Medora - August 2007

I am way behind on posting photos. Here are some from our family reunion day trip to Medora back in August. The reunion was held at the Pitchfork Steak Fondue, which is on the same level as and east of the parking area for the Medora Musical's Burning Hills Amphitheatre.

It was hazy from the forest fires in Montana and the smell of smoke was in the air. This picture was taken looking sort of southwest toward the covered picnic area (aka the Tjaden Terrace) of the Pitchfork Steak Fondue. There were a lot of people there. I think they said about 600 were fed that night.

A more clear view of the Tjaden Terrace.

East of the terrace are these statues of Harold (this is an interesting link with a good bio) and Sheila Schafer as kids. Harold was the founder of the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation and of the Gold Seal Company. Remember Mr. Bubble? I do. I think I remember it as a powder. Mr. Bubble once was a Gold Seal product but now is made by a different company.

Harold was the father of Ed Schafer, the current Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture and a former governor of North Dakota. Harold passed away in 2001.

Excuse me, but there is something on your head.

Donovan poses for me.

Overlooking the town of Medora in the distance.

Here is a view of the amphitheater and stage from the side/back.

A closer view of the theater.

I think these elk are on this ridge for every performance of the musical. The ridge is south of the theater and visible from most if not all seats.

Change

Sonja emailed me that Lois is not being flown to Rochester today. They are going to do some more tests to see if there are tumors in other parts of her body other then her brain and make a decision then. If she goes onto Rochester Wendy will go with her. I'm glad that she'll be able to do that.

I was up early donating plasma this morning. I did it Tuesday too so I'm done for the week. I had skipped a couple weeks so it's nice to be back-I get a lot of reading done there-if only I didn't have to wake up so early those days.

The girls both had problems falling asleep last night and Samantha got into bed with Bruce sometime after I left at six this morning. It's funny how the boys were so good at staying in their beds (especially Gerrit) but the girls (especially Samantha) get up so much. Samantha is already thinking of excuses to put off going to bed-having to go to the bathroom, having the covers just so, having the right stuffed animals, having a different sippy cup of water (she never drinks any by the way) , and my favorite from last night when she heard Bruce and Aleah (who was up yet again) laughing-"I hear fun" and wanted to go see what was going on before I stopped her.

What's your opinion on this?? I signed I think it was Sydney's birthday card Sami (that's what Syndey calls her) and Bruce said he preferred the spelling Sammy. The kids are kind of split on the spelling. Any comments? I kind of left it as Samantha can choose the way she wants to spell it when she gets older. We actual call her Sam or Samantha more then Sami anyway. We asked her what she likes to be called-Sam or Sami or Samantha and she replied, "Mantha" so she wasn't any help.

Wednesday's Safe Baby Handling Tips

OK, this is my last post on these - some more of my favorites of the group. This book would make a great gift for first-time parents.




Sunday's Safe Baby Handling Tips gives information on the book and on the company of the authors.

Updates

Bruce wrote all about Gerrit's Pinewood Derby-it was fun except for the big mix up during the awards. I am so glad Micah got an award that he deserved!! Too bad he couldn't bring home the trophy that night.

Sonja called me about an hour ago with news on Wendy's mom. The doctors found three tumors on her brain and are sending her to Rochester tomorrow. Please pray for strength for Wendy, Dale, and Mark. This has to be so hard for them. Also for wisdom for the doctors to know what to do to help Lois. I know how hard it is not to be able to go with and be with your family when someone you love is sent to Rochester. You want to be there knowing what's going on and it's hard to carry on in your daily routine when your heart and mind are somewhere else. The news doesn't sound good but neither did my mom's and look at the miracle God provided in her life.

I called mom to tell her about Lois and to see if she could remember the hotels that were across the street from St. Mary's Hospital (her treatments were at the Rochester Methodist Hospital so I was familiar with the ones near there) but could only remember the name of one across from St.Mary's. Mom couldn't either but I went online and found three right across the street so I passed the info unto Sonja so she could give that to Wendy's dad so he could make a reservation.

Mom also told me that Randy Erickson (this is the dad of Silas-the little boy that died of cancer almost two months ago) was just diagnosed with prostate cancer and is on his way to Rochester. I pray that they've found it early enough that he can have a full recovery. This is surely a lot for one family to deal with!!

I'll be done babysitting Summer on Friday. Hopefully I can start getting to the YMCA on a much more regular basis. I was going today-I didn't have Summer-but it was so cold and Donovan and Samantha were playing so well and so I didn't go. We did have to go out for Donovan's speech and we met Bruce for lunch and picked out curtains and shades for they the family room and the boy's bedroom. Gerrit complains almost every night that the light outside bothers him so it needed to be done.

