A Birthday Boy and a Sledding Excursion

Happy Birthday to our now eight year old boy! Donovan had a friend over after school yesterday and he stayed overnight at our house. It was that boy's first sleepover and all went off without a hitch. This morning I got up early to make caramel rolls and to fry bacon for breakfast. The photo above is Donovan posing with his birthday gifts.

This is new in Lego world - Toy Story sets. Lego just came out with these a couple of weeks ago.

Late this afternoon we ventured out in the beautiful weather for a sledding excursion. Our first stop was a hill by Jaycee Centennial Park - the park near the intersection of Century Avenue and 4th Street. It is a mild hill and gives a pretty easy trek back to the top. We spent most of our time here.

It was very busy today and my quick count came up with about 75 people out here. Donovan ran into a lady at the bottom and she fell on him. He got a little bit of a swollen lip from the encounter. When he got back to the top I told him he could have used his hands or feet to try to slow down or he could have bailed out of the sled if needed.

Donovan and Aleah really enjoyed heading down this bumpy route to get some air time.

The singing lady behind Nancy eventually became very annoying.

Soon after this group photo we ran into (not literally) my cousin John, his wife Stephanie, and their kids.

After we left the hill by Jaycee Centennial Park, we decided to head over take a look at the Tom O'Leary sledding hill. Donovan and Aleah decided to take a couple of trips down the hill. It is a bit steeper and a lot longer than the Jaycee hill. Most sledders end up by the ring of vegetation past that group of three pine trees. I think it took them about five minutes to walk back up to the top. They really enjoyed this hill.

We had another beautiful sunset tonight. The structure on the left is the warming house at the Tom O'Leary hill.

Gerrit was home sick with strep throat. I took him to the walk in clinic earlier in the afternoon and he is now on antibiotics.

Happy 8th Birthday Donovan!

Today was Donovan's eighth birthday. Of course, as usual, I cannot believe he is already eight years old. It seems like he was just a little three year old that couldn't talk and was always hiding things from everyone. Now he's in the second grade, loves school and is doing so well. His teacher told me the other day that she was so proud of him. They were doing Dibel testing recently and he read 141 words a minute and that was a record for any of her students reaching in second grade-she's been teaching for 35 years. I asked what an average second grader mid year reads and I was told 60. I guess Donovan is doing well.

Donovan had a friend stay over last night and Bruce made homemade caramel rolls this morning. We also took the kids sledding this afternoon-it was so nice. I saw a kid sledding in shorts and some without coats. Donovan is having a combined birthday party this summer with the other kids so we can rent an inflatable. That's not exactly something you can do during the wintertime. He did get presents from the grandparents and us so he was happy about that.

Happy Birthday Donovan! We love you!

The end of speech therapy, twin news, and a late surprise birthday lunch

Yesterday Donovan finished up speech therapy with his therapist Cindy. He had been going there for almost four years. He started at the Scottish Rites Speech Therapy Center since he needed extra speech help outside of preschool and insurance wouldn 't cover it. It's quite the end of an era. Once or twice a week year round for the last four years I would drive Donovan and Samantha, and sometimes Gerrit and Aleah during the summers when they were younger, to the center. Sometimes Donovan and I would be so tired of going there but it was necessary.

We'll miss Cindy. Donovan and Cindy really clicked and worked well together. He really learned a lot from her. The Scottish Rite Speech Therapy Center helps kids ages three to eight and since he'll be eight tomorrow and he's not severely speech delayed anymore he no longer needs to be seen. They would have continued helping him if the need was still there. He still will have speech at school once a week.

Now to the twin news. My friend Pam and her husband Matt welcomed their twin girls into the world yesterday. Elizabeth Ida was born at 4:04 p.m. and weighed 6 lbs. 11 oz. Emily Susan was born at 4:09 p.m and weighed 5 lbs. 10 oz. Emily had some issues with breathing for awhile until the doctor tried to intubate her but then she broke a membrane and she started breathing just fine-that was the problem. She's being kept in the NICU for observation but is doing just fine. I went and saw Pam today and I got to hold Elizabeth-she's so precious.

After I picked Samantha up from preschool we went to my friend Tricia's for lunch and some other friends were there to surprise me for my birthday-a little later. We had a nice time and Tricia made an awesome meal. Sam and I stopped at Wal-Mart to get a few things for the weekend. Donovan is having a friend sleepover to celebrate his birthday which is tomorrow!

Ouch!

