Christmas at our place was a fantastic success!! We were so pleased.

In the morning we intended to really sleep in, but I still was up by about 9:00. After puttering at the computer for a good hour or so I went down to the kitchen to make the cranberries. The recipe is so easy and because they are chilled in the fridge before serving, they can be made in advance. Then I peeled and cut up some potatoes and threw them in cold water so they would be ready when the time came as well.

Dad, Kris and Ron arrived at 2:00pm and we played Tripoli for a few hours, snacking on nuts, cookies, cheese and crackers, and oysters. The ham was already cooked, but let it heat up for an hour and a half in the oven while we played. It was a double-smoked ham that we bought from our local butcher (yes, patronizing the local businesses!). Eventually, we sat down to eat at a table of ham, garlic mashed potatoes and gravy, glazed carrots, peas, rolls, cranberries, and blueberry pie for dessert. I was thrilled that everything turned out perfect.

We exchanged gifts after dinner, and Dad gave us the new (huge) George Foreman grill, which also came with a separate rotisserie component. He gave us the gift receipt, in case we wanted to take it back or exchange it, but Jonas was checking reviews online and I think we may keep it. My concerns are how often we'd use it, and where we would store it when we weren't using it. Kris and I decided not to exchange gifts this year, but we gave each other small token gifts so Dad wouldn't really notice and wonder why. Jonas won $6 on his scratch-off lottery ticket!

Now in three days, on Sunday the 28th, we're hosting another Christmas dinner -- this time, a Swedish spread for Mom and Dean, and Anita and Dean. Jonas is going to stop at Ingebretsens to get the good stuff. I hope that dinner goes just as well!

I started a subscription to the census records at Genealogy.com for $19.99 per month. Overall, I am not altogether impressed with this site -- their search engine in particular is disappointingly weak -- however, they have the 1900 and 1910 censuses indexed and just for that I am willing to subscribe for a little while to get the information I need. So after everyone had gone home I spent a few hours totally engrossed in new census information.

Jonas got a new car! OK, not brand spanking new, but according to NBC: if you haven't owned the car before, it's new to you!

We had known for a couple of years now that the time for getting a new car was approaching. Jonas had been driving around in a 1989 Chevy Corsica which grew clunkier by the day. It also had a windshield cracked in multiple places, no rear-view mirror for the past year or so, and the driver's window didn't go down (or up, if you first made the mistake of trying to get it down). I've been driving a 1993 Corsica which is doing pretty well, although mine also has a small crack in the windshield on the passenger side.

Sounds like we had a thing for Corsicas, doesn't it? Not really, they just happened to have been conveniently available at the time. I should say something about some odd coincidences with our matching Corsicas: in the past year they both developed flat tires and cracked windshields within a week of each other. It was weird.

So just recently as his birthday was coming up, and as his windshield started cracking worse and in new places, we decided it was finally time to get him a new car. He shopped around for a Buick Regal GS (his dream car right now) at Car Soup for about a week or so before going to check one out at a dealer out in Buffalo. Despite it not being his dream color (it was silver, not black), he decided that was his car. It was a 2000 model with only 17,000 miles on it (not bad), flawless interior and exterior as far as we could tell, standard cool stuff, some extras like CD/cassette, butt heat, trip odometer, etc. It even still smelled like new car! They were asking $14,999.

Jonas had decided beforehand that he'd buy it if they knocked it down a grand. Our salesguy had no problem doing $500, but when Jonas asked him to take our $1000 offer to his manager, they said it was a no go. So we did the "Sorry, no can do" thing and headed out to our car (which was Jonas' clunker). Then the salesguy caught up with us and said, "So you'd sign on it right here today if it was $13,999?" and Jonas said, "Yep, right here today." The salesguy said, "OK, let's do it," and in we went again to start all the paperwork. It was relatively painless, except the finance guy was kind of a jerk. We'd never purchased a car from a dealer before so Jonas was asking a lot of questions, which apparently annoyed the hell out of the guy. Of course, by that time we'd already signed the purchase agreement and they weren't really interested in buttering up any longer, so I'm hardly surprised that their attitude changes. Anyway, a $3,000 down-payment later and we were on our way home with a new car!

