Wow it's been a month!!

DOD 4-5, a photo by northwoodsluna on Flickr.

It's good to be home and working in the studio a bit this week before the crush of work becomes overwhelming! I got 3 new referrals yesterday. Good thing I got caught up on paperwork before I left on vacation!


We were on the road visiting friends and family, leaving September 2 from right after church. We drove to Lewes DE where we stayed with my best friend Anni and her husband Roger at their house on Rohoboth Bay, we ate at so many good restaraunts that we I ended up having to buy looser jeans when we got back. There was not a minute to do much art work inspite of having packed art supplies. We enjoyed a day at the beach in Rohoboth, it's been too long since I'd been to the ocean! What a wonderful visit we had! It was hard to leave!


From there we drove to Dayton, OH where we spent the night and then had a short breakfast meet up with Judah Noah and his adorable partner Charlie! Judah is so sweet, and it was a joy to meet him after knowing him for so many years online!


Next stop, Dubuque Iowa to visit those of my family who could come to visit us there. We stayed at a hotel in Dubuque along with my mom and one of my sisters. It was so much fun! My other sister came in to visit, one of my brothers drove in for a visit, and his college aged son was doing his coaching internship in Dubuque so came over for a short visit as well. What a great kid! Then that night we went to my youngest brother's house for dinner with he and his wife and two boys. We loved getting reacquainted with the boys now a year older than the last time we saw them! So good to see family! We left on the 14th, and drove straight home from Dubuque, 14 hours, arriving home about 1:00AM September 15


We went to a parishoner's birthday party the afternoon of the 15th.


We left again September 16, right after church to go to Fair Hills Resort right after church on that day to attend the Synod Theology of Ministry Conferenc/Retreat; returned home the evening of September 18th. I went back to work on the 19th.


Tom and I both came down with bad colds on the last day of the retreat so for a whole week when I wasn't working I was sleeping. That cold whipped my hiney! I had to be in Moorhea/Fargo on September 24.


September 28th we drove to the Twin Cities for a long weekend, we stayed at Noah and Kay's for the weekend. We had a family barbeque with Noah and Kay and Kay's parents Harry and Phyillis (wonderful people!), and Julie and Matt. We stayed up until 2AM talking with Noah and Kay.


September 29th,
-we got up and met Julie and Matt and Matt's mother for brunch. It was the first time we met Pat. She's an amazing interesting woman, a doctor in a practice in Whitefish Montana at which there is an emphasis on alternative medicine and "healing". It was a short visit, I could have talked to her for hours!


-That evening we went to downtown Minneapolis with all four kids, for dinner at Ike's. what a great place! The kids surprised us with a night at Graves 601 hotel, a really posh hotel, right across the street from the Target Center, and a block away from Target Field. Downtown Minneapolis is such fun! I loved the people watching after I got over the sensory overload of Country Mouse comes to the City! ;-) The hotel and dinner was the kids gift/celebration for our 40th wedding anniversary (this past July).

September 30th We went to the Twin's baseball game with the kids at Target Field in celebration of Tom's birthday. That was a blast!!!! Afterwards we went to a neighborhood bar in northeastern Minnapolis to meet up with young friends who used to live in Noah's neighborhood. It was great to see them again.


Monday, October 1, we had brunch at Key's Restaraunt before leaving town to drive back up north. We had such fun! So hard to leave the kids to come home.


John and Kasey are engaged, she will be moving into his house after they do some work to remove Angie's stamp on the house, painting, new curtains, new art on the walls. John has been working on completing his patio before the winter halts work on that project. He built the steps down from the house over the weekend. Next project fencing in the back yard for Ashlyn, and for Hailey, Kasey's dog. Ashlyn and Hayley love each other, John always wanted a dog but Angie was allergic to them. I teased him that he was just marrying Kasey for the dog, she said that was okay, she was just marrying him to get his family. A tentative date of either Friday the 26th, or Saturday the 27th of July 2013 has been set, pending church and venue availabilies. :-)


We've been trrying to figure out when we can get downto see John, Ashlyn, and Kasey, but between all our schedules and custody arrangements it looks like it will be November before we get there! I haven't seen them since July, that's just too long!!!


We had a winter storm warning in effect here today, but it's changed to Winter Weather Advisory now, so I guess I won't get the snow day I was hoping for and will have to see clients this afternoon after all. Thankfully after the weekend the temps and weather are supposed to be be back to normal, this winter stuff is early even for here, but the rain and snow are welcome. We've had some serious fire problems up here. A community to the south and west had 6 homes burn as a result of a wildfire that firefighters couldn't put out. We had winds of about 50 miles an hour that day. This should help with some of the fire danger at least.