Mom's new home

Today our Mother, Beverly Rolfsrud, is strong and healed enough to move from Knute Nelson Memorial Home to the Clearwater Suites assisted living facility in Alexandria. Virgil moved her today and reports that she's happy with the new setup. If she's happy, we're very happy. She continues to progress with her therapy, regaining the strength and skills so necessary to the independent living she enjoys. In the photograph above, she is having lunch with her long-time chum, LaVina Martinson. Mother's children call her Saint LaVina, for all the support and generosity she has shown mother over the years. Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and concerns about mom.

This just in from Norway!

Solveig (nee Rolfsrud) and Bill Shearer just returned from a vacation trip to Norway. Haven't heard a word from them.. they're exhausted and Sosie is already back at work. But our Norwegian relative, Beate Heide, who spent some time here with us a few years back, sent the trailboss some photos.

Here's Beate's note:

Hi!
I was so fortunate to meet Solveig and Bill as they visited Arne Johan Norheim at his NAUST(boathouse) just at the seashore on Grytøya last Thursday. It sure was a nice visit even if Arne Johan took us to a "short" hike up to Ltje Galten (the little pig) to see the view. The supposedly 20-minute walk took us two hours, but the view was worth every step.

The light summer night made it hard to go to sleep as well. Here are some pictures from that event.
Beate

The top photo is Arne's mother -- she made fishcakes for the guests. Bill and Sosie are standing on the ferry landing on the Harstad side.

(left) Arne Johan Norheim with his mother and Solveig and Bill.

Below is Grytøya from the ferry. There are no photos of Beate. We will rely on Solveig for that. I believe this is all above the Arctic Circle. There is an additional photo of Solveig and Bill looking groggy after staying up past midnight to enjoy the light. It appears they were enjoying more than the light. We'll publish that later. Thanks so much to Beate for the story and photos!
Stan

Kathleen doing fine, to spend the night in Waconia! Exclusive photos. . .

Kathleen's surgery went very well this morning, the surgeon said. Kathleen really likes Waconia Ridgeview Hospital. And she felt everyone she dealt with in the surgical suite was very competent. She just had a sedative and a spinal and some other drug cocktail, so she came out of surgery in an upbeat mood and only took some morphine late today. She was pretty peppy all afternoon and we had some fun. She wouldn't go to sleep. We watched Judge Judy and Kathleen blew into her machine. She watched Stan eat his Subway sandwich. She's on a strict liquid diet except for a piece of toast and peanut butter and jello.
Stan is home now, returning emails, etc. We'll put up more photos of Kathleen as her condition improves.The fact that Kathleen is staying overnight is routine... they are guarding for infection and bleeding... and she'll be in Stan's full care by tomorrow.

In other news, Mother's move from Knute Nelson to Clearwater Suites went well. Lorlee Bartos reports that her mother stayed briefly at Clearwater Suites and found it quite satisfactory. More details here soon.

Thank you for your kind thoughts and expressions. Kathleen will be available for phone calls at least by Thursday.

Wednesday girl here on Monday

Sorry bloggers, don't mean to get things all confused. Emily is at our house today for a number of reasons.

One is that Kathleen will be going in for some surgery tomorrow and won't be in any shape on Wednesday to be tossing around a 28 pounder.
We weren't going to take her picture today, but then she had this cute dress on and so, what the heck, more Emily pictures.
Thanks to all of you for your words and thoughts about Kathleen. Her surgery is routine and we're confident in the outcome. Thanks again.
Norway vacationers Solveig and Bill will be doing a fly-by of Minneapolis tonight on their way home. Actually, they will be grounded for a few hours for customs and then on to San Francisco.

More good news: Mom is being moved from the Knute Nelson nursing home to the Clearwater Suites tomorrow. Virgil is driving up there to do the honors. Linda, who used to move people from Fairview hospital to other institutions as a social worker fresh out of Concordia College, made the arrangements. We think Mom will be in a good place and she is doing remarkably well, now that the pain... and pills... are gone.
----

Getting ready for Boston. . .

Steve Rolfsrud writes:
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Dear family and friends:
After the 35W bridge collapse this past week, it again reminds us how random life can be. Relatively speaking, Briggs had a good week, with only one fatigue-related incident and some neck issues. She sees the neurosurgeon on Thursday so hopes to get some resolution there.

Otherwise, her "to do" list has been shortened to "1. finish healing pelvic fractures; 2. avoid all lifting--that's what Bill does; 3. avoid relapses by not overdoing it--a bit of a challenge; and 4. get ready for Boston."

Thanks for checking in.
Steve

Finally, we get some rain

Misty morning

Sunday morning in Shakopee was cool and dampish after a drizzly day of rain yesterday. Saw an antlered buck prancing in the morning mist on No. 16. This afternoon Stan will drive the newspaper "float" in the Shakopee Derby Days Parade. The newspaper hands out sunscreeen, among other things. Not sure if we'll get sun or not today. We also hand out bug stuff. There haven't been any mosquitoes either. Guess we'll have to stick with the old stand by: No. 2 pencils and hard rock candy.