Today I took Samantha to her pre-op checkup before she has her tonsils and adenoids removed on the 21st. Being the multi-tasker that I am I also scheduled her Kindergarten immunizations as well. I didn't warn her ahead of time. I have not warned any of the kids ahead of time. It wouldn't help them deal with it any better, and they would just get overly anxious. The Kindergarten vaccinations have always been the hardest for me to watch (with the exception of the first time Gerrit got shots when he was two months old) since the kids are old enough to know what it's all about.

Samantha did very well. As soon as the doctor had finished the checkup and left the room I told her she had to have some shots today. She got very sad looking and asked if she could do it another time. I told her she had to do it today. She cried a little. Three nurses came in and she had to lie on the exam table. She had a shot in each arm and one in her leg. She hardly cried at all and I was very proud of her. I think they've combined the shots more since I remember Gerrit and Aleah having four shots.

Now my "baby" is fully vaccinated and is up to date to start Kindergarten in August. I feel sad that Samantha is growing up so fast and starting school soon but it feels kind of good too. I won't have to take anymore preschoolers in for so many shots anymore-I know they still need a booster shot once and awhile but it's generally only one and they're older and do better with it.

After the appointment we went up to the hospital and Samantha got to see where she would go before surgery and after and what the pajamas looked like that she will wear. The nurse asked if she had any questions and Samantha didn't say anything but she sure looked like she might have some questions. I wonder what was going through her mind. She wouldn't tell me either. I'll be glad when her surgery is over and one with and hopefully no one has to have any more surgeries for a very long time.

Missing in Action

It's been so long since I've blogged. I just got so busy before Christmas and then got a bit lazy during Christmas since we had the big blizzard then got busy to get ready for my family to come visit. Now it's all done and I've been trying to get back into the swing of things.

I subbed yesterday at Centennial School-this school is one of the furthest from our house and yesterday we had a winter storm. Bruce was also out of town which made things interesting. I got up very early and there didn't seem to be much snow at the time so I didn't shovel then. I made it out of the driveway-it was fluffy snow but there was quite a bit. Driving was slow going. I dropped Gerrit off at school and that's always fun dropping a child off at middle school-it takes forever. I'm glad he usually rides the bus. I then drove to Barb's (which thankfully isn't out of the way from where I was going) and dropped off Samantha there so she could bring her to preschool. I got to the school 45 minutes later so didn't get there until 8:15-they were almost ready to call to see if I was coming. The roads were awful and there were quite a few accidents.

The day went well-I had sixth grade and the morning was easy but the afternoon did drag. After school, I met Barb at the clinic, where her boys were getting allergy shots, to pick up Samantha and was happy to get home. I couldn't get into the garage though because of the big snowdrift. Wednesday is normally our busy day-Samantha has dance, Aleah has piano, and then we go to church-not last night! The temperature was dropping and the roads were awful so we stayed home. The boys and I shoveled so we could get the van in the garage. The patio door also got frozen shut and we had to let Sadie out the front door but I wasn't concerned she'd run away because she doesn't like cold weather.

Bruce made it home tonight from the Fargo area and he finished the shoveling and got the door fixed! I was originally going to sub this afternoon (at Centennial again in first grade) but the teacher's meeting got cancelled because of the weather so I didn't have to go outside at all today. That was great-the high for today was -11. It's suppose to get down to -35 tonight-that's COLD! Samantha and I hung out at home today and did things around the house. She's starting to pick up words in books when I read to her-today's word was CAT. She actually took a nap today too-she fell asleep about 4:30 for an hour but still went to bed by 8:15. I think she's still tired out from Christmas.

Wednesday Evening Musical Interlude

A nice little pop/rock song from Kim Mitchell, a Canadian. "Go For Soda" was released in 1985.

Christmas 2009, Part 2

The last part of this past week was the second part of our Christmas - the celebration with Nancy's family. We exchanged gifts Thursday afternoon and took it easy the rest of the day. Only Nancy and I were up yet for the midnight toll of the new year although Loren and family were awake at the hotel and went to the lounge area for some free goodies.

Friday, the first day of 2010, we got together at a local restaurant to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Nancy's parents. The anniversary was actually earlier in December but this was the first time all of us could get together. Loren and Kelly picked up a cake and we had cake and ice cream back at the house.

Saturday we had sort of our official Christmas meal. On the menu was a 22 lb. turkey! We had to bake it over seven hours. I'll tell you what -we definitely had more than enough meat. We sent some home with everyone and still have plenty left here.