Tonight we have church and I need to go help Gerrit with his Math homework!! He may have his friend Joseph stay overnight on Friday. Aleah is going to Zoe's birthday sleepover so I guess I'm up for keeping the number of kids in my house at four!

Pinewood Derby Videos

Here are videos of a couple of Gerrit's heats from the Pinewood Derby last night. Enjoy!



This second video below is of a heat that included Gerrit's car, Micah's car (the blue car), and the car that placed second overall. That car, Nolan's car, is the one in the right lane (the video's right). Gerrit was first, Nolan was second, and Micah was third in that heat.

Tuesday's Safe Baby Handling Tips

As before, these are explained in Sunday's Safe Baby Handling Tips.

Pinewood Derby Results

We had a great time at Gerrit's Pinewood Derby race tonight. His car took first place in the race! His car took second place in the best of show voting! Best of show is voted on by the kids in the pack.

Each car races in six heats and Gerrit's car took first in all six. The second place car took first place in all but one heat - the heat that it raced against Gerrit's car. The race was scored by finish place. First place got one point, second place two points, and so on. The car with the lowest overall score gets first with the other places determined by next lowest scores. There was no tie, but if there had been there would have been a race between those cars to break the tie.

The cars numbered and in their positions in the staging area. There was one car that came later to make a total of 26 cars.

The crowd screams in excitement for a heat to begin. The ritual was to make a bunch of noise before the starter would release the cars from the gate.

This photo shows Micah's car in the middle of a race. His is the one in the front. Micah took fourth place overall, so we were definitely very happy about that.

Gerrit's car in a race. His car is the one in front, in the second lane from the picture's left.

Gerrit accepting his second place trophy in best of show.

Gerrit accepting the first place race trophy.

My son posing with both his trophies.

I'll upload videos of a couple of races and maybe post those later tonight or possibly tomorrow.

There was a big mix-up by the Cubmaster (Brian) in awarding the trophies. In looking at the score board we knew (or thought we knew) that Micah was fourth place. When it was announced, though, it was a different boy. Confused, we thought maybe he got third. Nope - that was someone else. Same for second - it wasn't Micah. At that point the older boy who had been doing the scoring came up to talk to Brian. After a couple of minutes, Brian announced he had made a mistake for fourth place and that it was in fact Micah.

Someone spoke up and said he thought the other boy should get to have a fourth place trophy anyway, because it was a mistake and not the boy's fault. I don't have a problem with that. Only, they let that boy keep this trophy and Brian is going to order a trophy for Micah. The boy whose car actually placed has to wait for his trophy. I'll never be against giving a kid an extra trophy for a mistake made by an adult, but the kind of unfortunate part of the whole deal is this boy's car tied for last place. Almost every time they had to push his car across the finish line because it never made it that far down the track. As adults I suppose we see it as not being fair to all the other kids whose cars did so much better in the race.

In my opinion it should have been up to the parents to step up and say something either when the boy's name was announced or after the mistake was found. If their boy's car placed last in every heat there is no logical way it could have been fourth. Or they could have said something to Micah like, "You know, your car really placed fourth - go ahead and take this trophy and we'll wait for ours." Although if I put myself in their place I'm not sure what I would have done.

Anyway, all trophies were awarded including Gerrit's for first place. Brian is talking to the group about something else and some parents came up to say that their boy's car placed second instead of the one Brian announced. He had done it again! Same procedure - the first boy gets to keep the second place trophy and the one placing second has to wait for his to be made.

The award fiasco was but a blip on the night, though. Overall, it was a lot of fun to watch. The kids had a great time and were very tired and ready for bed when we got home.

Monday's Safe Baby Handling Tips

Information on these is at the bottom of Sunday's Safe Baby Handling Tips.

Pinewood Derby Cars Completed

We finished up the two Pinewood Derby cars tonight in time for the big race tomorrow evening. The gold one is Gerrit's and the other belongs to another boy (Micah) in Gerrit's Cub Scout pack. His dad is in Iraq so we helped him out with his car this year.

Micah wanted a car like a top fuel dragster. This is the best I could come up with. It doesn't look too bad. Micah did a good job with the paint and stickers.

For Gerrit's car, he and I were looking online for some ideas for a car design. He saw one with a Star Wars theme similar to this and the decision was made within one-half second. We went off on our own and made it quite different from what we saw online. Looks pretty cool if you ask me.

We are excited for tomorrow night. We hope Gerrit's car does well for his last Pinewood Derby. We also hope Micah's car does very well. I don't think Micah has had much luck in past years. Hopefully we can update later tomorrow night with the results.

Goodnight!

Sunday's Safe Baby Handling Tips

These are from a board book by a David and Kelly Sopp. I've seen a bunch of these on various web sites, so they are obviously making the rounds. The name of the book is "Safe Baby Handling Tips." The authors have a company called Wry Baby - selling baby clothing with funny and/or cute captions/graphics/sayings.

