Home, Sweet Home

Here is the kitchen in our new place. :)

We have a new telephone number

We got the house line installed at our new St. Paul address yesterday. Seems the FCC won't let us keep our old number, at least that's what the lady at Comcast said. And you have to believe the cable company, right?
We're not putting the number on the internet, so just use the old cellphone numbers for now. If you've been calling the old number and no one is home, well, sorry, somebody is home but we're just cleaning up. The move is going good, movers (Four Men and a Truck) came Thursday, but we're still stiff and sore from all the activity.
We're sitting in the middle of a big mess right now, but at least it's at our new address.

Moving week

"Toolin' down the road, tryin' to lighten our load," Jennifer takes some breakables in her SUV down to our new digs.

Neighbors drop by to say they are going to miss such
wonderful neighbors, but secretly. . .

Our daughter Jennifer helped her Mom organize her new kitchen yesterday. Movers come Thursday for the big stuff, the little items and fragile bric-brac we've reserved for ourselves. Passed our inspection and our radon test yesterday. Today we build a shelf in our new storage room. Uff da. Something every day, but it's going good. We're getting rid of lots of stuff and the Goodwill is happy to get it. Tomorrow we go to the county recycle center with an old school RCA colortrak that refuses to die. We offered it for free on Craigslist and got one call. But he just wanted to ask for the Model No. When we gave it, it wasn't the right one and he rejected it as well. Guess it will go with the dead fluorescent tubes.

Shredded

Hai Dang struggled for almost an hour to land this 100 pound tuna, but two hammerhead sharks beat him to it, shredding the specimen before Hai got it in the boat. Hai spent two days on the ocean, getting his limit of 5 both days, a rare feat. By the way, Hai doesn't eat fish. . . which is a good deal for friends and family.

First Day. . .again

She's five foot two; taller than Grandma.

Emily’s Mom, Melissa, is on an extended weekend vacation, so Emily stayed over last night and we got to take her to the first day of school. “The excitement only lasts for a day,” the experienced eleven-year old sixth-grader explained. “After that, it’s just like back to normal.” Emily was ready for school and out in the car waiting long before it was time to go today. Here she is in her first day school clothes.

Labor Day swim

Stan and Emily tried out the new pool today at the Plaza. The water was fine. It was a suitable send off for our granddaughter who starts school tomorrow. She gave Grandpa a good work out.

Painted Ladies

We were so excited today. Pulling in to the yard we saw what appeared to us to be, at long last, a ton of monarch butterflies. Alas, our Facebook friend and others have identified them as Painted Ladies. Oh well. They sure are pretty.

Getting ready for the Move

Our records may be incomplete on this, but over 12 years ago, Solveig and Bill Shearer thought these stone frogs would be just the thing for our back yard, and they FedExed the couple to us from their California home. The sculpture has stood though a dozen winters and summers and has gained a nice patina. Recently Solveig expressed some angst that the duo would be thoughtlessly abandoned, now that we are moving to the Big City.
Fear not, Sosie. Today Andrew scrubbed the sculpture, removing moss in preparation for putting it in a place of honor just outside our new digs.

Don't you just know it?

That's Kathleen at the top of the world's largest traveling ferris wheel today. The photographer stayed behind. Somebody had to hold her purse.

Murphy’s Law prevails!
No sooner had we climbed aboard the express bus to the Minnesota State Fair today, when Kathleen felt a vibration on her phone.
We had listed our house a month ago and so far have had only one measly showing, so we figured we were safe for a day on the town. But just to be sure, Kathleen had straightened a few things. So when she listened to the voice mail over all the bus noise, all we could do was call back, say Yes to the agent, and call the neighbors and ask them to take out the dog and turn all the lights on.
Good neighbor John agreeably said he would then told us to enjoy this fair.

"Gracious. Can't a girl get some privacy?"

We did.
Among the usual thrills, Kathleen took a ride on the world largest ferris wheel. . and rated it a big zero. Too sedate for her. But she was transfixed by a Holstein licking the after-birth off her newborn so long that we got caught later in rush hour traffic.
As soon as we had boarded the bus for home, the phone rang. Could we do another showing in five minutes? Well geezze, okay. We called the neighbor again and he was still willing to go over a second time.
Give that man some state fair fudge.
We’re staying home on Friday just in case.
Murphy’s law.

Stan drove a Farmall  just like this one all by himself on Ruby and Al's farm in Brandon. He was four years old and
well trained. No helmet for him.