Apples to Apples was a popular game this time and I think it was played at least once every day.

Before cutting the cake we got a photo of Karen and Laurence with said cake.

Grandpa and Grandma with all of their grandchildren.

Just the grandchildren.

Loren and Kelly with Luke.

Mijn familie. When posing, I hadn't even noticed that Donovan had grabbed our little wiener dog, Sadie.

All Tired Out

Five or six months ago Nancy's mom, Karen, bought a used car after Nancy's dad drove hers through the back of their garage. This car is a Buick LaCrosse and right now it has about 28,000 miles on the odometer. She had been telling Nancy the car drives funny and especially so on slippery surfaces such as ice or compacted snow.

Nancy drove the car and confirmed that to be true. Last night after supper I drove it back from the restaurant and also noticed a problem. On a slippery surface the back sort of swings back and forth - sways from side to side - and when I would hit a bit of compacted snow it would kind of give a strange little jump.

Back at the house I looked at the rear wheels and noticed they appear to be way out of alignment. The left rear appeared to have a camber problem with the top of the wheel too far in toward the car and the right rear seemed to have a toe out problem with the front of the wheel sticking out too far. Karen made an appointment for an alignment check for Saturday morning here in Bismarck.

About two weeks ago Karen went to a Farmer's Union shop in Williston for new tires. One guy there told her she should have four new tires but the other said the rear tires were all right and she would be good with just two new front tires. She went with the latter option. The shop put on a pair of the higher priced Hankook tires.

Anyway, when I got home from work today the snow had melted off the tires and as I drove up to the house I took a look and thought to myself how much it looked like the left rear tire had no tread! Upon closer inspection I discovered the situation as shown in the pictures below.

Not only is the tire almost completely worn out all the way across but the cords or steel belts are showing along the inside edge of the tread! Dang.

This is the right rear tire. It has a different wear pattern with the tread gone from the inside and outside edges but with normal wear in the middle. This one is also showing cords along the inside tread.

Just think - she drove from Williston to Rapid City and back and then here to Bismarck with tires in such poor condition. Right now they probably aren't too far from coming apart.

I think it is pretty unusual both for tires to be worn out like this at only 28,000 miles and for the alignment to be so out of whack on such a new car. I just hope there isn't a more serious problem. Hopefully we'll find out on Saturday!

Christmas Lights and Family Arrivals

Nancy's parents arrived from Williston late yesterday afternoon. While here, Nancy's mom has spent quite a bit of time finishing up her Christmas shopping. (Wait - wasn't Christmas last week?) Loren, Kelly, and Luke drove here from Minnesota and came to our door at about 10:00 this evening. We plan to open gifts tomorrow afternoon.

A few nights ago Nancy was watching the news on KFYR-TV and caught this story about a house and yard with a great display of lights. Today Nancy's mom took us all out to eat supper at North American Steak Buffet - where kids are free Monday through Friday with the purchase of an adult meal. After supper we took a drive to look at that light display. The web link above has a map, but in case the link goes away in the future the house is located at 1713 Woodvale Drive south of Bismarck near Prairie Rose Elementary. You have to take Estate Avenue to get to Woodvale.

The pictures do not really do it justice because I was just standing on the road and using a slower shutter speed. I know I shook a couple of them. It is a pretty cool display, though.

Luke had a good time when he got here. Grandma got to hold him for the first time. Here Kelly had put him on Samantha's horsey and he was having a great time.

Christmas 2009, Part 1

Because of the weather and road conditions on Christmas and the day after, we did not head down to Strasburg for Christmas day as planned. Instead we stayed in the house. I ventured out to take our little wiener dog with her short legs on her bathroom breaks - mainly to keep her from going on the deck. She usually does not do that but didn't like to head out in the yard in the cold winds. As far as the family, we had a couple of lazy days of sleeping in, watching movies, and taking naps. A couple of us even took naps during movies!

My brother Harvey had driven back home from Wyoming on Tuesday and my brother Doug came from South Dakota on Wednesday morning. My sister Lisa and her family from South Dakota had planned to drive home on Christmas morning but of course could not because of the weather. My brother Duane and his wife Betty live out on the farm and I think their boys drove back from Bismarck on Thursday during the day or late evening. Those that were there had the Christmas get-together as planned at Duane and Betty's house that evening.

