Home Again…home again… and a quick update as I still have to accomplish the million other things of life.

We had a wonderful weekend in Grand Marais and a productive one also. There were a few hours on Saturday when I left some mournful messages for Tony and Mary… we were never going to rise above the sea of boxes and newspaper… but we did and when we left the house Sunday afternoon, the house looked so cozy.

We picked Melinda up in Duluth.. these towns and their city planners… NOT…

geez a wheese… not so easy to find the airport even with the little printed instructions handed out by the Holiday Gas Mart at the intersection of London Road (aka Hwy 61) and I-35 . My personal thought is they print these directions as a joke… after the stranger leaves they laugh themselves silly speculating just how lost the person will get. But we did see alot of Duluth that night and we did connect with Melinda. We then went shopping at the 24-hour Wal-Mart. (which we had been assured was “next-door” to the airport…  ) We bought some darling moosy things for the house and a plethora of storage containers.

Then a very long, slow, careful drive back to Grand Marais… Melinda did the real work here, as we counted over 20+ deer on the road. Emily had wanted to beat Tony’s record of over 52 deer on the same trek last month, but I was grateful we didn’t. Melinda and I speculated as the deer would pop up their little heads, they pondered if they felt like hopping in front of our car to give us a good scare or not.

The next day we began with dreadful pancakes prepared by me, (no proper utensils unpacked at that point)… and some hot coffee from the Java Moose Espresso Cafe.

where Melinda touched a stuffed baby bear and totally grossed out Katherine. Jenni didn’t want much to do with it either. Melinda and I received some clever inspiration for a table which I am sure you will see in the future on this blog. 

Mom went for a walk around Grand Marais with the little girls. I love these munchkins. Mom stumbled and Emily came running home for us, while Hannah continued to walk with her Grandma. I momentarily freaked out when Emily returned sans Grandma and we went on a car drive to find her. Right around the corner we found them, and when I asked how she was… she tsked tsked me for worrying.

I prepared Melinda’s take on Rachel Rays’ soup for lunch while Hannah custom-made sandwiches. Melinda, Jenni, Katherine, and Emily worked in the garage  unpacking and organizing. I sorted and ordered things indoors, and left pitiful messages for people. Hannah announced she would stay out of everyone’s way.

And then we were basically done… we played a Movies Trivia Game on DVD…

this game ended in a tie through a clever plot twist of our own… and then we went out to eat at My Sister’s Place, where we played a few rounds of Hangman on placemats with crayons provided by the restaurant. Jenni can be quite the trickster. She just cracks us up sometimes with her sense of humor. At dinner, playing the game, and laughing we missed Mary so much. When we got home, Melinda and Emily hung some photos, and we all talked to Mary on the phone.

The drive to Duluth the next day was marked by sing-alongs, card games, and a few very silly verses to “Down by the Bay.” We threw Melinda out of the car at the airport just on time for her plane amidst lots of tears. The airport is small enough to park right out front. I went in with Melinda to get her some cash, and we hugged and cried. I went back to the car to find Emily wrapped up in Katherine’s arms, where she stayed even after we arrived at Wal-Mart for one last round of shopping.

On the drive home from Grand Marais, Katherine and I brainstormed her paper on The Portrait of Dorian Gray. That chickie is one smart chiquita. And she asked her mother for input, so  sweet also.

On the home front, Tony had packed many boxes in preparation for our upcoming move. Also Amanda’s team won…and she scored the winning goal.  

It was an exciting, hard-fought contest with both teams exchanging goals, until late in the third period when Amanda’s team, the Maroons, gave up a goal and found themselves trailing 3-2 With about 3 minutes left, the Maroons tied the game on a great effort by Amanda’s teammate AJ.  With the clock ticking down, and less than a minute to go, the other team suddenly had a break away… with two players coming in alone on Amanda’s goaltender.  Suddenly, out of nowhere (well, actually I saw her coming as I tend to watch her even when she does not have the puck) Amanda  appeared, having caught up to the two, even though she was not playing defence, and broke up the play  with a strong back-check.  She forwarded the puck up the boards to her linemate and, as he broke in alone towards the goal, she followed hard, going straight to the net…  and was rewarded with a juicy rebound which she promptly shoveled in for the game-winning goal.   Good job Amanda, for being in the right place (at both ends of the ice) and for never giving up

The previous play by play is courtesy of Tony, you can’t imagine that I could write so many technical hockey terms in one paragraph by myself…

Katherine wrote a blog post this morning, but before she left for school said she had not published it as she thought she went crazy with the font effects and thought I should “proof” it.  Haha… I changed not a thing… you have get up pretty early in the AM to out font effect me.

So onto chores, and some more writing… I leave you with three photos… the lights Emily strung on the deck, the view from the kitchen window, and the precious night light that the sisters picked out

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So today kids are back in school, Melinda is back at work, and I am writing again, my mom made a plate of pesto for me…(yep she is cooking ) and I am preparing for holidays and moving. And oh it is snowing … so all in all,

I am blessed… the girls are so mushy and we are feeling a bittersweet joy at missing each other yet again, but I realized once again this weekend, these girls are turning out pretty much the way I dreamt/ hoped/prayed… hard-working, family first, devoted to each other, silly, flying with Xtreme emotions, creative, they all have an instinct for making a home (even the teeny ones), a desire to create beauty, and

I really missed my dad… who would have been so pleased with the weekend. As my mom  reflected, he always was looking for ways to enrich our lives and to point our eyes towards beauty.  Blessed, really blessed, that I am…and my cup runneth over with love, memories, and emoticons.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 13th, 2006 at 1:12 pm and is filed under Family Life, Food, Grand Marais, Hockey, Our glorious God, United States. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.