. I looked at the sheet for the butter and thought to myself, "Is 70 pounds adequate to cover the horrendous tastebud overload known as lutefisk??!" The thought also crossed my mind, "Has Jeff introduced Katrina to this Norwegian culinary delight?" Okay, that's enough lutefisk dissing for now... I think I'll quit while I'm behind.

The boys both had their parent-teacher conferences today and they went well. Both are doing good, particularly in their reading. Anybody looking for gift ideas in the future, feel free to consider either sending chapter books for them or a gift card to Barnes & Noble or Amazon so they can pick out their own (Aaron's already got the whole set of Narnia books and is just starting in on Lemony Snicket).

The boys with Austin on their first day of leaf play this year...

  

A new friend - Mateo

  

Drew's last week on the trampoline...

  

Dorion as "Superboy..."

  

Autumn Leaves Are Falling...

It's been a very pleasant start to the fall season here in Thief River. After just a handful of leaves coming down in the past two weeks, this week it's really taken off. The Dutch elm in front of the house here has dumped about 8 lawn bags full of leaves on the front lawn and the streets are covered in yellow, orange, and red leaves. It's nice to look at, but of course then I got the challenge of the back yard... If I don't stay on top of the leaves, the doggy calling cards get covered up and then we get a surprise later. :o( Today I picked three rakes at Wally World and outfitted the boys with them after school so we were all out front raking this afternoon and got some pictures of the boys in the leaf pile. The temperatures have been dipping at night into the mid-30s and low 40s as well lately and it probably will be a cold Halloween like last year. Hopefully the snow takes its time showing up, though it would be nice to have a white Christmas again.

The boys have been busy this fall with their school activities. They have their usual Awana youth program on Wednesday nights, but have also added Kingdom Kids, an after school program at school where they have an outdoor recess for almost an hour followed by activities inside. I was volunteered for that activity more or less as one of the leaders so that keeps me busy as well, though it's not every week, but every other week. Aaron is having fun in his flag football program with Braeden Drevlow and has finally found a position he likes (and the coach likes too). He is presently playing center, so he just has to snap the ball and do some blocking. He got a lot of playing time last Saturday morning and actually made a great "tackle" (taking the ball carrier's flag off). It was kind of funny... His teammates had actually blocked in the ball carrier and Aaron was right behind him so the other boys just yelled, "Aaron, grab his flag!!" and Aaron just reached forward and ripped it off. He was beaming from ear to ear after that play! At first, it seemed as though it was going to be an unorganized program with only one adult coach and one or two varsity football players coaching, but as of this past Monday, they've put it in high gear with brand new color-coordinated practice vests and balls with five different teams of boys including red, orange, yellow, green, and blue and they had more varsity players helping out, so nobody was standing around not knowing what to do. The varsity players are really good with Aaron too, patting him on the back, throwing an arm around his shoulder, etc. to offer encouragement to him, so that's been really great for his confidence.

I've continued having lunch with Aaron, today having my personal favorite: Nachos with taco meat, salad, and strawberry milk. One of the boys in Aaron's class walked up to him in the tray line and asked, "Does your dad ALWAYS eat lunch with you??" Come to think of it, I think I'm the ONLY dad that eats lunch there, so perhaps his classmates are envious. I try to just make it on Friday's, though, so it's still a special thing, not too "routine." I went today because they have no school tomorrow. I can safely say it's the best $2.85 lunch in town, though. :o)

The boys continue to do well without their old friends here in the neighborhood keeping themselves busy on the trampoline after school with the remaining kids around here and now with raking the leaves up and other fall outdoor activities. We may go to a Northland College football game this weekend time allowing, but Aaron's got another game that day. Speaking of sports... Aaron just dropped a half dozen flyers from school on my lap to look over and one of them is for the "Backcourt Club," the basketball program at Challenger. Practices are on Mondays and Thursdays, so it looks like he's going to be even busier... He wants to do it, though, so he will be practicing from 4 to 5 on Mondays and then 6:30 to 8:00 for football. I have to "volunteer" too to help out at practices, so there's another activity to tack onto my calendar. Looks like the skate lesson program is also new this year with a new director and format, so we need to go to that planning meeting next week and hopefully get them into that this fall/winter. They have a skate exchange program too, so if they've outgrown their skates, they can hopefully trade them in for a larger size. I think for now, though, we're going to head out and get a take-n-bake pizza and retire to our couch of perpetual indulgence for a relaxing non-school night evening.