On Sunday after the weather moved out, our family did drive down to Strasburg after I had our snow cleared out at the house. Harvey had left for Wyoming but Doug was still there. Nancy and I and the kids opened our gifts from Mom and Dad.

Four of us kids had gone together on a gift to move Mom and Dad into the digital age with a point and shoot digital camera. Unfortunately, I had purchased the camera and then was not able to get it to them until Sunday. Duane and Betty came over for supper and were also there when Mom and Dad opened the gift. The folks were very happy and appreciative.

After supper my Dad broke out the slide projector and we took a look at five or six reels of slides. That was fun - my kids sure seemed to enjoy seeing the slides of their much younger (and slimmer) Dad. We did drive back to Bismarck yet that night and pulled up to the house at about 10:45. Our "house" neighbor was outside and super thankful that I had also cleared out the snow from in front of his garage.

Part 2 of Christmas 2009 is planned for later this week . . .

Pictures of Snow

There was a blizzard? We ended up with about 12" of snowfall and had a lot of wind, but overall it seemed to be relatively mild as far as blizzards go. It certainly could have been very much worse, anyway. Below are some photos of the snow around and about our house.

I spent two hours this morning shoveling and blowing. That old snowblower sure is wonderful to have. Without it I am positive it would have taken at least double the time. As it was I had to shovel quite a bit from the top of the snowbanks before I could use the blower - most were at least one foot taller than the throat of the blower. I think in future storms I should try to go out periodically to keep the banks from getting too tall.

Church was canceled this morning because snow was blocking access to the parking lot. I would guess the streets in that area had not been cleared and would have been pretty snotty to navigate as well.

Saturday evening I went out and cleared some snow from against the garage and from in front of my car. Donovan and Samantha came out to play in the snow for a while.

On this above photo you can see the imprint of part of the front of my car in the snowbank.

All better now!

Sadie loves to be outside, too. I think it is funny she had to jump up on the little snowbank to look around.

This cool snowbank is in front of the fence of our neighbor to the west.

Singing House of Sioux Falls

Happy Birthday, Sadie!

So this is what our little blog has become - a mechanism to wish people or pets happy birthday/anniversary/holiday? I know I've been pretty much absent from here lately and hope to change that soon. I have a lot of photos to catch up on posting - even going back to Halloween.

Well, today was Sadie's first birthday. She was born on this day . . . well, I don't know exactly where she was born or in what conditions, but the breeder had a Linton, ND address. Anyway, we purchased her shortly after Valentine's Day. She is turning out to be a pretty good dog. She loves to fetch but we are still working on the release when she comes back with the item.

I didn't get her anything basically because she is a dog, but the kids got her this fluffy pink bone. She seems to like it. I joked with Nancy and asked her where Sadie's birthday cake was - we could have had her blow out a candle. Now, that would have been a picture!

Happy 40th Anniversary!

Happy 40th Anniversary to my mom and dad. They were married 40 years ago today in Tioga, North Dakota on December 13, 1969. Although I would never have had a December wedding (numerous reasons) I do love them-the churches are so beautifully decorated for Christmas. I've seen their wedding album and it looks like it was a very nice wedding. It was a Saturday and they actually had discussed getting married on Friday, December 12th since that had been my dad's parent's anniversary-they were married 12-12-1912 but it didn't work out so they married the day after that.

I was thinking today when I was looking at the picture of their wedding party that everyone in the picture in still alive today-40 years later. They each had three attendants and there were two flowergirls and a ringbearer. It really is a miracle considering some of the health issues some of them have had-my mom's cancer being the most serious of all. Praise God.

We will celebrate shortly after Christmas when we all get together. We had a party for their 25th anniversary which was already 15 years ago! The family has really grown in numbers since then-it was just mom, dad, Loren and me-now we have Bruce, Kelly, Gerrit, Aleah, Donovan, Samantha, and Luke. I definitely think that calls for a celebration and a nice family portrait to mark the occasion.

Happy Birthday Bruce!

Happy Birthday to my dear husband Bruce!! Hope you had a great birthday today. We did our annual Paradiso lunch (he was free) and this is the last year Samantha will join us since next year she will be in Kindergarten.

I also made one of Bruce's favorite meals for supper tonight as I try to do every year on his birthday-beef pinwheels and scalloped corn. We also had angel food cake with cream frosting. I don't think we need to eat tomorrow.