We hurried back to Chaska (I got to drive the new one because the old one was a stick, yay!) to meet Mom and Dean at Home Depot, where they brought their pickup to help us get our new grill home (we'd purchased it last weekend, but left it in layaway since it didn't fit in the trunk). We were about two hours late for our original meeting time, and about a half hour late for the amended time, so we apologized but could hardly contain our excitement about the car. They thought it was pretty cool as well. After getting the grill home and into the garage we all headed to Pauly's American Grill in Chaska to have a birthday dinner for Jonas. He also got an Entertainment Book, which I was thrilled about -- I've been meaning to buy one for a while now.

Dean wondered what we were going to do with Jonas' old car. It had no retail value -- in fact, It probably had a negative value since the cost of a new windshield was more than the car was worth -- so we basically just signed over the title and gave it to him. He thought he might use it as a runner car for his job (driving a postal truck). It's a crappy car, but he seemed happy enough. At least it's off our hands now.

And Jonas is in seventh heaven.

This morning I woke up and checked my email to find that Jonas had left me one of the most wonderful emails I have ever received! He's not really poetic, so I've never really received any flowery love letters before. This wasn't exactly a love letter (although I felt some love upon reading it!), but a lengthy, multi-paragraphed(!) message in which he told me he regretted staying up to play computer games last night instead of going to bed with me, how much he appreciates me, and also listed some things about himself he wishes he could improve. I was floored. What a great start to my day!

It was a long day -- it always is when I have to work until 9:00pm. By the time I'm off it's already been dark for several hours and it seems even later than it is. Jonas had made pasta and on the phone had mentioned that there "might" be some left for me when I got home, but it turned out he got too hungry and ate it all (piggy). So I heated up some fat-free hotdogs, which actually aren't too bad, and I'm embarrassed to say we watched the Average Joe show. Everything about that show drives me nuts, but still I end up watching it every week. Grrr!

Dad's birthday is in two days and I had no clue what to get him. I had half an idea of having some pizza delivered to his work for lunch on Wednesday, but I guess it's kind of polite to have enough delivered for his whole department, and then it didn't seem like such a good idea. I also have no idea what time he eats lunch -- he goes to work at like 6am and is off at 2:30, so I guess he'd eat lunch at 10ish, but if I was too early or late it that wouldn't be good. Then I was flipping through a 1-800-FLOWERS catalog we got in the mail yesterday and thought, "Food in the mail!" So I ended up ordering him some steaks from Omaha Steaks. He's a red meat kind of guy, so he should enjoy that. Unfortunately, now they probably won't arrive in time for his birthday, but I don't think they should be more than one or two days late. He's probably not expecting to receive his gifts until we get together for Thanksgiving anyway.

Now Jonas' birthday is coming up on the 27th. He and I have both pretty much exhausted our birthday spending this year already, so I know I don't have to come up with anything big, but I still need to think of a little something.

Spent the evening working on my genealogy based on some new notes I got recently from the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul. For fun I drew up a pedigree chart and noticed I have found 14 of my 16 great-great-grandparents. Not bad, I think. They appear to be an interesting bunch, representing Holland, Germany, Slovakia, England and Norway:

Bessel Van Zanten and Geertrui Voorhaar
Peter Schouten and Margaret Prins
David Freiermuth and Juliana Kurz
Louis Bremer and Wilhelmina Richter
Joannes Sanko and Anna Zupko
Solon Heath and Ellen Mercy Mayo
Jens Stordahl and Anne Bakken

There you have it -- my great-great-grandparents (minus one as yet undiscovered couple, also from Slovakia). Wasn't that fun?

I picked up some roast beef and potato salad from the Cub deli and had myself a delicious dinner while watching an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Not terribly exciting, but hey.

What a fun mess work was today!! First of all, The Move was on. Lee packed up and moved into the conference room, which will be her new office. Then it was my and Janet's turn to move into Lee's old corner. Natasha, Reva and Mary moved into our old desk, Susan moved into Natasha's old desk, and tomorrow when Cyndi gets a chance she'll move into Susan's old desk. I haven't quite figured out yet who is getting Cyndi's old desk. In our corner, Janet and I rearranged the desks to maximize space for two people and it turned out great. We each have desk space on opposite sides, and our shared PC is in the middle. Naturally we'd each have liked to each have our own computer, but IT refuses to add any more network connections to the building since we've moving in less than a year, which is understandable. Several of us wanted to keep the monitors we were used to during the move, so three monitors ended up getting swapped among workstations as well. Janet and I also took our chair with us, as did Natasha -- I guess we're very attached to our furniture. ;) Needless to say, with all the moving around, it was a day of confusion and frenzy -- but wait, there's more!