The birthday weekend is officially over!

We successfully held Donovan's birthday at the YMCA this afternoon and everyone (except Noah) that was going to come last week was able to come this week. I think they all had a pretty good time and I know Donovan had a blast. He looked so happy swimming. He was very ready for bed tonight. Besides swimming they ran around on the indoor track too-I don't know why they thought that was so much fun but they did. I also put Aleah to bed earlier than usual again tonight and she was mad at having to go to bed early again and told me she would not go to sleep until nine-I pretty sure she's probably asleep already.

Yesterday Aleah and I got home from the sleepover and buying groceries (the grocery store is not busy at 7:30 a.m.) by eight a.m. We brought doughnuts home for everyone. After we ate breakfast I went to bed for an hour since I maybe slept four hours at the sleepover and then I finished decorating Sydney's cake. We then went over to Barb and Jason's for Sydney's party and we had burgers from Burger Time last night. Aleah would not go back to bed when we got home in the morning (she didn't get anymore sleep then I did) so I had her in bed at eight last night. Gerrit and I started watching the movie National Treasure that I had recorded before Christmas. We're only an hour into it but it's very entertaining.

The sleepover went alright. The girls had a good time-there were about 80-100 Brownie girls, Cadet girl scouts and moms there. The girls were told that once the movie was on (The Princess Diaries) they needed to be quiet and after the movie (about 12:30) they needed to go to sleep. There were about three girls (very close by us) that would not be quiet. Finally about two I think they shut up or were moved. The women in charge got us up at six a.m. so everyone was ready to leave at seven. At least the floor didn't seem as bad as it did in the cabin where we stayed last summer. Aleah is also invited to a sleepover/birthday party at her friend Zoe's next weekend. She's never stayed at someone's house without one of us being there but she'll be fine. They're going to dress up in fancy dresses (thrift store finds) and jewelry and paint their fingernails etc. They'll have a blast. There'll only be four or five of them so that's a nice number.

Bruce and Gerrit are putting the finishing touches on the Pinewood Derby car tonight. Bruce finished Micah's a few hours ago and is finishing Gerrit's now. He's showing Gerrit all the steps. It should be a fun time-it would be kind of funny if Micah's car beats Gerrit's but Gerrit said he wouldn't care that he'd be happy for Micah since he's never placed before and gotten a trophy.

Brian Regan - Foods and Food Labeling

Amazing Grace - Blind Boys of Alabama

The song below is Amazing Grace by the Blind Boys of Alabama, from the album "Spirit of the Century." Unless you've heard this specific song, I can pretty much guarantee you've never heard a version of Amazing Grace like this one. Very unique. I won't say you'll for sure like it, just that it is unique - something totally different.



Yes, the band members are blind. They've been a group for a long time - since 1939 I think their web site says (although some members were added later), and they've done an album or two with Ben Harper.

Working Sick (Mailbox Repair)

I was home from work sick about a week and a half ago (a Tuesday). Had aches, chills, and weakness along with some slight nausea and a bad cough. Early in the morning I looked out the front door and noticed someone had hit our mailbox sometime in the middle of the night and knocked it over. We share a mailbox post with our duplex neighbor, aka our house neighbor.

So, on top of being sick as a dog, I had to go out and take care of the situation. (Our house neighbor isn't the type to do this kind of work.) I investigated and the vehicle did not skid before striking the post and the end of the vehicle striking the post had the driven wheels. In other words, if it was a front wheel drive someone drove forward into it but if it was a rear wheel drive someone backed into it.

We don't really know what happened. If it was a backing, it was probably someone visiting our house neighbor. Otherwise it looks like it was quite possible someone drove into it on purpose to try to knock it over. There have been quite a few houses in the immediate area that have had their wood mailbox posts knocked over within the last few months. Who knows. No one came forward, anyway.

I had a scrap piece of plywood that I have been using on Independence Day, for a fireworks shooting stand. Took that and attached four small blocks to hold the post bottom in place. Cut the bottom of the post off so it was straight and not jagged. Cut 45 deg. angles on several pieces of scrap 2x4s for the post supports. Set the plywood out at the road with another scrap 2x4 below the back side to level it some.

Nancy came out to hold the post while I leveled it and attached the post supports, and then she went back inside. I carried out a couple of 70 lb. bags of sand to hold the contraption down. So far it hasn't moved and the post is very stable. Time will tell. When spring thaw comes I'll have to put a new post in the ground.

This is the post end that I cut off - the part a few inches below the ground where it broke off. It was fairly rotted and I am a little bit surprised it didn't break on its own before this.

After completing this project I really felt a lot worse. I didn't warm up until later that night. I think I probably slept eight hours that day!