We got him two things for his birthday. Aleah had decorated a super-size coffee mug when we went to Creative Clay after Thanksgiving and she gave it to him-it's bigger than his Dunn Brothers coffee mug and that's huge-he does love coffee! We also got him a digital photo frame. I'm not sure if he'll have it at home or his office. He's always hinted he'd like one at work since he has too many pictures on his desk.

Hope you had a great day Bruce! We love you!

Another Day

I was gone almost all day. I brought Sam to preschool and drove home to say goodbye to my parents since they were leaving for home and then went to my friend Vicki's house and baked until around two this afternoon with some other friends. I have officially started my Christmas baking. I put on a lot of miles since I went and picked up Sam and Sydney from preschool and it was Wednesday which means-dance, piano, and church night. I wonder how many miles I logged today-I'd have to say at least 75-Vicki is pretty far north and east.

Bruce made it back from the Rugby, Devils Lake, Cando, Westhope area. He said the roads were pretty bad up there this morning.

I'm not subbing tomorrow-Samantha and I can get stuff done around the house and maybe do some errands. I've got plenty to do with Christmas just over three weeks away and I'm having a Tastefully Simple party this weekend plus I'm subbing at another new school on Friday.

I just wanted to clarify about my post yesterday. I wasn't in anyway saying that I thought the school I was at yesterday was bad-it was just the classroom. It could have happened at any school public or private. I will definitely go back to that school-just not that classroom. That's the nice thing about subbing-I can pick and choose what classrooms I want to teach. It seemed like a great school for one so big-very well run and organized with a great staff. I'm not put off by my experience yesterday-if anything it makes me feel like I can handle other situations better.

The award for the worst classroom ever goes to.....

The award for the worst classroom ever goes to the Kindergarten classroom I subbed for today! I am serious. I have taught on a reservation and saw a lot of stuff there, I have subbed three years in various classrooms, and this class was by far worse than anything I experienced and I have experienced some weird stuff.

There were only 17 little five and six year olds but it seemed like 40! The classroom was also last year's principal's office so you can imagine it wasn't that big. There were five or six kids in there with serious behavior issues. Why might you ask did they put them all in the same classroom? Well, this is their first year in school and they didn't know. They did know one had behavior problems since he is repeating Kindergarten but otherwise it just happened. I do wonder, though, why they did put the kid they knew had serious issues in the classroom with a first year teacher-yes, this poor woman's first classroom teaching experience (other than student teaching and subbing) is with this demonic class. I wonder if she'll decide to continue with teaching? I hope she realized that if she can survive this year they'll all be better than this one.

There were three aides in the classroom this morning-one or two just aren't enough. These aides spend a majority of their time physically restraining these kids. From pulling them out from under their desks to getting their coats off-the one boy lost his recess (he tackled a kid on the playground) and put his coat on when the others went outside and would not take it off so the aides had to physically remove his coat off from him since he was not able to go outside-I guess he thought if he had his coat on he was going outside. Things like this happened all day.

I tried to teach but it was so hard. Someone was always talking, or doing something they weren't suppose to or laying on the floor, etc. I felt bad for the kids that want to learn and are well behaved because I don't know how they're able to learn much in this environment. I wonder if the parents are aware of how bad it is in there? I would not want my child in that classroom.

There were a few blocks of time that I was by myself-luckily it was for short periods of time. I'm so glad there were aides in the classroom this morning. They let me know what was going on even though I could easily figure out which kids were the trouble makers. I asked if it was always that bad or was it just because they had a sub. They told me it's always like that or worse!

The majority of the kids with problems were boys but probably the worst kid in the class was a girl! I will never forget her-cute as can be-red hair and light blue eyes and guess what? When mom and dad took us out to eat tonight-she was there with her grandparents. She didn't see me but I pointed her out to mom and dad-what are the chances we'd go to the same place at the same time? I'll probably end up with her in my own classroom in a few years-hopefully not.

The day wasn't all bad though. I experienced a school I hadn't subbed at before-huge-over 700 students and I knew one of the aides and the Kindergarten teacher across the hall I've known since college so I was able to visit with her a bit at lunch and after school. I'm willing to go back to the school but I will never sub for this teacher again!!!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving

Happy Belated Thanksgiving readers! We were at Bruce's parents for Thanksgiving and have been busier than usual leading up to the day. We left around 10:30 Thursday morning and had pizza for lunch since we had planned the big meal for that evening at Bruce's brother Duane's. Harvey and Doug both arrived shortly after we got done eating but we left enough pizza for them and we all tried Bruce's sweet potato pie he had baked the night before. It was okay but I prefer pumpkin pie to that.

