Home Again, Home Again!

You may or may not have noticed that I haven't been writing the last two weeks. This also may or may not have made your day. The first week of hiatus I have no excuse, I was just plain lazy bones magoo. However, the second week I have been traveling all over state interstates and county roads of Minnesota. And so with great excitement, I will do my Minnesota call:

She's baaaaaaaack!

Every year I like to escape the heat of Arizona and spend time with my family back in Minnesota. Sometimes it is a couple of weeks, other times it is over a month. This time it is exactly three weeks. Before I came home, Minnesota was in a bad drought, however, since my plane took off last Tuesday afternoon, the weather forecast has had rain almost every day. (The kind that the farmers like, as said by numerous people in Alexandria.)

No bother, I like the rain. These are the highlights that I have enjoyed thus far on my vacation to Minnesota:

• Staying with my in-laws, Jim and Mary.


• Driving down to the St. James/New Ulm area for my friend, Kylee's wedding with my sister.


• Spending the night in Shannon's apartment in St. Louis Park.


• Waking up early and meeting Stacy and Julie at Lake of the Isles for yoga in the park.


• Trying to convice a mentally ill, possibly drunk, homeless man named Thomas, to move from the middle of our semi-circle right when the class started.


• Moving the class a little further down from Thomas when it was clear he wasn't moving, and practicing the most rejuvinating yoga on a gorgeous non-raining Saturday morning.


• Having brunch with Stacy, Shannon and Julie at Common Roots in Uptown.


• Visiting my 89-year-old grandmother and 91-year-old grandfather at Knute Nelson Nursing Home.


• Sleeping in "the cave" of a basement for many hours in a row without waking up.


• Spending time with my mom, dad, and sister, since we are all home. I don't feel nearly as lonesome!


• Visiting the Perinos in their new house.


• Playing with the next-door-neighbor kids.

This brings me to my next item, my neighbor kids. They are some of the sweetest children to have living next door. After playing for about an hour with them yesterday, I went inside to start dinner. We heard a knock on our door (actually it was several consecutive doorbell rings, a few knocks on the front door, then some on the garage door, followed by some yelling through the door). They were so excited to give us invitations to a picnic they were planning for the next day. It was going to be from 2:10-2:55 in their front yard, there was going to be lemonade, frozen Kool-Aid freezies and some other snacks, followed by games.

After visiting our grandparents today, Shannon and I pulled into the driveway at exactly 2:10. It was just as they planned. A blanket was spread on the ground, there were Oreos, lemonade, fruit salad, chips, Fruit Roll-Ups, and the highly anticipated Kool-Aid freezies (we were informed that there was enough for everyone to have two). We sat down with the kiddos and feasted on our delicious snacks.

We cleaned up the picnic area and played the following games in the following order: Everyone's It tag, Four-Corners, Annie Annie Over, and DuckDuck Gray Duck. It was a hot, muggy, super sticky day. We were all sweating profusely, but it was a wonderful time. It's interesting that as a teacher, I can't enjoy my students like I do my neighbor kids. For one thing, I have 25 to look after, they don't always play by the rules, and it seems that some sort of drama will always play itself out, no matter how structured you make a game. I just love being able to say to my neighbor kids, Well, that was a lot of fun! I'm going to go inside now, but I'll see you tomorrow! They can play as long as they want on the front lawn, ride their bikes a million times on our driveway, and I feel happy as a clam...they make me love kids again!

I hope the rest of my vacation continues to be as peaceful as it has been so far!