Back In The Swing Of Things...

Well... The boys have been back in school for a couple weeks now and all is well thus far. Aaron is learning cursive writing and some new outdoor games thanks for Mr. Shafer. I had e-mailed Mr. Shafer about Aaron's homework and Mr. Shafer told me about Friday's game, "Predator v. Prey that Aaron apparently had a great time playing out on the prairie. So when Aaron came home that night, I asked him to "tell me all about Predator v. Prey" and he got this confused look on his face mixed with a grin trying to figure out "How did Dad know about that?" Daniel hasn't talked much about school, but has apparently been enjoying it nonetheless. He has made new friends this year including a boy named Samuel who moved from Fargo this school year. Although the Widerski boys moved away, the boys haven't seemed to miss a beat in terms of finding things to do around here with the other neighborhood kids. I restarted the weekly lunch tradition yesterday with Aaron having "the usual" chef salad. It was particularly delicious that time as they had homemade applesauce, the best I've had since Grandma Judy's in Crystal and for $2.90, it's a good deal. Aaron has a whole new set of teachers in addition to Mr. Shafer and since Ms. Knuttila retired, Aaron has Mr. Wiggs for music and Daniel has Mrs. Johnson and later in the year Mr. Wiggs. There's one less Drevlow they have to attend school with, as Brett moved on to Franklin this year. Speaking of Brett, he is the only string bass player in the orchestra, so he apparently has his pick of all four bass instruments. Therefore, he has one he keeps at home and one at school so Joe doesn't have to cart on around everywhere, which is nice. I can't remember who it was that told me, but I figured out why Joe has done so many things like piano, knitting, string bass, etc. It's because he has his kids teach him everything they learn at school. Kind of a novel concept for an Ivy League grad, but a great idea for lifelong learning.

We started the new choir season at Trinity with a new director and we've sung at one service already, last Sunday. We've done pretty well so far and last Wednesday was a very pleasant surprise. After "retiring" so to speak last year, Ormond unexpectedly returned to the fold and sang with us last Wednesday night. We had so many guys that we overflowed two guys in a second row behind the first, Terry and I. We practiced Simple Gifts again and several new ones I haven't heard of before, but we seemed to pick up on them all rather quickly. Mike was finally back from a long summer of work, so it was nice to have a full tenor section again. I had learned one song last year as a bass and a couple weeks ago, I had to sing it as a tenor and was pretty well lost. It was nice to fall back in my comfort zone as it were and sing bass again last week. We're still working on getting the youth room in order down in the basement level trying to mount a television and DVD so the kids can watch a football or Twins game or have a movie night before long. It's a one day at a time project, though.

Aaron has started his 4th/5th grade flag football season with two practices now. He had his second practice today at the old Prowler Field where "Uncle Bill" used to play. They've kept the field in pretty good shape over the years with a nice lush grass surface and yard lines carved out with a short length mower instead of the white paint. Today's practice was a bit wet, though, as we experienced a bit of a Minnesota downpour halfway through. Daniel hid under my shirt for a few minutes, but nobody seemed to mind the rain much. It was a good two-hour practice and Aaron had a great time. It's a great activity for his fitness level as the coach had them warm up well before practice and run some 40-yard sprints back and forth. Between that and running drills with him during the week, it's a pretty nice fitness program. I think his first game will be a week from today. We had lunch at McDonald's today and after bumping into Aaron's 2nd grade teacher and finishing up our meal, in walks Mr. Lehrer, so we had a nice chat with him before heading home.

