Four Days in Da Looth

Sunday, June 29, 2008

We had planned to leave for our first trip to Duluth on Monday morning, but, as usual, we were late. Chris had some work to finish up at the office and we had some adventures in packing, so we left around 9 pm. We drove all night and finally pulled into Duluth at 5 in the morning, right as the dawn was beginning.

My first impression of the city was a bit unfavorable, there were a lot of big factories and mills when we first came around the bend, and it looked very “industrial”. Soon we drove past the factories and things looked a little better. The next day Chris went in to work and the kids and I hung out at the pool for a while, and then drove around Superior a bit. That night Chris drove us around town and my first impressions were forgotten. The lake walk is really a fun place, with a bunch of variety shops, restaurants, and a lift bridge that goes up to let the ships pass. We saw one ship go through that was all the way from Asia, and stood under the massive bridge as it came down. There were a lot of tourists there but it wasn’t overcrowded at all.

The next day we drove up the north shore and stopped at the beaches along the way. At times, I felt as if I were back home at the coast in Northern California. Lake Superior is the largest fresh water lake in the world, and it looks a lot like the ocean. We fed some crackers to the seagulls and one of them did it’s business right on Taron’s head. As I was cleaning him off, he said “Maybe the seagull thought I was a potty.” We avoided the birds the rest of the day.

Next we ended up in a little town and stopped by a gift shop/museum where a sweet little old lady welcomed us. Chris had told me about “Minnesota nice”, and we really experienced it with her... but almost too much. A man in front of me was buying a few little trinkets for his kids, and she would pick up each item, discuss it with him and take a good couple of minutes wrapping it carefully. I think it took her 10 minutes to ring up 5 things…I was glad that all I had to buy was a mood ring.

In the evenings we went exploring the neighborhoods with Chris, there are some really nice places in Duluth, we even found a little ski resort with an alpine slide and ski jump right in the middle of town. Many houses come with wooded acreage, which is tempting, but I also like having neighbors, so maybe we can find something in between.

On Thursday, we went to a big wooden maze park like those in Utah, but it was too hot to play very long. The temperatures are weird there, one night when we drove down the hill we checked the car thermometer, and it was about 20 degrees lower at the bottom of the hill down by the lake. We were told that in the winter it is the opposite, and warmer by the lake.

After our park visit, the kids and I met our realtor at a house with an indoor pool, which, of course the kids were all begging to buy. It has 8 acres and a pond which we couldn’t even find through the trees. It was only about 15 minutes away from Chris’s work, but we found out there is no ward out there, just a branch, with no kids, so that is a down side. We are going to keep looking, I don’t know that I really want an indoor pool with the little ones anyways.

We went out to eat at Grandma’s Grill, which is the big thing there, everything is “Grandma’s” this and “Grandma’s” that. They even have a “Grandma’s Marathon”, which I first thought meant you had to be a grandma to run in it, but apparently it is just named after the restaurant.

I think the kids had the most fun swimming in the pool and stopping at the dollar store every day, which you can do pretty much anywhere.

I think Sierra is getting a little antsy to move, just because the weather here scares her. As we were leaving Duluth, the radio came on for a thunderstorm warning and I didn’t see a single flash of lightning…I guess weather is a little less severe there, at least in the summer…

Dad's in the water, Mom's in the dirt...

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Chris got back from scout camp late last night, we were all excited to see him. He had a great time up in the boundary waters and said it is even prettier than Yellowstone. To him, it felt like the tops of the mountains. They caught tons of fish and paddled about 20 miles in their canoes. The first day they had to rescue Brother Lemmon and his son when they became lost, which was a small setback, but nothing major or life threatening. Chris said that after bathing, he got a crazy urge and swam across the border into Canada…thus making him an underwater naked illegal immigrant for a minute or two… :)

Back on the homefront, we had a busy week. We wanted to surprise dad when he got home, so the kids helped me finish the landscaping on the hill. This was not your simple afternoon project, it took laying over 1000 square feet of weed-block paper, hauling 100 big bags of mulch up the hill, trimming a dozen prickly bushes, and pulling hundreds of weeds. If it were flat ground, I don't think it would have been nearly so hard, but trying to maintain a foothold on that thing was no easy task!

Next we pulled out the garden boxes and more weeds (they really do grow like weeds here) and we laid 200 square feet of sod. I have never seen Solei work so hard in her life, she was an awesome helper. Sierra helped entertain the little ones, which was very helpful too.