In the early afternoon a puppet show was scheduled. The parking lot was packed, and people were parking in the fire lane and several morons were completely blocking off a chunk of the circular drive, so that other people driving around looking for a place to park ended up at a dead end with no room to turn around. They had to back up the whole way out of the circle. I walked outside to see what the fuss was about, and several patrons commented to me that they saw several near-accidents. One man sat in his car and just honked and honked at the car blocking the way, despite the fact that no one was in it! You could smell the road rage a mile away. Never underestimate the dangerous potential of a puppet show -- I swear, provide some free summer entertainment for their kids and people just turn into idiots.

THEN, a woman requested help at one of the Internet stations. She had filled out a form online at some apartment/renting site describing what kind of place she was looking for, and was thoroughly shocked to discover that the information she had gleefully typed in was now online for everyone to see! She didn't want her name up there after all. She'd tried to delete it by highlighting the text and hitting the Delete key. It was a webpage, not a word processor, so that obviously didn't work. I advised her to look for a "remove my listing" option on the website, and failing that contact the owners. She was obviously relatively new to the WWW and really pissed off, but I said, "Um, that's the way of the Internet -- anything you type in has the potential of being displayed for all the world to see." She went off to try and call the website. She had apparently been really nasty to Susan earlier the first time she'd asked for help with something. I guess it can be confusing. I hardly remember what it was like being an Internet Newbie, except that there weren't any visual browsers to speak of yet, just good ol' text-based Lynx. When Netscape came out, I had to buy more memory for my computer just so I could run it. Even then it was rarely worth my time to try and surf on a 2400 baud modem -- I could type in the address and go do something else for a few minutes. Maybe by the time I got back it would have loaded! :)

Oi. I do digress.

Karin, my sister-in-law, flew into the U.S. (Los Angeles) yesterday with a friend. They will be out there in California for about two weeks before flying up here to visit us for a while. They are arriving on the 12th, the same day we close on the house. We're planning to start sleeping nights in the new house starting the first day, so they will be staying in our apartment. It will be a big, chaotic mess -- but in a good way.

One last thing: 13 days!

I feel so blah today, just no energy or motivation at all. I think it's partly being exhausted from an extremely long but fun day yesterday. Earlier I did muster up enough energy to clean out one of the kitchen cupboards of old and unused food, as well as the cabinet underneath my bathroom sink. I had had more extensive plans to clean and organize this weekend, but I'll just have to be satisfied with that for today.

Anyway, yesterday was a hell of a fun time. My "new" aunt Anita (discovered last September) invited the whole family down to her farm outside Nelson, WI for a little family reunion, picnicking, games, food and a bonfire. In all, we were over 30 people. Anita and her husband Dean put together a wonderful time, in particular being brave enough to host several dozen people in their home and yard.

They live on a farm with about 170 acres of land. A few years ago they decided to stop farming themselves and now just rent out their fields to neighboring farms. There are fantastic groomed trails running all over the place to drive their two 4-wheelers on. Those were in high demand all afternoon, and what a wild ride! Jonas and I rode around together and I let him do most of the driving. I was having too much fun holding onto him and screaming with pure delight to care about driving myself! Twice during the afternoon there were small accidents in which the vehicles tipped and spilled their passengers (one vehicle even went into the creek), but Dean (Anita's Dean, not Mom's Dean) drove his trusty tractor out and got them righted again for more rides. Another injury included my aunt Georgia spraining her ankle during the scavenger hunt. She fell into the creek while attempting to pick a cattail (one of the items on the scavenger list).

For dinner we had a huge potluck. Anita had made shaved beef on buns, and everyone else had brought some kind of salad, hotdish or other side. Yum! There was even birthday cake for Dave (my uncle) and Dean (Mom's Dean).

All day long the kids were having a ball squirting the hose, throwing water balloons, playing croquet, badminton and other lawn games, and attempting the scavenger hunt Anita had set up all over their property -- we had to try to identify and bring back a variety of native plants and not-so-native items she had "planted" out on the trails. I never really considered myself a "city girl" before, but I did learn a few things (like cherries grow in Wisconsin??).