After getting home this afternoon. I watched part of the Washington Huskies v. Fresno State Bulldogs game and believe it or not caught some of the bullriding coverage from the Ellensburg Rodeo of all things. Pretty neat to be sitting on the couch here in Minnesota watching shows out of Washington. I heard the Cougars did well this weekend too at Qwest field beating Baylor 17-15. A nice weekend of Washington sports. Now we're watching a homemade DVD from Dad (thanks!) before bedtime.

Before signing off, I had to pass on the funniest thing I saw since the last blog update. You've all probably heard of the funny ironies entitled something like "Only in America..." In particular, the one about how we will order a Big Mac, super-size fries, and a DIET Coke. Well, I finally saw a prime example of that irony last week on a trip to Wal-Mart. There I am in the checkout line with the boys and as I stand there while my items are being scanned, I just casually glanced at the stuff on the conveyor belt behind me. The first item I saw was two dozen assorted glazed and jelly donuts. I look further down to see two gallon pails of ice cream and some other majorly fattening item I can't recall at the moment, and next to that....Yep...you guessed it...two South Beach Diet entrees. Pretty funny.

I think that's a lengthy enough blog update for now. Hopefully nobody's fallen asleep yet... :o)

Buttons and Other Back-To-School Musings...

I never thought I'd be able to say this or for that matter this soon, but Daniel appears to have made a major breakthrough. After years of being vehemently opposed to buttons of any kind on anything he wears, we were at the store getting some back to school clothes Saturday evening and he spotted what he apparently felt was a pretty cool shirt. It was a button down shirt, though. Despite the length of time he has refused to have anything to do with buttons, the design of the shirt was apparently "cool" enough to override his aversion to buttons and he insisted I buy him the shirt. No, I wasn't dumb... I had him put it on in the store to prove he could tolerate the buttons and he wore the shirt again today, so perhaps he finally has more options in the clothing department. Maybe he can finally wear his Mariners jersey??

As for Aaron, he is all geared up to head back to school. I got him a mouthguard last night for flag football and as I was sitting here with the computer, I heard sounds like a quarterback and looked up to find Aaron practicing football stances in the living room, calling out plays (Blue 42! Blue 42! Hut, Hut, Hut!) and running through the dining room, mouthguard in place. He really cracked me up, but then what's new? :o)

We continue to be plagued with the late summer onslaught of yellow jackets. I have two bowls of Mountain Dew out on a table in the front lawn along with five traps of three different kinds. Just roughly estimating, it appears I've trapped upwards of 3 to 5,000 of the critters and they keep coming back for more.

I had a nice chat with the neighbors just the next house north of me last night, Jason and Lacey, not really having talked to them for most of the summer and found they have apparently bought the rental house there and plan to stay another 5 to 7 years to build equity before building a home outside of town here. Lacey is expecting and she was telling me how they have appreciated my yellow jacket traps, as they have noticed they have been largely leaving them alone over there ever since I put the traps out. We also tried to figure out unofficially what our property lines were, as they're hoping to build a privacy fence like mine so when their baby comes along they'll be able to safely play in the back yard. I guess I'll no longer be the odd man out on my block with the only fence.

It's half past midnight now and I gotta get all the school supplies sorted out here and put in the individual backpacks so everything's ready to go in the morning. The boys were so excited to get back to school it was hard to get them to go to bed.

Another Milestone....

Just measured Aaron today and he in fact has grown this summer... He's officially surpassed the 5-foot mark at 5 feet 1/4-inch. That would make around a half inch he's grown since school let out this year.

