Susan is away with a handful of friends on an annual scrapbook outing. They gather at Thumper Pond Resort in Ottertail, MN this weekend each year for a chance to have fun and to spend time together scrapbooking. The hotel feeds them and provides ample space to spread out and be creative and get a lot of pages done. It was snowing and blowing Friday morning when Susan left Dickinson, but she eventually got out of the bad weather and made it to Harwood, ND to see the brand new baby of our dear friends who live there. Her co-scrapbookers picked her up there and took her the rest of the way to Ottertail. We expect her back in Dickinson by late tonight.
In the meantime, I'm a single dad. Friday evening I picked up the girls from daycare (Suzanna and Abigail had the day off from school and so joined Hillary at her regular Friday daycare appointment), and we came home and shoveled the driveway. I turned some refrigerated boiled potatoes and roast beef into fried potatoes topped with chopped meat in beef gravy for supper, and we sampled a lot of the Valentine's Day candy haul for dessert. We had a slumber party in Susan and my bed: all three girls and I slept side by side. "Too hot in the bed!" I wouldn't say it was comfortable--nobody could move her legs or roll over without waking up someone else, and it was like sleeping in a furnace--but it was still fun.
Yesterday we did homework and housework, straightening up rooms and vacuuming after another Dad-created culinary specialty. I fried some onions in cumin, salt, and pepper and fried in them the remainder of the boiled potatoes (yes, I like to use up leftovers). I heated up some leftover chili, added the remains of a jar of black bean and corn salsa, and chopped up and added the last two hot dogs I found in the fridge. I put the hot potatoes on a plate, sprinkled some shredded four-cheese Mexican blend on them, topped that with the chili concoction, and put the rest of the cheese on top. It was quite delicious, and the girls gobbled it up.
I French-braided each girl's hair before we headed over to Susan's aunt and uncle Kathy and Pat's to join the Morey side of her family for supper. Susan's cousins and their new babies were there, so we took photos of the tykes, and then of the tykes being held by the older cousins and second cousins. Kathy had baked buns and served slushburgers/sloppy joes/barbecues (what you call them depends on where you live, but they were delicious). Susan's aunt Jake and cousin Kelli are in town for the weekend from Colorado, so the get-together was for them to be able to see relatives. The two of them plan to come to our house tonight to see Susan and to see the house. Jake saw it before we had started redecorating last fall, and Kelli has never seen it, so we can show off what we've done, and hopefully Susan will have returned from scrapbooking by then.
When we got back home last night, the girls and I had root beer floats using the homemade vanilla ice cream that Susan and the girls made last week. We had another slumber party last night--this time in separate sleeping bags on the floor of the family room downstairs. The little darlings are still asleep, and I'm trying to think of what we can do today that won't undo all we did yesterday to tidy up for our visitors this evening.
In the meantime, I'm a single dad. Friday evening I picked up the girls from daycare (Suzanna and Abigail had the day off from school and so joined Hillary at her regular Friday daycare appointment), and we came home and shoveled the driveway. I turned some refrigerated boiled potatoes and roast beef into fried potatoes topped with chopped meat in beef gravy for supper, and we sampled a lot of the Valentine's Day candy haul for dessert. We had a slumber party in Susan and my bed: all three girls and I slept side by side. "Too hot in the bed!" I wouldn't say it was comfortable--nobody could move her legs or roll over without waking up someone else, and it was like sleeping in a furnace--but it was still fun.
Yesterday we did homework and housework, straightening up rooms and vacuuming after another Dad-created culinary specialty. I fried some onions in cumin, salt, and pepper and fried in them the remainder of the boiled potatoes (yes, I like to use up leftovers). I heated up some leftover chili, added the remains of a jar of black bean and corn salsa, and chopped up and added the last two hot dogs I found in the fridge. I put the hot potatoes on a plate, sprinkled some shredded four-cheese Mexican blend on them, topped that with the chili concoction, and put the rest of the cheese on top. It was quite delicious, and the girls gobbled it up.
I French-braided each girl's hair before we headed over to Susan's aunt and uncle Kathy and Pat's to join the Morey side of her family for supper. Susan's cousins and their new babies were there, so we took photos of the tykes, and then of the tykes being held by the older cousins and second cousins. Kathy had baked buns and served slushburgers/sloppy joes/barbecues (what you call them depends on where you live, but they were delicious). Susan's aunt Jake and cousin Kelli are in town for the weekend from Colorado, so the get-together was for them to be able to see relatives. The two of them plan to come to our house tonight to see Susan and to see the house. Jake saw it before we had started redecorating last fall, and Kelli has never seen it, so we can show off what we've done, and hopefully Susan will have returned from scrapbooking by then.
When we got back home last night, the girls and I had root beer floats using the homemade vanilla ice cream that Susan and the girls made last week. We had another slumber party last night--this time in separate sleeping bags on the floor of the family room downstairs. The little darlings are still asleep, and I'm trying to think of what we can do today that won't undo all we did yesterday to tidy up for our visitors this evening.
Cadence, Kaden, and Matthew
Kaden, Abigail, Hillary, Cadence, Peyton, Kyle, Suzanna, Matthew, and Braxton
Jake and Kelli
Hillary, Kelli, Abigail, Suzanna, and Jake
It looks like you guys had a great weekend! Everyone here wishes they could have been there. I showed the pictures to everybody though and they enjoyed them a lot. That's quite a growing bunch of great-grandchildren! Yesterday we said farewell to Mary and sent her on her way to Ghana. She made it to Amsterdam as of this morning and at this time should be making herself at home in Ghana. Now she just has to survive 3.5 months there. Abigail, Suzanna and Hillary - you three are looking so grown up!!
ReplyDelete- Anna
Ok, so I know we live in Mandan, but why are we always kept out of the loop? How did Susan's weekend go? Did she get alot of pages done?
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