During the bonfire (marshmallows were duly roasted), my half-cousin(?) Shaun, after making various branch-breaking noises off in the distance causing us to wonder what kind of monster was out there, came crashing through the reeds like a large animal toward us. We all screamed, and he was rewarded with a huge gash on his shin from a piece of metal he encountered on the way. That about rounded out the injury report. O, the fun. :)

Almost everyone else was staying the night, but Jonas had a lot of work still to get done today, and he wanted to be able to get an early start (as opposed to having to drive several hours home in the morning first). When everything seemed to be winding down, we said our goodbyes and headed back home. Everyone else retired either to the house or their tents (there were about 6 tents and a camper pitched around the farmyard). We got home about 1am or so. I tried to read in bed, but I couldn't stay awake. Today I am so sore! It's pretty sad -- the only vaguely strenuous things we did were to play badminton and lacrosse with plastic equipment, and somehow I pulled some muscles. :)

It has become our corny Sunday evening ritual. Jonas and I and our Bioré nose strips, sitting on the couch watching TV while they dry. I have to wonder how many other guys out there have tried (or have secretly wanted to try) them, because it was his idea to begin with (though he'd never admit that to another guy!). I have to admit it was kind of cool to see just what comes out of my pores. That's the fascination for everyone, isn't it?

We bought a refrigerator today! I feel great about it. Several months ago when preparing to buy all the large appliances we consulted Consumer Reports on everything, and for the fridge we ultimately decided on one, a newer Amana bottom-freezer model. Today we walked into ApplianceSmart and there it was -- in white, too. This place receives items from the manufacturer that usually have some kind of dent or scratch on the outside, making them unable to be sold by the regular retail stores (Sears, etc.) and sells them for a discount. They're all brand new and still under the factory warranty, so if you get lucky and manage to find your dream appliance whose dent/scratch is out of sight, it's a steal.

We found our fridge. The few nicks and dents I could spot on the surface were far back on the sides, which would be completely out of sight inbetween our cupboards. Every other aspect of it was sparkling and perfect. Overall, we spent about $500 less than what Sears was selling it for. The same, exact fridge with a small dent in back that no one would ever see. They are going to hold it for us until we close.

As this entry seems to be going backwards, I'll end by telling about our morning when we drove down to New Prague. We met Mom and Dean at Schumacher's Hotel for lunch to celebrate our anniversary and Dean's birthday (both on the 15th). Mom and I both had salmon, Jonas had duck, and Dean had ... err ... I don't have a clue what he had. *pats self on head* It's a really lovely place -- in addition to the restaurant serving top-notch food, the upstairs is a quite expensive bed-and-breakfast with a dozen or more themed rooms. I've never stayed in a B&B before, but they always look so cozy.

Somehow this morning, a holiday mind you, we got up at 7:30 to get ready to head out to Delano for the 4th of July parade. Supposedly it is Minnesota's oldest and largest parade on the 4th, which is probably true considering there don't seem to be any other 4th of July parades around. Excitement-wise, it was decent. Parades are immensely more fun when you're 7 instead of 27, though. I can only watch so many firetrucks go by without them all beginning to blur together. They threw a ton of candy, though, which was nice for the kids. Jonas was disappointed that the baked potato float was not present this year. (Two years ago, some girls came riding down the street in a large baked potato.) His friend Andreas was visiting from Sweden at the time and it was one of those "Only in America ..." moments.

After the parade we grilled some brats and dogs at Mom & Dean's place. Kris and her boyfriend Ron were also there, having driven up from Des Moines for the weekend. I love picnic food, and I just have to mention that Lunds deli makes the BEST potato salad (but not the mayo one). Oooh, I could eat it all day long.

After stuffing ourselves we walked down the street to the carnival. Dean was working one of the hamburger stands run by the Legion (or some other local organization, I can't remember which) and couldn't get away just then. Jonas bought himself, me and Mom seats at a squirt-water-in-the-hole game, but we all lost. Not that I really wanted an ugly stuffed toy anyway -- I always give them to Goodwill. Back at Mom's house Jonas spent some time fixing something with Dean's computer before we went home.

At home we did some research and discovered Chaska was having some fireworks. Since we're moving there we thought we'd better check them out, right? Well, they were mediocre, but I think next year we'll do some more shopping around the other nearby cities to find out who has the best. It makes sense -- with a population of ~17,000 Chaska is probably putting less money into their show than Eden Prairie (~55,000), which usually is pretty decent. Ah, well.

It was a productive, yet not quite fulfilling weekend. I'm now on intimate terms with housing insulation.

At our construction meeting last Thursday we found out that sheetrocking was going to begin Monday (today). Earlier in the building process when we'd had to decide which options we wanted and which we didn't, we opted not to pay extra to have the outer garage walls insulated (it was $700 extra). The two walls adjacent to the house would be insulated by Rottlund at no extra charge. We figured it was something we could always do ourselves later on. Then at the aforementioned meeting we learned that they were going to sheetrock ALL the garage walls, regardless of whether there was going to be insulation underneath or not. It seemed kind of silly to have them put sheetrock over empty air, so Joel (who conducted the meeting) said that if we wanted to we could come out over the weekend and insulate those two outer walls ourselves, and they'd sheetrock over it this week.