Speaking of school, we just had the open house at Challenger yesterday, a good way to spend my birthday. We met with Mr. Schafer and Mr. Thorson and picked up all the paperwork for the new year. I found out Mr. Schafer has an environmental science area of sorts out in the marshes surrounding Challenger where Aaron will be spending a lot of time this school year learning about the native flora and fauna. I also discovered a familiar name on Aaron's class roster. TUrns out besides Emily, the hockey coach's daughter, there's also a girl named Hannah who is the daughter of one of the guys I attended elementary school at St. Hilaire. Aaron took the opportunity to go say hi to his old 3rd grade teacher, Ms. McGeary, and we met his new resource room teacher, Mrs. Duchser (pronounced "Duke-Shur"). Couldn't talk Aaron into signing up for orchestra, but looks like he may try flag football league this fall.

The days are getting short before it's time for the early mornings and school bus rides. We've got the school supplies and now we're down to clothes and shoes. Aaron's been begging me to go to Purdy Shoes in town to get him a pair of "those shoes with the 'M' on them" so he can be like all his buddies in school. Daniel's already got his light-up Lightning McQueen shoes that I've managed to keep him from wearing as of yet (not an easy task, mind you).

We Made It, But....

It was a great trip to Minneapolis regardless of the downsides. By downsides, I'm particularly referring to the Weasel's difficulties on the way down. We made it all the way down on I-494 until a mile or two before the hotel when traffic slowed to a standstill thanks to George "Dubya's" visit to Minneapolis. I had only burned three-quarters of a tank of gas getting down there and thought I was doing great, but with the gridlock, I burned off the rest of the gas and had to find a way off the freeway and get to a gas station. We filled up and figured we were almost there, but in the process of getting back on the freeway, the transmission started acting up and upon parking at an area hardware store found the transmission dipstick was bone dry. After filling with transmission fluid we were able to make it the rest of the way to the parking lot and the following day (Wednesday) had it towed to the transmission shop, which happened to be less than a mile from the hotel.

We met mom, Jennifer, Nick, and Jake at the Outback Steakhouse in the hotel for dinner the night we arrived and had a relaxing evening thereafter. Aaron was cute when we were on the freeway and I asked if he and Daniel were going to give their cousins a big hug and let them know how happy they were to see them. He responded in characteristic intellectual fashion by stating, "We haven't seen them in a while. I think we'll just act normal until we get to our suite."

We had a great time visiting the Mall of America and seeing the underground aquarium there with the sharks and stingrays and such and managed to get out of there without buying anything at the mall or riding any rides in what used to be called Camp Snoopy. The boys enjoyed seeing Lego-Land much the way it was the last time we were there in 2002, but with the addition of some life-sized Harry Potters made out of Legos. We then traveled to John and Beth Smeby's for dinner at their house. It was another relaxing evening as we dined in John's garage (actually a nice place to eat). He grilled a delicious dinner of marinated chicken and bratwurst and Beth served brownies with ice cream and chocolate syrup for dessert. The kids had a good time playing catch with a baseball in John's back yard and we left for the hotel around 8:00 or so.

We met up with Cousin Jeff and his wife, Katrina (you still crack me up, Katrina!), and took in the sights of the Minnesota State Fair. It was an overcast rainy day at the fair and we took shelter more than once in the various buildings at the State Fair. We saw the beautiful draft horses in the livestock buildings including Perchons, Morgans, and probably a few Belgians. Mom treated us to a horse show indoors where they had a demonstration of medieval warfare with jousting and swordfighting. They had squires that helped the knights with their swords and lances and we also returned later to see an equestrian jumping competition. We passed through the "Miracle of Birth" barn where they had nothing but sheep, pigs, goats, etc. giving birth and they displayed the births on these large flat panel screens hanging from the ceiling. The barn was attended by veterinarians from the University of Minnesota and we saw a number of animals that were just born that day or late the prior night including some ducklings, piglets, and a lamb.

Of course we had to go on a few fair rides when we were there (thanks Mom and Jen!) and the boys had a great time doing that. Jennifer and I alternated donating tickets to Jeff so he could go up on several of the rides with the boys instead of us, though I did ride a few of them with the boys including the Tilt-a-Whirl and Crazy Mouse. The latter ride was hilarious in terms of Aaron's expression while riding it, but Daniel unfortunately hit his head on the seat back at one point and as a result didn't care too much for that ride when all was over. At least we captured the look on Aaron's face in that ride...

