Abandoning Our Houseguests

About a month ago, we spent the night with our friends Jeff and Janelle in Harwood, ND (remember?). They had to get to church the following morning but didn't want to rush us out of their home--so they left when they needed to, leaving us behind in their house! Well, first we all ate breakfast together; but then we bid their family adieu, took our showers and dressed, packed up, locked up their house, and were gone by the time they returned.

Fast-forward to the present. Yesterday Jeff and Janelle and their family arrived in Dickinson for a few hours of visiting with us in the afternoon before they headed to Medora to visit Janelle's parents (who are volunteering there this week) and to see the Medora musical last night. They returned afterward and spent last night with us. (Something similar happened last summer, too. Recall this?)

However, this morning we had to leave [keep your eye on Pensive? No, Just Thinking in the next few days to find out why we had to leave this morning] and didn't want to rush them out of our home--so we left when we needed to, leaving them behind in our house! Well, first we all ate breakfast together; but then we bid their family adieu and drove off, leaving them behind to take their showers, get dressed, pack up, lock up our house, and hit the road.

But first, we needed to take photographs (it's the Moberg way). Here are all the kids acting silly:

Jordan, Megan, Hillary, Abigail, Jaden, Suzanna, and Austen (if it's not a blonde girl, it's one of Jeff and Janelle's)

Italian Supper Courtesy of Suzanna!

Faithful Reader, I already told you that Suzanna, our 11-year-old daughter, asked us several days ago if she could prepare this evening's supper by herself. She found the recipes that she wanted to make, and I took her grocery shopping a couple days ago. She made one of the items yesterday afternoon (a salad that we thought would taste better after the flavors of the ingredients had time to meld) and the rest this afternoon. Susan was on hand to answer the occasional question, get down dishes from hard-to-reach shelves, and get things into and out of the hot oven--but otherwise Suzanna did it all on her own: chopping, grating, mixing, opening, adding, slicing, ladling, pouring, scooping, decorating, serving, and cleaning. She did a terrific job, and it was a fantastic meal. Here are more details from the chef herself:

Here is the cold pasta salad that Suzanna made yesterday. It has whole-grain thin spaghetti and chopped raw vegetables tossed in Italian dressing and topped with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Isn't it attractive? And it's delicious and nutritious, too.

Suzanna baked and sliced two crusty loaves of bread and placed a couple broiled Italian meatballs on top. Here she is ladling marinara sauce over the meatballs (after which she sprinkled mozzarella cheese on top before serving). It tasted terrific!

Sorry--I just had to take a bite of the sandwich before I snapped a photo.

For dessert, Suzanna created "mice cream": a scoop of vanilla ice cream in a single-serving graham crust decorated to look like a mouse. Ears = Thin Mint cookies from the Girl Scouts; eyes and nose = M&M's; whiskers = chocolate jimmies; mouth and tail = Twizzlers

Laura's 90th Birthday

Faithful Reader, surely you recollect my having mentioned the other day that we would be at the nursing home last night to celebrate the upcoming 90th birthday of Susan's grandma Laura. There's a large "social room" across the hall from Laura's room that we use when members of the extended family want to celebrate a birthday with Laura or Elmer (Susan's grandpa) or just gather when Susan's aunt Candy is in town from AZ. So we enjoyed pizza and soda followed by cake and ice cream . . . and, of course, visiting throughout the evening. Here are some highlights:

The birthday song!

Laura and Elmer had 10 children, 3 of whom have passed away (Bruce, Bonnie, and Ginger). Of the 7 remaining, 5 were at the party (from left to right in the back row): Candy, Judy, Roger (Susan's dad), Patty, and Jackie.

Laura and Elmer have 29 grandchildren, 2 of whom were at the party: Kathy (Patty and Buddy's daughter) and Susan (Roger and Sue's daughter).

According to Susan's not-quite-certain calculations, Laura and Elmer have 56 great-grandchildren (and 5 great-great-grandchildren), 3 of whom were at the party: Hillary, Suzanna, and Abigail.

A nice closeup of the birthday girl. Happy 90th birthday on June 12th, Laura!