I called Dad to see if he'd help out -- neither Jonas nor I have had any experience in home finishing -- and we all met at Home Depot where we picked up four packages of insulation. The whole job of insulating and stapling plastic over the walls took only about 3 and a half hours. It turned out to be pretty simple, and probably ultimately something Jonas and I could have done ourselves, but I was glad to have Dad along because he knew what he was doing from the start! The fiberglass experience wasn't as awful as I'd imagined it was going to be. Sure, I itched a little, but it was OK (I'd do it again, I think). I also came away with a small blister on my thumb from cutting the insulation, but the best part was the feeling that we actually contributed (albeit slightly) to the construction of our home with our own two hands!

Sunday we went out to Dad's and had steak on the grill, and for the first time got to meet his girlfriend Mary. I'd been interested in meeting her for a while, but Dad is kind of a private guy and we didn't want to ask too many questions or appear too anxious to meet her. She seemed like a nice woman (and had made excellent potato salad and banana cream pie!), and she and Dad seem happy together. I'm not sure how long they've been dating -- at least since last Christmas. I was really curious to ask her all kinds of questions about her family and children, but I didn't want to seem like I was interrogating her the first time we met.

Bought two new puzzles -- a tableau of vegetables and an ancient world map. We finished the Coca-Cola one Saturday afternoon and needed another fix. Hah. If this continues, we're eventually going to need an entire room devoted to puzzle storage.

So we're at the cemetery today, doing some cleaning and pruning around the stones of my grandparents and my grandfather's immediate family. His father, my great-grandfather Pieter, had bought plots for all his children and their spouses, as well as for himself and his sister Cornelia and her husband. I'd decided that this year I was going to leave flowers at all of their graves, because I know several of them do not have any relations who visit.

I was standing near one of the stones, and said something about Menzo Van Esveldt. A woman who had been standing near some stones in the next row asked, "Are you related to Menzo Van Esveldt?" I replied that he'd married my grandfather's sister. She said, "Oh, we always used to go to their house on New Year's Eve!" Comparing notes, we discovered we're related. Her grandmother Cornelia was Pieter's sister. She and Dad are second cousins. I can't believe what a fantastic coincidence this was. It's the first time I've ever seen anyone visiting the plots in our family -- I wouldn't have been surprised if there were no relations left in the Twin Cities.

Donna (the new cousin) gave me her address, and mentioned that she had an old book somewhere that probably has some Dutch genealogical information in it regarding our families. I can't wait to exchange information with her, this is so exciting! The bizarre thing is that I only recently figured out how the Bakkers fit into the family, so if I had met her even one month ago, I wouldn't have recognized the significance. Life is strange sometimes ...

I've got a bit of a headache at the moment, but wanted to write at least something for today.

I woke up about 10:30am and tried to rouse Jonas, who just mumbled and turned over. I reminded him that last night he said he'd get up whenever I got up, but no answer. I wandered off to the computer room for a half hour then went in again to drag him out of bed. It was turning out to be a gorgeous day, and we were not going to waste it!

When we finally got going, we headed out to Cleary Lake park in Prior Lake. They've got a 3.5 mi loop of biking/hiking trail, and it's relatively flat most of the way so excellent for skating as well. I wore the heart rate belt today and had a terrible time staying in my "zone" (the rate at which you burn the most stored fat, instead of burning what you just ate). Having gotten out of shape over the winter I kept going above and having the damn thing beep at me all the time. We did the loop twice, so 7 miles. Not too bad, it felt great to be out in the sun -- I think I got some color in my arms too. One cute thing -- while skating we passed a woolly bear trying to cross the trail. I circled around, picked it up and deposited it on the other side. There was so much bike, rollerblade and pedestrian traffic out there today I was afraid it'd get run over.

After heading home to shower and make ourselves more presentable, we headed over to Heidi & Steve's for an Indy BBQ. I brought a couple of cute baby books for Emily -- she's a cutie. I hadn't seen her since around Christmas, and now she is about 8 months old, sitting up and playing by herself, and babbling away in her own private language like there's no tomorrow!

Kris and Ron are in town this weekend, so tomorrow we're all heading to Dad's for some more grilling, then off to the cemetery in St. Anthony to visit our Van Zanten ancestors.