We got back to Bismarck about 12:30 today since Gerrit had an appointment at 1:00 to test to see if he has asthma. We won't know the results until Tuesday. I took all the kids except Gerrit, he declined the invitation, to Creative Clay this afternoon. We had a good time and we all made a Christmas present for someone that is special to us. We were there for over two hours. The kids did a really good job on their projects.

I didn't do any Black Friday shopping this morning. I know there are good deals but I hate when I have to wait in line for 15 minutes-I'm pretty sure I couldn't handle an hour and a half wait. Also we weren't in Bismarck this morning. Maybe when the kids are older and want the experience I'll go! I would actually prefer the midnight hour to shop rather than the five a.m. though. I know some stores were open at three a.m. today.

Tomorrow's plans include decorating-there are only four weeks until Christmas!! I have so much to do before then. The calendar is getting full very quickly!

Another November Birthday!

Yes, we have another November birthday. Today my brother Loren turns 35!! Happy Birthday Loren. You've had a big year-you became a father for the first time! Luke is very precious and I know you're having a great time being a dad. I hope you had a great day and I wish you many more birthdays.

Annual Burning

Just before supper on Sunday evening I suddenly decided to perform our annual burning. This happens each fall when I burn garden refuse and any cardboard boxes or wood scraps we need to dispose. The kids always enjoy watching and like to throw items in the fire. I don't let them do that when the fire is just lit like this, but only when the fire has died down quite a bit. Poor Gerrit was on the couch in the basement - even today he still isn't feeling very well. We hope to be able to send him to school on Thursday.

Have a good day, my friends!

Tuesday Morning Musical Interlude

Today is my sister's birthday. Happy Birthday, Lisa! I think I remember her saying this was one of her favorite songs back in the day. The song, released in 1986, is "All Cried Out" by Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force.

Beforf Leaving Room

Come on, where is the quality control, people?

As previously posted, we stayed in a hotel in Bloomington for two nights during our trip for Gerrit's surgery. Cambria Suites is located two or three blocks northeast of the Mall of America. IKEA is straight west. Cambria Suites is a pretty nice hotel - sort of an upscale one. Good thing I had enough reward points for two nights! The rooms are a loose interpretation of suites with just a partial wall separating a bedroom area from the living room and bathroom. Samantha and I stayed in the room the afternoon of Gerrit's surgery.

Our wonderful window view looking to the southwest. The Mall of American can be seen in the distance on the left. IKEA is seen towards the right side.

Let us share some information about IKEA. The name is made up of the initials of the founder, Ingvar Kamprad and the first letters of the farm where was raised, Elmtaryd, and the village, Agunnaryd, in southern Sweden where he grew up. Ingvar Kamprad was just 17 when he registered the IKEA name. The company was obviously started in Sweden but now appears to operate out of the Netherlands. Yes! We did visit the store on Thursday evening and picked up frozen yogurt cones from the deli before leaving. It is a cool store.

The view to the northwest. Samantha, you got in the way! :)

This is one way Samantha and I entertained ourselves - by watching planes take off. The other way was her asking me every few minutes how to spell the names of our family members. She has taken to writing letters and names, which is very good, but I have to admit it eventually became a bit of an annoyance. Why couldn't she just sit down and watch TV? Ha.

Friday evening Nancy's brother, Loren, came over to visit and took along his son, Luke. Loren's wife, Kelly, was working. In the photo above Nancy is feeding him and Samantha is watching. She loved him.

Here she had her own chance to feed Luke. He seemed more interested in the television. I can't blame him - Dirty Jobs was on.

Samantha even showed Luke her book. Kind of an interesting shot because Nancy is looking at the book, Samantha is looking at me, and Luke is looking at Samantha. He is five months old and is a cool little guy. He eventually fell asleep and they left shortly after.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy Birthday to my dad-he is 81 today. Donovan mentioned it seemed like it's only been a month since we celebrated his 80th birthday and I agree-time sure does fly. Mom and dad have been here since Tuesday and left today. They stayed with Aleah and Donovan when we went to Minneapolis for Gerrit's surgery. It is nice to be home and hopefully Gerrit will start feeling better soon. Hope you had a nice birthday dad!

We're Comin' Home!