Back in the house, we all grabbed a toothbrush and scrubbed the grout between the tiles in the kitchen until it shined, which took a good 7 hours… I don’t think we have ever worked so hard together in one week. Unfortunately, the rest of the house has been neglected during these projects, so any visitors would think me to be a very lazy housewife….

The girls went to Splash Landing with the neighbors this week. The other kids were pretty much neglected, I'm afraid, and didn't have any excursions at all other than roaming the yard. Just one of those weeks...

I was just thinking today in church that I am going to really miss our ward, I absolutely adore the members here. Everyone is so friendly and sincere, even the wealthy doctor's wife with the big fancy house by the country club treats the lowliest of members with sincere respect, there are no cliques, gossip, show-offs, or anything of the sort. For example, there is one family that has recently started coming to church and the kids are a bit awkward (one I think may have some sort of handicap), but the young women have totally embraced them and made them feel welcome, I have really been impressed. Apparently they had tried attending other churches and felt rejected. Our ward really is like a big family whose doors are open to everyone... I am hoping it is like that in Duluth too.

The floods are starting to subside here, but sounds like they are moving south to Missouri. The news interviewed a woman in Burlington whose farm was under water from the Mississippi flooding, even though it was 7 miles away from where the river is supposed to be. Crazy!

No tornado warnings this week, thank goodness. Wind is not the best thing when you are laying down weed paper, trust me, I know!

The lightning bugs are out again and the kids have been chasing them every night. Chris said the mosquitoes were horrendous at the boundary waters (I can only imagine why), but there were no lightning bugs there.

I saw a video on YouTube showing surfers on the waves of Lake Superior, it really looked like the ocean. Maybe we will have to take up a new sport this summer…

Weather or Not...

Sunday, June 15, 2008

It has been another crazy weather week. Tornadoes and flooding everywhere in Iowa.

I forgot to write last week about our lake trip 2 weeks ago, that was pretty interesting. It was a beautiful day for boating, but when we got there the parking lot was under water, along with the beach, the outhouses and the boat ramp. We asked around and found out that there was a dock open up the lake by the bridge, so we put the boat in there. On past visits to the bridge, we wondered how people climbed up under the bridge to spray paint messages, but now we realized that it would be pretty easy during a flood, you just had to park your boat under it and stand up…sure enough, all the dates written on the bridge were 2008 and 1993 (which was another big flood year).

So we had some fun swimming and water skiing in the chilly water (Chris’s ankle was still bothering him so he opted out this time), and when we were done we thought we would do some exploring of the flood plain. We had tried going there before but the water was only a few feet deep and we had hit mud. This time, our depth finder told us it was around 30 feet deep, and the flood plain looked bigger than the lake, it was HUGE! And a few days ago we heard that the water was going over the spillway above the parking lot…CRAZY!

I took Chris to Iowa city on Tuesday to catch a ride with Mark up to Duluth, it was his first time to Duluth but he never got to sight-see because the next day they had to come back to Iowa. Someone had gotten stranded in the flood at the Cedar Falls depot and the waters were rising. For the next few days they stayed up late hours working to move things out from the flood.

Tuesday night we had a funny incident, Solei opened the front door and a bird flew in! We spent a few hours trying to get that thing to fly out, and ended up with a house full of bugs because we had the door open so long.

On Wednesday Solei left for girls camp and then we got the carpets cleaned, it had been a year so they were getting pretty dingy. Hopefully our next house won’t have such light carpet.

We had 2 realtors come to the house on Thursday but we haven’t picked one yet. I am not looking forward to showing the house, there is still a lot of work to be done. The hill is only about 2/3 done so that will probably take another week, and the garden needs major weeding. Things grow so fast here, it is hard to keep up. Here is a photo of part of the hill that I have done, this is just a small corner of it, so far I have used 45 bags of mulch and need probably 25 more. It's a lot of mulch!

