Time with the Grandparents

Susan has a two-day workshop at school today and tomorrow, and I have to be at work, of course, so we asked my dad and stepmom if they would like to come for a visit and watch the girls during the day today and tomorrow. They arrived yesterday afternoon and parked their RV at Camp on the Heart before coming over to our house for a supper of grilled Oregon salmon (thank you, Cathy and Kathy!), cucumber salad, beets (both the cukes and beets were from a local farmers' market), and couscous. Their dog, Bandy, nearly goes insane when she comes for a visit, so excited she is to see us all (probably especially the girls, who love to play with her, run with her, and take her for walks). Bandy discovered our backyard neighbors' dog, Maggie, last night, and the two of them almost clawed through the wooden fence to see one another . . . and all that barking? Oy vey.

I'll find out this evening how the day went with Grandpa and Grandma watching the girls. We might have to take those two home early and tuck them into bed with Bandy, depending on how tuckered out our daughters have made them! Faithful readers, I'll keep you posted.

(But isn't it great to be so near relatives who can do this kind of thing? And to have relatives who are willing to do this kind of thing? We love it here.)

Famous Fruit of My Loins (and a Sprocket Story)

Yesterday morning Abigail and Hillary went outside to play and came inside bound for glory.

The weather was so beautiful that they were itchin' to get outside, and they bundled up to go play in the piles of melting snow. Two neighborhood friends joined them, and soon they were making a snowman in the next-door neighbor's front yard. Their friend who lives there has a book, My Friendly Snowman, that tells a story about a snowman as readers build their own, so that was their activity (yes, combining reading with playing outdoors--leave it to our daughters).

A while later, the doorbell rang. It was Hillary, wanting to tell me about the newspaper reporter. "The newspaper reporter?!" I asked. It seems that someone from The Dickinson Press had set out to take some photos for the next day's edition, hoping to find some children out playing in the snow. Her first find: our kids and their snowman project. So she took their photos, got their names and an explanation of what they were doing, and told them to watch the newspaper the next day.

This morning, there was a photo of the four kids, the book, and the emerging snowman with this caption: "Dickinson friends Jordanne McNeilly, Abigail Moberg, Madison Hughes, and Hilary [sic] Moberg make their snowman 'Frosty' after reading the storybook titled 'My Friendly Snowman' as a President's Day activity on Tuesday [sic]." They're famous (albeit misspelled)!

We've been in Dickinson about six months, and already our kids have been in the newspaper twice and on the TV news once. (Read about the previous brushes with celebrity here.) Can Hollywood be far away?


And Another Thing:

If you ever need a residential garage door opener repaired or installed, call Midwest Doors of Dickinson. Yesterday the sprocket that pulls the chain on one of our garage door opener motors snapped off. I looked up the brand on the Internet and found the local dealer: Midwest Doors. I phoned them this afternoon, and they said they could come out today but would phone me first to arrange a time for me to meet them. Susan phoned me a bit later, saying she had returned home to find them at our house repairing the problem rather than installing a new one (as I feared they would have to do). In a blink of an eye, they were gone, having left us with a working garage door opener, not having bothered me to come home from work, and not having demanded payment or left a bill. (I assume one will come in the mail.) I love Dickinson.