We were caught in a classic Minnesota thunderstorm while at the fair toward the end of the day and we ended up parting ways with Aaron and I going with Jeff and the others going with Jennifer to meet up for dinner at the Outback Steakhouse for dinner close to Anoka. I think that was the best night of the three nights we were there, as we were able to see both of Jeff's brothers, Jeremy and Joe. We had a great dinner there (it was Joe's birthday) and the funniest thing happened as we were about to leave. One of the waitresses stopped at our table and pointed out the WSU lanyard I was wearing around my neck, stating she herself had grown up in Spokane and recognized WSU as "WAZZU" right away. She was also studying nursing, an interesting parallel. It was pretty funny that there I sat 1,200 miles away from Pullman and yet someone recognized my alma mater just from the initials on my lanyard.

We headed back to the hotel and Friday morning after breakfast Mom's friend, Janna, arrived at the hotel and brought a birthday cake for Mom. We visited a little in the morning and then Jennifer left with the boys for the airport while Mom went to stay with Janna for a few days before returning home to Seattle.

I was finally able to make a reliable wireless connection with my laptop in the hotel lobby Friday morning and planned our trip back to TRF and we pulled out around 12:30 or so. We drove up to visit GG and Grandma Judy (thanks, Jeff, for the heads up on the freeway exit!). Unfortunately, I ended up taking I-94 East instead of West or something like that and ended up on University Avenue where I found myself unexpectedly in the middle of the University of Minnesota Campus. We drove through Greek row and took in the scenery while I found my way back on the freeway in the opposite direction (thanks, Jen, for that MPLS map!) and eventually made it to Crystal Lake and GG and Grandma Judy's resting place. Aaron remembered a lot about GG and told Daniel all about him as as being a "great" grandpa as we visited the gravesite.

We then headed out of Minneapolis on I-94 West through St. Cloud, stopping briefly for lunch at Denny's just south of St. Cloud and I also took about a 20-minute breather to close my eyes and rest before driving the rest of the way. We reached the exit to head north through Detroit Lakes, but I hadn't noticed it previously and Aaron told me about it just as we were passing the sign, so we ended up going another 11 miles west before we could turn around and go back, adding another 22 miles to the trip total. I just put it on cruise, though, at 58 mph and took my time the rest of the way back. We stopped just outside Pelican Rapids for dinner at the Taste-T-Freez and made it home at about 10:30 Friday night, all in one piece. The next morning we went and picked up Duchess from the kennel outside St. Hilaire and she smelled April fresh after her bath and grooming while we were gone. We then picked up the rabbits and guineas from Sandy Drevlow's yesterday afternoon and now we're back to our usual routine looking forward to the start of school in about 9 days.

Now that we're back in TRF, I've managed to mow the lawns yesterday and just now I've been noticing the leaves are starting to turn their autum color and fall off. There's only about a couple dozen yellow leaves in my front yard, but as September approaches, we will likely be in a pile of leaves in no time. This summer seemed a lot longer than last summer. It's hard to believe the leaves are already turning color and we'll be looking at snow before long, though we could do without snow until at least December.

We have an open house for school on my birthday, August 30th, and the following week the boys will be in school again. Aaron has indicated an interest in playing basketball this year, so we will probably check into signing him up for that. Daniel can probably do that too if he's interested. I'm looking forward to building on last year's skating practice and the return of Prowler hockey season.

If you're reading this, Jeff and Katrina, or anyone else we visited with down there in Minneapolis, thanks for a great time! It was really fun seeing you guys again!

Question Is.... Can We Make it to MPLS and Back?

