Back from the Midwest

Our mostly-annual Midwest road trip came early this summer. Eric's grandfather died on Palm Sunday and the memorial service was held at the end of May in Madison, WI. We left the minute Eric's semester ended (I picked him up at the curb outside his office with a loaded car) and spent ten days away arriving back home very late the night before an all-day meeting Eric had to attend. The timing definitely meant that we spent far less time in St. Paul that we would have liked but given how much we have going on this summer, a shorter trip was probably in order anyway and this forced us to do it.

Eric mostly grew up in Madison so he is always happy for a reason to spend some time there. The memorial service was lovely. Grandpa was very popular and had many old friends in Madison. He was also a veteran of World War II and the military "presentation of colors" at the end was very moving.

I think the highlight of the whole trip might have been the family reunion that evening. Eric's Great-Uncle Ted hosted the entire extended family at his house for the evening. The Iltae are a very musical bunch and Ted's two sons brought out their instruments and entertained us all with song after song after song. I was amazed at the memory these guys had. There was lots of jamming, too. Joseph and Margaret both wanted in on the action with the mandolin:

Joseph actually had pretty good technique thanks to his violin lessons.

We spent some time tooling around Madison. The kids were excited to see houses where Eric had lived and schools he had gone to. We drove back to St. Paul with Eric's brother Ben Sunday afternoon. We made our traditional pit stop at the Norskie Nook and ate way too much pie. I thought this view of Ben was really fun:

He and William, discussing alternate views on fashion:

All in all, it was a lovely, if short, trip. I hope we can make up for it a bit next summer. We have several very good friends in St. Paul and it is hard to see them only once each year.

Minnesota . . . oops

So we're back on the road. And the fact that I didn't blog--or even take a single picture--during our whole time in Minnesota is no reflection on how nice a time we had there. We saw many old friends over many meals and had a great time catching up with everyone. We saw lots of Grandma Marga and Larry and Uncle Ben. The kids had a great time getting to know Dunkel, the 1-year-old black lab puppy the Tuthills got just after we moved last year. Margaret was especially good with the dog, begging to feed him and take him for walks everyday. By the last day of our visit even William was beginning to warm up to the dog. Unfortunately, we're all a bit under the weather after all this vacation and late nights with friends and family left little time for blogging.

I do have pictures from our last day on the road before we got to the Twin Cities. We made one last Laura Ingalls Wilder pilgrimage to Walnut Grove the setting for On the Banks of Plum Creek. The book doesn't actually feature too prominently in my own Little House literary experience but the Little House television series was set entirely in Walnut Grove so it remains a popular tourist destination. The kids were excited to see the actual creek.

But I am sorry to say that Minnesota gets a big fail in the welcome sign department. We've been avoiding interstates when possible and the road we used to enter Minnesota wasn't too concerned about welcoming us.

Today we set off on the road again and it was by far the best travel day we've ever had. It helped that we stopped with friends for lunch and so had a nice long break and some nourishing food. It then helped that we got some ice cream for an afternoon snack. Margaret never finishes her ice cream no matter how little we give her and she was kind enough to give William the rest which we didn't notice until after he'd smeared it all over his face and stuck the ice cream cup on his foot.

Good times. The kids all laughed together for a few hours and then all three of them fell asleep. I think today was the one of the only times they've ever all slept at once in the car and it was certainly a first for this trip. Then I fell asleep. It's amazing how fast a trip goes when we all nap.

We're now relaxing in Sturgeon Bay, WI for a day or so before pushing on towards home.

This and that . . .

What we do for fun on the fifth of April here in Minnesota:



You might think that building snowmen would be boring after five straight months of winter but the rest of the winter was so cold that the snow would never pack into balls. The kids put this together (with some help, I gather) while I made breakfast this morning. Then they knocked him down. And he'll probably be gone in a day or two. The extended forecast is starting to look up later this week and I'm hoping that we will finally have real spring. It's been sort of fun to note that it is almost always twenty to thirty degrees warmer in the city we're moving to than it is here.

And speaking of moving, I was trying to take some pictures of William's smiles while holding him the other day (those pictures to follow . . .) and accidentally caught this shot into our dining room.

I know I never got around to posting pictures of our house and I wish I had because it really is beautiful. I thought this one really captured it. Our lovely old house with all the built in glass-front cupboards and dark woodwork is one thing I will definitely miss about Minnesota. I think I'm posting this picture more for my benefit :)

Finally getting settled

I know I've been grossly negligent in the blog department of late and I apologize for that. We moved into our own apartment just over a month ago and it has taken an astonishingly long time to get settled. Moving just gets worse every time we do it. Our apartment is lovely and is almost photo-worthy. I will do my best to post some pictures soon but computer time is very limited these days. The kids don't have much patience for me clicking away at a keyboard and there is a lot to accomplish during Margaret's one nap each day.

