Also need to find some white vinyl wallpaper from one of those Menardish bargain boxes to hang in the closet. Seen any?
Saturday plans changed abruptly when Ford and Jenn sniffed what could have been a gas leak in their Eden Prairie townhome. 
There a good time was had by all, as two-month-old Kaia made her first ever appearance at her great aunt and uncle's house.
All this give and take, and Kathleen's dessert too, tuckered out the new Dad and the baby. So, after learning that workmen had finally relieved his gas problem, Ford grabbed a nap on Stan's couch. 
Laurie and Stan worked together for 30 years at the newspaper company. He's retired, she still faces the challenges of managing a business in today's tough climate, and now they're just "friends forever." 
In an unparalleled act of courage and grace, Linda and Ron Letnes this month packed up an SUV full of Colorado grandchildren and headed out for a Big West adventure. It all went very well, Stan's sister Linda now reports. The retired schoolteacher is back in Minnesota awaiting the arrival of another grandbaby.
Our first stop was in Vail where the sculptures captured our attention. We spent each night in a motel with a swimming pool as we discovered the kids would swim day or night. Besides the pools, the kids had a ball in Pagosa Springs in the hot springs . Memmo and Antonio are pictured in the shower there.
Arches National Park was followed by Canyonlands National Park, both in Utah. Lots of short hikes, but the Rimwalk in Canyonlands was the hands down favorite of the Huertas. By the time we had gotten to Durango on our drive back to Fort Collins, the Huertas were planning their next family trip...Mesa Verde National Park. They will do that one on their own. 
We travel well together and are planning another spring break, next time a drive through Monument Valley and a visit to the Grand Canyon.
In our continuing search for a suitable retirement estate, Fyvie Castle near Turriff in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, was briefly considered. However, Kathleen is still thinking Highland Park in St. Paul.
Unfortunately, none of these families were related to the Riccorton Jacksons, Stan's maternal forebears.
The castle (like many others) is said to be haunted. During renovation work in 1920 the skeleton of a woman was discovered behind a bedroom wall. On the day the remains were laid to rest in Fyvie cemetery, the castle residents started to be plagued by strange noises and unexplained happenings. Fearing he had offended the dead woman, the Laird of the castle had the skeleton exhumed and replaced behind the bedroom wall, at which time the haunting ceased.
Nobody got stewed in the Aberlour mash.
We got this kind note from Gerry Harris today. We featured him a couple days ago on this blog. (See below) He's the owner of the Mail Boxes Etc. store in St. Andrews, Scotland. 
Then I remembered, you're a "writer" and now I have you tagged.....you do fiction!
Our thoughts and prayers are with Paul Erickson, father-in-law to Linda's daughter Shana. He underwent emergency heart surgery yesterday for a dissected aorta and is in recovery.
A favorite toy at Grandma and Grandpa's is an old-fashioned rocking horse we brought back from Arizona last year. So when Grandpa spied this Shetland pony sweater at an Edinburgh wool outlet on the Royal Mile last week, it was a no-brainer.
IKEA features easy-to-follow picture instructions for assembly of its products. We're not saying Anja, our great niece, assembled this on her own, but she helped. See her Mom and Dad's blog for details at left.
Three hundred and fifty years ago, whilst storming through Scotland on behalf of God and the English Parliament, Oliver Cromwell made plans to destroy what was left of the once glorious St. Andrews Cathedral.
But a naked volley of Protestant cannon fire might be bad for his legacy, he was advised, so the clever "Lord Protector" devised a more politic scheme: He invited the townspeople to scavenge the Cathedral for building materials -- sort of a 17th Century Home Depot, and more convenient than shopping the local quarry. As a result, many buildings in the adjacent business district contain consecrated rubble.
One such solid mid-1600s building shelters the new Mail Boxes Etc., a bustling courier, postal and document service at 68 Market Street, St. Andrews, owned by Gerry Harris. Amidst his higgily-piggily warren of travelers' aids are three sleek computers connected world-wide by high-speed wire. You can "hire" a keyboard, keep track of your own time, then pay Gerry what you think you owe. He cheerfully sorts the loose change from your sweaty palm's worth of mixed pounds and pence while chattering knowledgeably in a thick brogue about the news of the day. 
Photos: Gerry Harris, owner of Mail Boxes Etc. at 68 Market Street, St. Andrews: www.mbestandrews.com . (Photo right) Ruins of the St. Andrews Cathedral, just blocks from the store. (Photo left) Golfer John Dovolos "hires" a computer to email his wife Michelle back home. (Bottom photo) Materials for this fireplace were taken from the St. Andrews Cathedral ruins after Oliver Cromwell suggested doing so. -- That's the story, anyway. To see more photos of the St. Andrews area, follow this link:
The best English we heard in Scotland was spoken by a Russian. Andre and his wife, Maria, shared breakfast with us twice at the Bell Craig House in St. Andrews. They weren't there to golf, though the first tee at the famed Old Course was a mere two blocks away. They were there to visit their son, a business management student at the prestigious 600-year-old St. Andrews University, just down the storied, cobbled street. Andre, who lives with his wife in Moscow, learned English at school, but working for Price Waterhouse has given him fluency. He's current on American politics, and we enjoyed a nice conversation about the present global financial situation.
The best food we ate in Scotland was served at the Davidson home in Aberdeen, by Kenny, who also wins a vote as the archetypal man's man.
a career phy ed teacher, and counsels and coaches youth about snowboarding, skiing and . . . sexually transmitted disease. An enthusiastic golfer, he once had a heart-attack on a fairway and walked himself in, leaving his clueless mates to finish the round. A long-time friend of our gruppen fuehrer Danny Martin, the plucky Scotsman invited over both our foursomes and teed up an eight-man buffet of ham, smoked turkey, prawns-au-melon (click on the image), red potatoes (one garlic, one plain bowlful), fresh veggies and icy salads.