Upcoming sleepover

Tomorrow night Aleah and I will be attending a Girl Scout sleepover. I do hope we get some sleep. It starts at seven and ends at seven Saturday morning so it's only 12 hours. I think they'll try to wind things down by eleven or midnight. We have 12 out of 23 girls attending from our troop. I imagine if I would have called some of the parents of the girls that didn't sign up and reminded them again about it there would have been a few more but they have to take some responsibility. I'm certainly not going to call after numerous letters and emails.

I baked Sydney's cake tonight. I'll decorate that tomorrow. Her party is on Saturday and Donovan's will be Sunday so it's a party weekend. Samantha and I stopped at Barb's today and I picked up the edible image Sydney wants on her cake. She cried when we left-she wanted Sami to stay and play longer. They play so well together-partners in crime.

Wendy left a message for me yesterday that nothing had changed with her mom and that she would call me again. I would call her but don't know how to get a hold of her.

People Get Ready

You know, it won't be long before we are subjected to the annual barrage of Vermont Teddy Bear television commercials. This information is provided as a service of the staff at The Dutch Scandies, in order that our visitors may mentally prepare. Please spread the word. Valentine's Day is only 21 days away!

Middle of the week

Tomorrow is already Thursday. Gerrit even commented on how fast the week was going-I told him that the school week was short since they didn't have school Monday then he asked when the next vacation will be-I believe it's President's Day-February 18th.

I didn't have Summer today. Janet still didn't feel well so she stayed home. I got a lot done this morning. I cleaned Samantha's room (the crib can be taken down anytime now-she was climbing in and out of it when I was cleaning her room so it wouldn't keep her in her room now anyway) and did some laundry before speech this morning. I will have Summer tomorrow morning now though even though it was Janet's day off but she's going to work in the morning. I just won't donate plasma this week.

Samantha did not nap this afternoon. She hadn't done that for while. She actually did okay though and didn't have any breakdowns later this afternoon. I thought for sure she'd fall asleep on the way home from church tonight but she didn't. I think she must have fallen asleep within five minutes of when I put her to bed tonight.

Tomorow I have to bake Sydney's birthday cake and get some Girl Scout stuff ready to mail and I have to put things that are in the office back into the storage room-that will take quite awhile-especially since the storage room is already full of things that don't belong in there!

Happy Birthday, Doug!

Well, today is the 39th birthday of my younger brother, Doug. Doug lives near Mitchell, SD and teaches vocal music at a school in the area. He has taught at several schools in South Dakota and has been very successful at each one. Happy Birthday Douglas Wade.

Here is Doug with his cake from his 13th birthday in 1982. I could've figured out the year with the math but it was easy based on the photo at the bottom.

Doug goofing around in the snow in 1989. Most likely we've just come from the barn or are going to the barn.

His college senior recital in 1991. We drove to Aberdeen to attend this event. It was very good.

So, yeah, here is how I easily figured out the year on Doug's 13th birthday photo. This one was on the next page in the album. This is my brother Duane, his wife Betty, and their first son Ryan. (I just about typed "his first wife Betty.") Ryan was born in October of 1981 so it was easy to know the year of the top photo. Dang, you two look like kids! I'm sure we'll think the same thing of ourselves in fourteen years from now when we look at pictures of us with our firstborn. Heck, we almost think that already.

Heath Ledger died

Barb called me earlier today to tell me that Heath Ledger died. He's a 28-year-old actor from Australia. He was a very versatile actor. Early reports sound like it's a suicide by overdose. I wonder what he felt was so bad that he wanted to take his own life-very sad. I really enjoyed him in "The Patriot" with Mel Gibson. I guess he's also going to be the Joker in the new Batman movie this summer-it's finished filming.

Summer was here today and didn't seem to feel good. Janet and Chris came to get here early since Janet also didn't feel well. There wasn't Moms In Touch today but I wasn't going anyway so I'm glad I didn't miss anything. Donovan wanted to go to school this morning and did okay.

Tomorrow Donovan has speech and we have church at night.

A day off from school

The kids didn't have school today because of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. We didn't do anything special. Donovan had a relapse and doesn't feel good. He's not throwing up but his stomach hurts and he has diarrhea. He missed speech today. Bruce doesn't feel so good either and I've had a few symptoms but not bad. Aleah did have dance practice tonight.

Summer was quite fussy today. She has a checkup on Wednesday so she'll get her ear checked there in case the antibiotics didn't clear up her infection. I have Summer every weekday this week except Thursday.

Loren called me this afternoon to tell me that he had to bring Kelly to the ER today. She had slipped in the shower and hit her head. The tests they were going to do would have taken awhile and since she was starting to feel better she went to work and I guess she was going to have the tests done tonight.

Sonja emailed that Wendy's mom is still holding her own and she did say her own name yesterday and told the nurse no to something so that's promising.