Farm report from North Dakota overdue

Conditions must be goodAugust 1 has come and gone and still no report on crop conditions in western North Dakota. In the photo, above, David Rolfsrud is joined by his wife, Gena, and sons, Ty and Cole. Their house was built by Stan's Uncle (David's grandfather) Halvor Rolfsrud and finished with stone slabs quarried from a nearby ravine which had previously been used to build settlers' homes.

David and Gena (who is a good shot with a rifle and has the antlers to prove it) added on to their farmyard home recently and used this same original stone to finish the addition.

(In the photo, at right, Gerald Veeder inspects the stone work at the Manning homestead, which is now a part of the Rolfsrud spread.)

Weather conditions have been dry in our part of Minnesota but it appears that good conditions have prevailed in the west. We have heard nothing to confirm any of this from our farm relations dept., perhaps owing to the Norwegian farming tradition that you never acknowledge good conditions until the crop is in the barn... and then only after some coaxing.

So we will accept that no news is good news as we continue to hope for the best at the Rolfsrud Ranch and for the farmers who toil there.

Tragedy brings us together

Nobody in our acquaintance was harmed in the Minneapolis bridge collapse last night. We watched the thing unfold with the rest of the nation, imagining what it might be like to be on that bridge when it went down.
It is not a main artery for most of the Rolfsruds, but Linda and Ron Letnes are building a home in Blaine and that would be a major road for them some day. Linda put out a broadcast email for son Steve who lives in downtown Minneapolis. We assume she got satisfaction. Shana and Erik are in the northern suburbs and will be affected by the outage as well.
Ford Rolfsrud checked in last night to say that everyone in his circle was fine. A former reporter from Charleston, S.C., checked in and so on.
Today we got the following note from Nancy Clary, a relative in Rapid City, South Dakota. It was nice to hear from her.

Nancy writes:
Oh My God! What a tragic accident with the collapse of the bridge! I hope none of the Rolfsrud family, friends and extended family members was on the bridge. Are all of you OK??? We’ve been watching CNN this morning, and they have some pretty amazing photos of it. There is a 4 second loop caught on the security camera that shows the whole thing. They revised the official death toll down from 7 to 4 this morning, but I imagine it could go higher as the dive teams check out the cars in the river today.
So sad for all, and how are they going to remove all of the debris? I know from being in the cities that it is the main artery across the river, and will disrupt the flow of traffic for a long time. I wonder what happened to make it collapse…

That is an amazing and tragic accident, for sure. I know that isn’t too far from where many of the younger folks live, and that they probably use it every day. My sister Julie’s son, Chris Stinson, is OK; it is, however, the bridge he uses from his house to work. She talked to him last night, and he is fine. He is without a car at the moment, and uses mostly public transportation. Attached is a photo of Chris with Hillary Clinton when she was there in the Cities for fundraising this spring. It’s the most recent one I have of him. He is working for ACORN, a group affiliated with the Democratic party. You may want to look it up so you know more about it, as I don’t have a real firm picture of what he does… He has his own office and helps coordinate services for low income people, but that’s about all I know. There are branches of it in most states.

Joyce sent me the link to your blog, and I have enjoyed reading it. We had a great time with Jennifer when she was here, and I imagine she shared photos with you when she arrived in the Cities. She is a fun person. We didn’t do a lot of traveling around, but went to Mt. Rushmore and saw several of the typical tourist places here in Rapid. She went climbing with a guy she met online, and had a good time.

Take care, and hope to see you soon. Please let me know if all your family members are OK.

Love,
Nancy

(We're good, Nancy. All good.)

Sorry Matt, Gramps got a new helper

Work on the Jordan Independent remodeling project is on hold today.

Matt Drees and Charley Ries are doing yeoman work on the new look there and are great fun to work with. Matt is a retired municipal waste treatment manager and Charley has been building things for Stan for at least 20 years now. The tile crew comes tomorrow to put down a checkerboard pattern in the reception and warehouse areas.

But priorities today are Emmy K. When a girl shows up in a corn yellow dress from Mazatlan it demands attention and she got it immediately. Grandma took out Emily's tool kit as her first project today. Later we'll bang on pans. Please indulge a few photos.

Emily is much more confident in her walking now. But when we took her out on the back porch to wander in the wisteria, the cracks in the deck surprised her (see photo) and she looked for a hand to hold.

The swing between independent action and dependency is wonderful to watch as she explores her ever-widening world.

Swinging a hammer all day may be hard work, but you can never forget you're a lady. Notice the bracelet that Grandma purchased from a Native American in Santa Fe last winter. Emily wears her turquoise on her right hand -- (and it's really not fitting as tight as the photo looks -- it's in a baby skin fold -- Grandma checked).

We're not sure yet if that is the hand she favors, but the photos show there's a lot of leading with her right.

Emily is 15 months old today.