Girls camp was semi-cancelled the next day because the weather got bad and on Wednesday night, 4 boy scouts were killed by a tornado in Western Iowa. So the girls here packed up camp and took it to the church in Dubuque. I was scheduled to go up Thursday night but Chris wasn’t able to get home in time, so we had Mark’s daughter come over to babysit. A little while after she got here, we heard there was a tornado watch, which is not as severe as a tornado warning but still I was not too thrilled about leaving. I told the kids to stay in the basement and waited as long as I could and then left for Dubuque (an hour north). After I was about 20 miles out I heard the tornado watch had been upgraded to a warning, so we kept in touch on the phone until it was over. Chris was on his way there but then they closed I-80 due to the fact that it was under water. When we drove it a few days before, the river (or, should I say, lake) was about to bury the road so I wasn’t surprised when they closed it. Anyways, it took him longer to get home because of the detour. I think he probably gave the babysitter a big bonus for hazard pay.

Girls camp was still fun, even though it was indoors and they cut it a day short. Solei talked me into sleeping in the “all-nighter” room (gym) and playing “Apples to Apples” and “Big Buddha”. I finally found a corner around 11:30 and somehow managed to fall asleep. I woke up around 2:30 and saw the silhouettes of 2 girls still awake and saw that one was Sarah LaMere but the other one I wasn’t sure. The next morning I found out that it was Solei, she had been eating candy all night and was on such a sugar rush. The theme this year was “sweet is the work” and there were piles of candy everywhere!

The next day we all piled in the cars and drove to the arboretum for hikes, I went with the 5 mile group but our pedometer wasn't working too well and I don't think we were too accurate on our mileage.

We got home Friday afternoon, Chris had taken the kids to his office with him, where they met some of Chris’s coworkers and watched videos while he got his work done. Sierra said they drove by some houses that were under water.

Yesterday Chris left for scout camp in the boundary waters, which is way up north by Canada. His pack was so heavy I think it weighed more than him. They stayed in Duluth last night and went to church there today, but now they will be out of contact until next Saturday. I hope he can stop worrying about work long enough to enjoy himself up there. I think he regrets making this commitment, he just has so much work right now. I hope he can let go and relax, fishing isn’t meant to be stressful.

We took a detour on the way home from church today to see the flooding downtown. It is not as bad as other cities but a lot of stuff is under water still. The baseball stadium is surrounded but the inside is dry, and they have built a temporary walkway across the water to get in. It is strange seeing things sticking up out of the water that normally are on dry ground.

Sierra has been really freaked out about all the weather lately, every time it starts to rain, she wants me to get on the internet and check for tornado warnings. She was really upset the night I had to leave for girls camp, poor thing. She is always the first one downstairs if the sirens go off, and has shed a lot of tears worrying about these storms. Hopefully after we move she can leave all this behind, but she says in Minnesota you have to worry about freezing instead of tornadoes. I guess you can't get away from everything! :)

Not much else is going on, Ella is starting to potty train now. Taron and Caden are just the best of buddies and do everything together so I don’t have to entertain them much. The house is a mess because I wasn’t feeling well yesterday so it’s a good thing we haven’t started showing the house yet. So much for clean carpets!

Keeping Busy

This has been an eventful few weeks.

Chris got a promotion for Zone Vice President in Minnesota. He will cover a large area, it expands into 5 different states. That means he will have to travel a little still, but not nearly as much as he has been lately.

Although the kids are not too thrilled, I am excited to move to the Duluth area, everyone who has been there says there are tons of outdoor activities (like an alpine slide, ski resort and lakes). I saw a video on YouTube where people were sliding down a natural waterfall and jumping off cliffs into a pond of water, I used to dream of sliding down one of those when I was a kid.

It is really cold in the winter there but someone told me today that it is a dryer cold and people still go outside, unlike here where everyone hides all winter.

Chris and I went to the Nauvoo Temple yesterday. We were going to take the whole family and trade off, but the air conditioner in our car is gone and we weren’t about to spend $1,000 to fix it. Since Nauvoo would be horrendous in the humid heat, and we don’t all fit in the other car, we were sort of at a loss as to what to do. Something always seems to happen to stop us from going to the temple, but we decided we weren’t about to let it get the best of us this time… so I called and made an appointment for a 3:00 session and told Chris I would take his car and he could stay home with the kids, or vice versa. He suggested getting a sitter…something we had never done here because the going rate is $5 an hour…but I figured it was worth it since we had been blessed with his new promotion.

I called Morgan Barker from Young Women’s and she was able to come at 1:00 so I called the temple to reschedule and added Chris to the schedule too. When she got here, I realized my recommend wasn’t in my wallet so I started the frantic search of the whole house…now I was thinking, what else could go wrong?