Gerrit's surgery went well yesterday and the doctor was very happy with the results. Gerrit not so much. When he was in the room waiting for a nurse he begged with Nancy not to have the surgery. He is feeling all right today on pain medication and is holding the Star Wars Lego set he bought on Thursday.

After dropping Gerrit and Nancy off at the hospital and after stopping off at a Target, Samantha and I spent yesterday in the hotel room watching television and watching planes taking off. We picked them up at the hospital at around 6:00 pm. Nancy's brother, Loren, drove to our hotel in Bloomington from Plymouth along with his son, Luke. We ordered Davanni's pizza and visited in the room.

We are getting ready to head out and make our way to home base in Bismarck. Samantha is excited to see our dog, Sadie. Me, too. (And Donovan and Aleah, of course.)

Wild Dutchman

No, I'm not talking about myself. Although I can proudly call myself a Dutchman, I'd have to admit I'm not all that wild.

Instead, I'm talking about my favorite sunflower seeds. They are also quite possibly the best tasting sunflower seeds in the world! Wild Dutchman Seeds are produced down in Mound City, SD by the Wayne and Tobey Vander Laan families. Wayne's parents lived in the Westfield, ND area, his kids used to attend vacation bible school with us, and one of the them (Tobey) is involved in this operation. I'm sure we are relatives because basically just about everyone from the Dutch community down there is a little bit related.

The seeds have the best flavor and great texture but one of the reasons I also like them is because they are low salt. I travel quite a bit and eat a lot of sunflower seeds. I could munch on these all day if I wanted and not get a raw cheek! I almost always have some in my company car - which is how I was able to walk out and take a picture of a bag.

My source in Bismarck is Cashwise Foods, where they are located by other snack foods such as nuts, beef jerky, and other brands of sunflower seeds. This is across the aisle from the soft drinks. I hear they are also sold at Simonson's c-stores. If you live out of Bismarck-Mandan or travel in the area and are interested in other locations, the web site linked above has listings of stores that sell their seeds. They also will ship boxes or cases.

Below are videos of two television news stories done about the business. The first is from a Bismarck station and the second from a Sioux Falls station. Both are good and each take a slightly different angle, but the Sioux Falls story is longer and has more detail.

Now go out and get some Wild Dutchman seeds! If you like sunflower seeds, you owe it to yourself to at least try these once.

The surgery is on

The doctor cleared Gerrit for surgery. Bruce, Gerrit, Samantha, and I will be leaving for Minneapolis in the morning. My parents are staying to take care of Aleah and Donovan. We were going to leave Samantha home with them but she has been having some separation anxiety lately and although she loves being around grandma we think she needs to be around us. Mom gets to watch out for Sadie instead.

We'll spend a little time at the Mall of America and go to our hotel and Gerrit is scheduled for surgery around 11:15 on Friday morning. His doctor today did say that he thinks Gerrit may have asthma so we're going to do some tests for that later in the month. We're hoping this surgery goes well like the last one and that Gerrit doesn't need any more surgeries for years to come-this will be his fifth one.

Monday Morning Musical Interlude

Think what you want about The Lawrence Welk Show - this song is pretty good. The guitarist, Neil LeVang, was born in 1932 in Adams, ND and lived both there and in Bemidji, MN when he was young. His family moved to California when he was thirteen and it sounds like he is still alive and well out there. Enjoy!



The gentleman with the maracas looks like he is having way too much fun!

Weekend

We left for the family prayer service for Bruce's grandma on time on Friday but 15 miles out Bruce remembered he had forgot his CPAP and he cannot be without it. We had to turn around and go back for it which put us 15 minutes late for the service. They waited for us. We felt bad about that. It was a nice service and Thelma looked very nice. Samantha had a lot of questions-one being "Why did she die?" I told her that she was old and she had been sick but now she's with Jesus in Heaven and that's a good thing. She seemed to be okay with that response. She did say it was sad-it is.

We stayed at Thelma's house Friday night-no one else was and Bruce's parents already had a full house so we stayed there so we wouldn't have to drive back to Bismarck and turn around and be back early for the funeral. Bruce and I stayed there the first Christmas we were married since we had to be in Linton early the next morning and Thelma made us a big breakfast. She loved to feed people and she was a great cook-no one can make better potato salad or gravy. She loved having guests too.

The funeral was very nice and there was such a large crowd. I think everyone was thankful the weather was so nice-last year at this time we had our first blizzard-what a difference. We went to Bruce's parents for the rest of the afternoon and evening. It was nice to spend time with family and the kids really enjoyed playing with their cousins who they don't see often enough. Every time the phone rang though it was weird knowing that it wasn't Thelma. She called many times a day to check what was going on and to let Joann know the latest news. We are really going to miss her.