We are enjoying our life here in Minnesota. Eric's job is going well. He works on Saturdays and takes a day off during the week. Yesterday was his day off and the whole family went to the Minnesota State Fair. I've heard stories about this fair for years and Eric and his mom have been talking it up for Joseph ever since we arrived in July. It's quite an institution, known as the "Great Minnesota Get-Together" and I think it is one of the biggest state fairs in the country. It's huge. It's also expensive so we limited our fair intake to one morning and it was hard to fit in everything.

Joseph had three goals for the fair: see the animals, ride the Ferris Wheel, get something "on a stick."

We hit the animals first. There were many barns holding livestock but we'd been told that a litter of piglets had been born that morning so we went to the "Miracle of Birth" barn. Quite a show. Lambs and piglets were being born while we were there but we couldn't get close enough to see very well. We stuck to the perimeter and the kids got to pet a baby lamb, a piglet, a calf, and a turkey chick.


We stopped by the Midway because Joseph wanted to watch some "scary rides." There were definitely some scary ones. The Ferris Wheel was the only thing I would have considered letting Joseph ride but we had serious doubts that he'd enjoy swinging in a little bucket really high in the air. And the cost of rides has really gone up since I was a kid so we settled for just watching.

As for food on a stick . . . nothing prepared me for this peculiar State Fair phenomenon. You can get anything on a stick at the Fair: corn dogs, pickles, cheese, fruit, deep-fried candy bars, kebabs. Our parish even started a new initiative of "Theology on a Stick" as a take-off of the hugely successful Theology on Tap programs around the country. Joseph really wanted to try something on a stick and here he is . . .


It's alligator. That's right. "Gator-on-a-Stick." I did try a bite and it was pretty tasty--Joseph is enjoying it in sausage form. I actually had my first appointment with my new midwife shortly after we got back from the Fair and she informed that alligator meat has one of the highest protein counts of any food there is. I guess I should have had some for lunch, too.

We made it . . .

I should have gotten around to a short post earlier than this but we did, in fact, make it to Minnesota.

Last Monday some very wonderful friends came and helped us load all of our belongings into a POD--a portable storage device. The POD was shipped separately to Minnesota and will sit in storage here until we have a place to live at which time the POD guy will bring all our stuff right to our driveway. It's a great way to move and I highly recommend it.

We did, however, make some fatal errors in this move. We knew that we would be separated from our POD for as long as a month but I was not very organized about packing and did not pack for the road trip and our month at Grandma's before our friends arrived to load the POD. Not having that stuff out of the way paralyzed me into a state of indecision about a lof of the odds and ends in our apartment so a whole lot wasn't packed on moving day. And the only person who knew what should go in the car rather than the POD was me and I only knew in my head--I didn't have it written down or anything. Oh, and I had the flu or something. I was incredibly sick and remained sick for the entire road trip. And I'm pregnant. Sorry if you're hearing that for the first time but we ran out of time for personal phone calls.

Our friends were incredibly patient and understanding and loaded the POD for us including such items as: Eric's wallet, the checkbook, my maternity clothes, the kids' toothbrushes, Joseph's pajamas, the cable I need to get pictures from my camera to this blog. You get the picture. I don't at all blame our friends. Its 100% my fault that these things didn't make it to Minnesota. But it made for a stressful start to the trip.

We had a rainy, but picturesque drive through the mountains the first afternoon on the road and we stayed the night in the first hotel over the Ohio River. The next day we set out for Madison, WI and spent hour after hour driving through farm after farm. We'd been sad to leave DC and I was miserably sick and the morning was not at all fun. The kids and I got a good afternoon nap and then Eric got some friend Walleye for dinner in Gary, IN. By the time we hit Chicago we were all feeling somewhat human again and feeling like we were withing strking distance of what will be home for the next year. We hope to visit Chicago a bit. The kids were asleep by the time we hit Wisconsin and the final leg of the trip was made more pleasant by a stop at Culver's for frozen custard--Eric's first attempt at turning me into a Midwesterner.

We spent two nights in Madison hosted by Eric's grandfather. He's living in a very lovely retirement community/assisted living/nursing facility where he has his own apartment and he put us up in one of the guest suites. We visited him, visited some other family members, bought me some clothes, and tooled around Madison a bit. Eric lived in Madison until he was fifteen so there was lots to remember. The kids had a really great time visiting with the older generation of Iltis/Dobbs family. Margaret was not at all shy and took to everyone really quickly. She calls Grandpa, "Frapup."

Thursday we set out for St. Paul and discovered that the midwest flooding had been farther north than we'd realized. Field after field was underwater though the freeway was passable all the way through. We arrived at Eric's mom's house in time for dinner and we were very glad to have the trip behind us.

We're staying in the Tuthill basement for now and being well-cared for here. Lots of good food and help with the kids. Eric started work yesterday and is feeling good about his new job. I'm getting to know St. Paul in a more intentional way. We have an appointment to see a house on Friday that seems like a really great place so we hope to have our housing finalized by the end of the week as well.

I have a few pictures but I'll need to consult with the resident techie here to see if there is a way to get them off my camera, so stay tuned.