Minnesohhhta

We're in Minnesota for a few days of vacation. Our "guys", Wich and Sho (international students living with us while they study ESL at WESLI in Madison) came with us for the weekend. I think, I hope, they had a good time up here. We did the State Fair... I love the Minnesota State Fair. We spent six hours walking the Fairgrounds: viewing the 10-day-old piglets and the biggest pig in the state, petting the goats, sheep, and the alpacas, eating cheese curds, pronto pups, milkshakes from the dairy barn, and Tom Thumb mini-donuts, buying from vendors giving a schpeel at various booths, taking in the sights and sounds of the Minnesota State Fair. Cell phones are a wonder too, aren't they? Twice we were in communication with friends/family who we knew would also be at the Fair, to say, "What barn are you in? We'll be right there..." Fun. Gotta love technology at the Fairgrounds.

Sunday morning Sho went to church with us at Bethlehem, and sometime I need to blog about that experience-I sat through the service thinking of things through his eyes and mind.. It was his first time at a Christian church.

Sunday afternoon the guys went tubing at Camp Hansen! Nancy is Joan (my mother-in-law)'s cousin. Nancy has a small speedboat, a place on Lake Johanna.. and we had a blast! After the first ride around the lake with 5 humans and two dogs-both dogs named Abby-Nancy said we needed to lose some humans in order to pull a tube. The boat was too weighted down. So then I "spotted", which means I basically just watched the tubers, making sure they were ok, while I also held my camera, trying to take both video and still shots of Sho and Wich tubing. When Wich was tubing, our Abby was in the boat, and very concerned about Wich out in the water, so I also had to hold onto her the whole time, keeping her from going to the edge of the boat. While Wich tubed, Sho and Jim kayaked. And while Sho tubed, Jim kayaked.. Wich needed to rest after tubing! Joan and Dan joined us, bringing goodies and pop to enjoy, before Nancy took the guys out to each have a turn at driving the boat. Thanks, Nancy. It was such a fun afternoon for all of us.

Sunday night we went to Ted and Marilyn's for coffee and dessert. (Jim's Uncle and Aunt). Sho and Wich got a complete meet-and-greet weekend! Uncle Ted also gave the guys a tour of the senior residence they live in. We had the tour last year, and I love it there. I'm almost ready to move in! Coffee and dessert were of course excellent, but conversation was also good, and I always love being with family and friends.

This morning the guys got up early, and Jim, Wich, Sho and I went to Al's for breakfast. Al's is an experience. Some prefer dining establishments which impress health inspectors more.. some of us love Al's. Al's has been around for over 50 years, in Dinkytown by the University of Minnesota. The counter from which we eat, the plates, silverware, coffee mugs... these are all clean. But look up and you'll see dust hanging from the lights, torn walls, and grease just about everywhere. But it's worth it. They have the best pancakes- Wally Blues, Walnut and Blueberry pancakes. This morning Al's did not disappoint. We had to wait for a few minutes for seats.. but only a few minutes. Our favorite server wasn't there, but the guy who served was good and funny and very Al's-y. Doug, one of the Co-Owners, was cooking.. yelling at the wait staff (in a friendly way), the kitchen staff yelled out at Doug..the pancakes were to die for, and the staff was fun and funny.

After Al's, we had a few minutes before needing to drop the guys off at the Greyhound station, so we went downtown Minneapolis for some pictures-along a stone arch bridge, in the old mill ruins district, picture of the Mississippi... and the city behind.

All in all, a good weekend with the guys... in Minnesota.

More Summer Pics

Pictures from a few weeks ago, when we visited my parents at Green Lake, and visited Jim's family in Minnesota (and Sue's family happened to be up there at the same time.)


me, my Dad, and my sister Tessa at Green Lake Conference Center









Will (sleeping), Robbie, Abby (dog), Savannah (dog), Hannah and Chris








Cathy, Will, Robbie, Sue, Hannah and Chris-in Minnesota









Robbie, Hannah, Jim and Chris

Clergy and Crackerjacks

I've said it before, but now I know it's true: we have the best District Clergy group. I don't want to start any competition, so if you think you have a better one than Wisconsin/Libertyville, IL, go ahead and think that. I'm all for loyalty to one's District Clergy group. For those who don't know, in our denomination-the Covenant- clergy are encouraged to gather for prayer/support/Bible study, etc.. based on geographical regions. Our group was supposed to be part of a larger one in Illinois, but several years ago they began meeting as a smaller, geographically closer group: Wisconsin, and Dwight, from Libertyville, IL. I have no idea what other District Clergy groups do together besides prayer and study, but I love ours.