Suddenly, I heard a siren wailing outside…it was a tornado warning… so we all went down in the basement and I watched the news. The tornado warning finally ended at 2:00, so determined not to give up, Chris tells me to call the temple and see if they can give me a pass. After a few calls they give me the go-ahead, so I reschedule for 6:00 which is the last session. I told Chris on the way, if anything happens now, there is no more rescheduling… this is our last chance to get in. Fortunately we were blessed and nothing else went wrong and we had a wonderful session with only 3 other couples in the room. I was so glad to finally get there after all the twists and turns of the day.

A few Sundays ago, a tornado destroyed Wes’s house (he is Chris’s friend from work), so Chris went to help him sift through the rubble. He asked Wes what it was like when it hit and he said there is nothing on earth he could even compare it to. Fortunately they are OK and insurance covers them. Chris said it was sort of ironic that Wes had been saying earlier that he liked the storms here… I’m sure that is not the case now. They are moving back to Utah.

On Memorial Day we finally broke down and bought a grill after 13 years of marriage. Chris did really well for his first time grilling and we finally have a way to get rid of all the Omaha steaks in our freezer. Kina even enjoyed one that I dropped on the deck…

Solei’s birthday was the last day of school. Summer has officially begun! They are already starting to get bored and are constantly begging to get on the computer or play video games. Their swim lessons ended last week and I don’t want to enroll them in anything else until we move so they will be bored for a while.

Solei had a sleepover with Lindsay, Amanda, Brianna, and Olivia for her birthday. We rented movies and had pizza and cake, just the standard birthday stuff. We got her just one present this year; an ipod (she never puts it down but at least she doesn’t steal mine now).

I went out to lunch with some friends because Cindy Hardman is moving and she wanted one last “hurrah” with everyone. We went to Granite City (yum!) but Cindy didn’t show up until everyone was done eating. I had to leave so I just said a quick goodbye. Our ward has really had a lot of moves lately, and now it is our turn.

Our dishwasher hose had sprung a leak so we turned off the valve and I was pouring hot water in it for each cycle to wash the dishes, which was kind of a pain in the neck. I finally just put a bowl underneath where the leak is and that was easier. A few days ago I bought a new hose and Chris, being the good husband/handyman he is, put it on for me and we are leak free! Yay!.

Chris has been traveling a lot still but was home a few nights this week. He went to the big Hy-Vee golf tournament in Des Moines this week and they gave him a nice golf club.

We had the missionaries over for dinner again, Sister Bradley can’t eat hardly anything except certain meats and vegetables because of her allergies so it is a little tricky finding something to cook. No grains, carrots, corn, sugar, fruit, etc….I made a roast and green beans.

Ella is working on potty training but I haven’t made a huge effort since things have been so crazy lately. She can climb out of her crib now so I think it is time to upgrade to a bed when we move.

There is another tornado warning as I am writing this, it is not to us yet though. They seem to be every day lately.

Solei is in Young Womens now, I got to welcome her in with a spotlight basket. I always write a few verses to the tune of “my favorite things” from the Sound of Music and give the girls a bag of related items for their birthday. Hers was:

Mac-n-cheese, pizza and candy that’s sour,
Math Bees and art classes brighten the hour,
Wakeboarding, snowskiing, reading books too;
These are some things that Solei likes to do…..

Playing the Playstation, Spongebob’s her favorite
When there’s a challenge she’s right there to brave it
She can make creatures from origami
But her dream’s still paleontology.

When she has to
Tend her siblings
Or do chores for dad…
She just needs to look in this bag full of things
And then life won’t seem…
Soooo bad.

We went swimming at the YMCA this week and the kids showed off their new swimming skills. Ella was loving the big slide, every time we got to the bottom she would make a bee-line right back up the stairs. Taron went down once but was not as anxious to try it again until they closed it, and then he REALLY wanted to go down. That’s how it is with some of us; we don’t want something until we can’t have it. J

I was blessed with a flat tire this week…which sounds funny but I felt blessed because it happened in the Wal-Mart parking lot, and they have a tire shop right there. My tires were pretty bald and I was lucky it wasn’t out in the middle of nowhere like on the way to Nauvoo. The down side is it cost $500 for new tires. The next day I spent over $300 for rhe alignment and AC check and found out the AC would be another $1000 to fix…so Chris wants trade it in for a Suburban. It seems like every time we get a raise or bonus something happens to eat it up.

Well, there go the Tornado sirens, I better go.