Oh, and a yummy chocolate dessert for our gourmands, (at left) of course. Then his lovely, accomplished, health-care services bride, decades his junior, arrived with their young red-haired daughter, in perfect time to warmly greet the departing grateful, sated guests and head up a post-party cleanup effort for her weary partner.
Thus bolstered, the next morning our Scottish host played an energetic 18 holes with his American friends at Peterhead. Truly a Scotsman for all seasons.
Every bed and breakfast in Scotland, as far as we can tell, serves bangers and bacon with eggs and blood pudding. The bacon isn't bacon, it's a very hammy Canada slice, and bangers are sausages.
The best we ever ate were at the St. Olaf Hotel in Cruden Bay, and served to us by James, (left) a polite 18-year-old who's been to chef school at nearby Hatton College, and aspires to someday cook for big bucks on a North Sea oil platform.
We probably liked his bangers best because they had more texture and bite than the softer, mealier, versions at the St. Andrews Bell Craig House or the Craigallachie Highlander Inn (at right - click image to see the pepper). James' performed almost like a premium Jimmy Dean.
All the breakfasts were good and substantial and lasted through a complete 18 holes of golf that always ran past lunch into the mid-afternoon. Scottish courses don't always have a "clubhouse turn" with sandwiches... and never a "cart girl" with snacks, so a big breakfast is a must. And you're walking clubs up and down the glens, never riding.
One day, just for educational purposes, we chose the breakfast Aberdeen kippers and oat cakes (left) at the St. Olaf. This brightly-flavored salt sea offering was a good choice, and did last through 18 holes of golf, but in a repeating and re mindful way, and not ideal for one's concentration on the duties at hand.
Worst credit card
"American Express, don't leave home with it," they joke around Scotland. Poor Danny Martin relied on this powerful American icon as an old reliable, but was chagrined to learn that thrifty Scots simply don't take it, given its fee-laden policies.
Restaurants, hotels, golf clubs, even the Royal Bank of Scotland looked down and sadly shook their heads at our frustrated leader's plastic. Fortunately, Danny was traveling with friends and able to cope, and a few phone calls back home (right) got his assets transferred to a more useful banker.
Runner-up for worst has to be GM Mastercard. Despite being informed of my impending departure from usual spending habits, and being given a specific itinerary, Mr. Mastercard slammed the cash drawer shut when I attempted to purchase a $100 bottle of cask-strength hand-filled single-malt whisky, aged in a bourbon barrel, from the Chivas Bros. at their Aberlour Distillery in Craigellichie. Fortunately, a quick swipe from Mr. M & I Visa, who had been similarly warned and informed, solved the problem.
It took an expensive follow-up phone call in a chilly red phone booth, using the special international number I was given when I made my first notification, and then a series of confusing security questions about my checkered past (have you ever lived on Lyndale Ave. North in Minneapolis? Your wife's birthdate?) before Mrs. Mastercard put me back on the "A" list. "It's just an automatic block, sir, and we apologize," the scripted voice intoned. So why is that, please? Or could someone have possibly screwed up? (Calm down, Stan)
Oh well. It's been a long time since being refused at a liquor store. Made me feel downright youthful.
Stan's girls: Marcelline, Missy, Jennifer, --wife Kathleen, granddaughter Emily.
The Florida chapter of The Ladies Who Lunch enjoyed Pincher's Crab Shack overlooking the Caloosahatche River in North Fort Meyers a couple of days ago. Becky J. had the crab. Becky R. had the shrimp, and, she reports, was a crab. This we doubt, as our ladies always enjoy their lunches and their company.
My dearest Irish eyes:
I am seated in a pub surrounded by fine single malt Scotch whisky, my mates are throwing feathers at the dartboard behind me; they've already toasted my sweetie for being lucky and Irish today. I am truly the lucky one, of course, they are quick to point out.
I talked with mothers pushing prams past some nursing lambs in a verdant meadow beside an abandoned railway right of way. I walked through three handmade stone tunnels to get there. We chatted, then I learned that one was an English mum, the other a native Californian transplanted by her homesick Scotch husband. 
Yesterday the gentlemen at the 250-year-old Fraserborough Golf club left us in stitches. Their club was being organized when we were throwing the British out of the colonies in 1776.
They claim to have invited Gen. George Armstrong Custer across to be the keynote speaker at their 100th anniversary club celebration, but George was a no-show.
"How would ye tell if a man be a real McDonald?", twinkled the ruddy-cheeked club member.
At the moment I am seated at a tv table in my little room at the Highlander Inn in the tiny town of Craigellachie beside the River Spey in the far north end of Scotland. We are in whisky and salmon country.
Tomorrow morning a gentleman we know as Duncan will make us breakfast. He used to work at a nearby hotel, but had an opportunity to buy this one and took it. I had the Aberdeen kippers with oat cakes at the St. Olaf in Cruden Bay.
I am thinking bangers, bacon and poached eggs. The bangers, if they have some texture, will taste like a Jimmy Dean sausage link. The bacon will look and taste like fried ham. We see a lot of sheep, but rarely see it offered. A Scotsman told us that the French eat most 0f their sheep and their drink most of the whisky. There are five rooms. We have all of them. 
Three floors below, Tatsuya Minagawa, director of the Highlander Inn and a famous whisky judge who brought his family here from Japan, is serving our party from a 200 bottle collection of rare whisky. Danny, left, our group leader, is a connoseiur, and the rest of us are learning to appreciate the finer points of this water of life.