It's been a week of preparation here for our upcoming brief journey to the Twin Cities. I of course waited until the last possible week to realize I had to do something with our menagerie of animal companions before we leave next week for the trip to Minneapolis. I managed to find a kennel about 7 miles out of St. Hilaire to drop Duchess off at (Thanks Dawn!) and they'll give Duchess a nice bath and nail trim while we're gone, so I'm looking forward to coming back to a fresh dog. Kind of reminds me of putting our old dog, Pepper, in the kennel over in Edmonds and coming back to a "skinnier" dog after her "shave and a haircut - two bits." We found a home as well temporarily for the bunnies and guinea pigs (with Sandy Drevlow). That leaves the love birds that Andrew left behind, but thankfully we've gotten rid of those noisy irritating creatures by finding a lady in town here that has a large number of birds already and was happy to take two more.

As summer continues its march to an inevitable conclusion, we've been the recipient of a couple good torrential downpours. We had a fantastic thunderstorm about three days ago with a great light show from the heavens. I took a ruler out to a Rubbermaid bin in the back yard and measured 3 inches of fresh rainfall from that night's storm. While great for the farmers, we now have a lawn that has largely been resurrected to its lush green carpet appearance, so it looks like I'll be mowing upon our return from the trip, the first time I'll have mowed since sometime in June. I haven't been looking forward to that, as we have a bit of a neighborhood yellow jacket problem. They've been swarming along our fence line the past few weeks in the back yard and seem to be everywhere. The traps I set out last week have about 3/4 to an inch of yellow jackets apiece (probably a good 300 to 400 in each), so that's at least a small dent in this year's population. Hopefully by late August most will have died off and I can mow the lawn in peace.

In other trip preparation news, we went to Wally World this past week and got an oil change and a fresh pair of sneakers (tires) on the Weasel. The right front tire had had a slow leak for some time, but seeing as we have to make it 300+ miles and back next week, I figured we should go ahead and replace the tire altogether along with the other front end tire for balance. All told (with the oil change) it came to $129.99, so not a bad deal at all. I think the ride in the Weasel is a little quieter now too on the new tires. So my next blog update will likely be about what we did on our mini-vacation to Minneapolis.

Summer Can't Be Almost Over... It Can't!!!

It's too hard to believe we're in the final weeks of summer. We've had such a blast this summer with sports and playing outside in the hot Minnesota sun that it's hard to imagine a new fall season around the corner and the start of a new year at school. We've been so busy I just realized I didn't look at my last blog entry just now so you'll have to forgive me if I duplicate any previous news in this post.

We finished up vacation Bible school at Trinity last week and it was a very successful week. All the kids had a great time and were well worn out by the time we got home each night. Pastor Mark took some pictures so hopefully I can get a few to post here in the not too distant future.

As soon as vacation Bible school was over, we realized they were having Sports Camp at the Evangelical Free Church at the old Washington Elementary, so the boys caught the last 3 of the 4 days of that activity there and were part of a group of somewhere between 130 and 150 kids there every night and several parents and grandparents were there including my old teacher from Franklin, Walter Reddinger, and his wife. At tonight's finale, they had borrowed the City of TRF's dunk tank and the pastor was dunked along with several of the youth leaders. Afterwards, in memory of all those times Dad used to drive us home to the farm while we sat in the back seat with our fingers crossed saying to ourselves, "TURN LEFT NOW," I took the boys and their buddies, Drew, Zach, and Kade to DQ for a Blizzard treat. While they were at their activity tonight I snuck out to the grocery store and picked up some school supplies to get started on the Back-To-School shopping. Before I know it, I'll be back to my regular Friday lunch appointments with Aaron at Challenger (Yeah, Danny gets embarrassed when Dad comes to eat with him, but I'll probably surprise him a few times too this year).

I think that's all for the organized summer activities for now, so I'll have to be creative in filling the remainder of our summer break, though we're looking forward to our upcoming trip to the Cities not too long from now, which reminds me, I gotta get the Weasel in for an oil change and once over before we hit the road...