Last night we went to the Milwaukee Brewers/Colorado Rockies baseball game. Steve from Brat City brought peanuts and crackerjacks to share... thanks, Steve! Though we were spread out in one row, making it difficult to talk to everyone, and hard to get a good photo.. it was fun to be there together. The Brewers won the game... The Polish Sausage won the Sausage race...(I always root for the Brat, though next year I may have to cheer for the new Chorizo, we'll see), my headache disappeared thanks to someone giving me some good meds, and the weather was beautiful. Sitting in our row, we looked out and saw the baseball field.. and in the distance, through the glass wall of Miller Park, we saw part of the Milwaukee skyline, sun tinting the windows and everything.

Great night.. can't wait until next summer's Brewers' game!

Check out Steve's blog to read what he has to say about Game night.

Goings on

I'm tired. Jim's tired. Is anybody not tired?

I finished my infertility article, and sent it for potential publication. We'll see what happens. It was both helpful and extremely painful to write it. But I'm glad I did, regardless of outcome.

We have had lots of company in the past week. Mom, Dad, and Tessa stopped by Saturday afternoon/overnight. I wish we had more time together, but was so grateful they could come to church with us. And I'm so glad they're rickety camper has now made it home to Vermont!

Mark, Fred, and Nikolas dropped in for about half an hour-good to see them.

Dawn, Andrew, and Althea-their 11-month old Chinese daughter-stopped by Sunday night/Monday. It was great to hang with them, meet Althea, and get excited about Chinese adoption.

Wednesday night, three college/grad students-Brenda, Ulrika and Michelle- came over for hot tub and conversation, only we never made it to the hot tub. We laughed, heard stories of camp and CBC Ecuador, saw some pictures, and had a good time.

VBS was fun, tiring, more exciting than I thought it would be. Just when you think, "This really isn't worth it anymore".. we get more kids than we expected. Abby even got to be the "lion" in "Daniel and the Lion's Den" on Tuesday night. What a good pastors' dog! Hopefully VBS at Arbor won't just be a four-evening service, but will extend beyond this week. Next week we'll send notes to the kids who attended...

Had our frozen embryo transfer worked last November, we'd have a newborn right now. Kind of grieving that this week. It doesn't help to hear of newborns-and preprations for newborns- in others' lives.

I've started jogging. Or, as Jim calls it, "Slow-trotting". I actually jog for a block, then walk for a few blocks. Then jog for a block. Only now I've worked up to jogging for two and sometimes even three blocks. Ha. Who'd have ever thought I'd be jogging? I guess I'm desperate, and my Pilates hasn't been as easy to access since we rearranged downstairs. I like this "jogging" attempt, because it's at night when nobody can see me... and I can come home and shower, and go to bed. My fibromyalgia has been affected, no doubt. But for now, it's worth it. We'll see how long I continue.

And, speaking of bed, it's time..Tomorrow I get up early, we're going to the Farmer's Market, then I'll be writing my sermon for much of the day.

Cool, Used and Nostalgic

This past weekend we were in MN -Thursday night through Saturday afternoon-for my Board of Benevolence meeting. Friday morning we got to hang out with Sue (Jim's sister) and family, along with Joan and Dan (Jim's parents). We went on a fun walk by Minnehaha Creek before having a good picnic by a lake. I took a close up picture of a gorgeous flower-simple, but gorgeous. And cool. And today, when I uploaded the pictures to my computer, I noticed this bee flying into the flower! How cool is that!


Today we said goodbye to our car.. it has been starting to go, over the past few weeks, and last week a mechanic basically told us it was too old/had too many miles to add lots of money into it. The very next day, we began the search for our new (used) car, because the mechanic didn't recommend even driving ours very far any more. (In fact just this morning, our car was leaking power steering fluid in our driveway) We had hoped our trusty 1997 Mercury Sable would last another year, but no. We found a used (2003) Mazda mini-van we liked last week, but couldn't test-drive it until today. So today we went to Don Miller Mazda, test drove, then bought this nice, used, Mazda mini-van. Why a mini-van you may ask? We like them. We hope to have a kid... hopefully more than one kid. We will always have a dog as long as we can help it. We need more room than a standard car can provide. Maybe we're stepping out in too much faith, considering our luck in recent years, but hey.. it's worth a shot, right? It was a good deal, fun to buy a car from our friend Roy, and I love Mazda.. Zoom, zoom, zoom...


While waiting for our paperwork to be filled out at Don Miller Mazda, we took two paper bags and emptied out the Sable: papers, coins, pens and pencils, handheld Yahtzee and Sudoku games, Starbucks napkins, cassettes, etc.. Sad... Ok, not that sad, but very nostalgic, to be emptying out the car that has carted us around the country and cities for almost 9 years now. Weird. However, the best find in our stash of treasures? In the glove compartment I found this scrap of paper, in Lori Little's (went to our former church in NJ) handwriting....the paper Lori first gave to me when she told me she was soon going to be my best friend, because she knew someone who knew someone whose dog had just had 13 puppies: Golden Retriever and Black Lab mix...and with that piece of paper we began our life with Abby! As Jim said, when I showed him the find, "That was the best trip we ever took in this car." How true. Abby, you're one of the best things that's happened to us...