We won't know for sure until Gerrit's pre-surgical visit on Wednesday morning if he'll be clear for surgery on Friday. I think he will be and we're making plans that we'll be leaving for Minneapolis. I'm getting things in order for my parents to watch the other three while we're gone.

7th Grade Orchestra Program

Last evening Gerrit had his 7th grade orchestra program. All of the kids decided to go - mainly because they had never been to his school before. They said they will never go to one again. I think they were pretty much bored with the whole thing.

Gerrit's group played four nice selections. The young lady with the black hair is not a large 7th grader - she is a teacher.

When the 7th graders completed their portion they were joined by the other middle school grades for one song. The upper grade orchestra is called the Early-birds and they also did four numbers.

I enjoyed the program and am looking forward to the next one!

Goodbye, Grandma

Thelma Slagh
January 19, 1922 - November 2, 2009

Goodbye, Grandma. We love you and miss you. We are sad because you are no longer with us here but we are also happy because we know you are in a much better place than even the best place on earth.

Happy Birthday Mom!!

I want to wish my mom a Happy Birthday! I tried calling her this afternoon and will try again later but she has a very active social life and I can't seem to get a hold of her-I'm just happy she's out there enjoying life! She is 68 today. It's okay that I'm revealing her age since she usually thinks she's a year older then what she really is so, "Mom, you're only 68 instead of 69 today!" The problem with this is that she thinks I'm a year older then what I really am too so I guess she'll throw me a 40th birthday party this year??

Happy Birthday Mom-may you have many, many more. I love you!

Sunday Video - Ancient Words

November already??

I seriously can't believe it's already November! Where did October go-the last half of it I seem to remember spending a lot of time at the hospital/clinic. I took Gerrit, Aleah, and Donovan there last Wednesday. Gerrit was just not getting better (although he did go to school all week) and the other two were still coughing and Donovan had a rash and was itchy as well. They did an x-ray of Gerrit's sinuses and he had a sinus infection-more antibiotics plus another inhaler. Aleah and Donovan were prescribed antibiotics (Donovan's second one since we think he may have been allergic to the first one but now we're not so sure-he's still itchy and the rash comes and goes). I think I can finally say the kids seem to be getting better-at least their coughs aren't as bad.

Gerrit had a really rough day on Friday. He said he coughed all day at school and I believe him since when he came home that's all he did. He missed Aleah and Donovan's school carnival, his school party, and his youth's groups lock-in-not that he could have done all of them anyway but he was only able to stay home. We brought home some pizza for him from the carnival which he threw up about 10 minutes later from coughing so much.

Saturday was Halloween (probably my least favorite holiday but I know kids love it) and Aleah had three basketball games that day-it was their jamboree. They won two of the games. She even attempted a few shots. Bruce and the kids carved pumpkins and he took them trick or treating around the neighborhood. Gerrit did five houses and was coughing so bad he came home and handed out candy. He did seem to enjoy that and he was very good at it.

Today is the first time in almost three weeks that Gerrit hasn't coughed that much. He is still coughing but at least it's not all the time and so awful sounding. I hope he's finally getting better. I had to take him to get some dress clothes since he has an orchestra concert on Thursday night-they're required to have dress pants, dress shirt, tie, and dress shoes.

I subbed two and a half days at the kids' school last week and am scheduled for another two and a half days this week there so I feel like that's where I belong. I know the teachers and so many of the kids and I love it! I would so love getting a job at the kids' school in the future. I do like subbing at other schools though to see how things are at other places.

I figured out why Samantha said she missed me so much this past week-she usually loves going to Tricia, Jess or Barb's but last week not so much. She's constipated-poor girl. I feel terrible for not picking up on that sooner but with the other kids being sick, when she told me her tummy hurt I just thought it was maybe from medicine or something. I think she's starting to feel better now.

I'm in charge for the Wednesday night meal at church this week. I'm going to make pizza hotdish. It calls for lots of potatoes and we have them-Bruce has to get them dug up but it's been so wet in the garden he hasn't been able to get to it. I plan on getting the meal mostly ready on Tuesday since my Wednesday is already busy with a birthday party for my friend Karen's daughter Grace-she'll be five on Wednesday and before Barb and I know it Sydney and Samantha will also be five!