Currently reading at home: Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon
Currently reading at work: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Last night Jonas made a late-evening trip to Target for firewood (the artificial logs). He ended up buying three computer games, Diet Dr Pepper and a new phone/answering machine (our old one has been broken for about a month), but managed to forget the firewood altogether. Heh.

Two of the games were war games he'd been wanting for a while, the other was Jeopardy 2003. Cool! We love our Jeopardy! We tape the show every day, although we don't always get around to watching them before they're overwritten. Anyway, it was a cool game. I kicked Jonas' and the computer player's ass the first game and was leading by a huge margin in the second game, but I boldly (foolishly?) decided to wager my entire score on a daily double that I blew. So the computer player won game 2. Unfortunately, Jonas is at a disadvantage when playing, as English is not his native language. I should maybe handicap myself in some way. Naaaah. :)

This afternoon we're meeting Mom and Dean for a movie and dinner afterward at Outback Steakhouse. This "quality time spent with your daughter and son-in-law" was part of our Christmas gift to them last year. The movie we're seeing is The Recruit. I haven't heard too much about it, but we'll have a good time. In about an hour we'll have to start getting ready to go. In the meantime, Jonas is studying a new book in preparation for the new class he'll be teaching soon. Don't ask me what it's about -- computer stuff, networking, or something.

I'm so proud of the cleaning job I did yesterday! Just needs a little vacuuming to polish it off and I will be satisfied.

Just a quick entry to make here before I go off and play. Lately, Age of Empires II has been the game of choice, but I've been getting kind of bored with it so I might pull out something else I haven't played in a while.

We picked up D'amico for dinner. Tortellini for me and artichoke salad and a sandwich for Jonas. We sat picnic-like in the livingroom and watched an episode of Law & Order, then The Surreal Life. I've never been a fan of reality shows, and have done my best to avoid them entirely, but there is something about this houseful of has-beens that piques my interest in one of those unpleasant-but-intriguing ways -- that is, feeling repulsion or incredible dislike for something, while at the same time being quite fascinated by it. As for the characters, all I can say is what a real piece of work is Corey Feldman. (But I guess we knew that 10 years ago.)

No CDs came today. Bummer.

I'm off tomorrow. Of course, that means I have to work Saturday instead, but on Thursday evenings it sure sounds like a good idea. Wonder what I'll do.

Cute. Dad just sent me an email asking the question, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" and giving the answers as spoken by various famous contemporary and historical figures. Being relatively new to the whole computer thing, he is really into forwarding "funnies."

As I sit down to write this, Jonas is calculating potential retirement figures in earnest. A few weeks ago I'd requested further information about the county's deferred compensation programs, since it's about time to begin thinking about long-term and retirement savings. Part of me feels it must be way too early to think about retirement, but on the other hand it's probably one of those things for which it can never be too early. It looks like I'll probably start deferring 15-20% of my paycheck toward that end, which will be put away in addition to what's going for me in the county's pension plan, PERA (Public Employees Retirement Association). Overall, I'm not really into long-term finances. I make sure the rent and the bills are paid each month, but I prefer to leave the rest up to Jonas. He seems to like it better anyhow.

This morning we met some of my family at the Science Museum. Included in our party were Jonas, me, Mom and Dean, my aunt Georgia and her husband Kim, and my "new" aunt Anita and her husband Dean. Anita is "new" in that we've known about her very existence for only about 3 months! (There is a long explanation -- I'll perhaps tell that story another day.) Anita lives in Wisconsin, but we've been having a few "get to know each other" meetings. A few weeks ago several of us visited them down on their farm, and today it was decided that we should meet at the museum, which was cool with me -- I love that place. The Omni movie showing today was Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees. Excellent. I don't know how everyone else enjoyed it, but being a nature program freak this was right up my alley.

The special exhibit currently visiting the museum is Vikings, and it was fascinating and quite engaging. In addition to the standard displays of artifacts and interpretive maps and histories, there were people in period dress demonstrating chainmail-making, carving, weaponry, jewelrymaking, etc. For the price of the beads you could make your own Viking jewelry, but we declined. I've become fascinated by the pre-Columbian Viking visits to the New World, and have been hinting to Jonas that we ought to visit Newfoundland sometime. We spent over an hour walking through the exhibit and still didn't even finish before we had to hightail it off to the laser show.

I made (frozen) lasagne and (frozen) garlic bread for dinner. I know, I know -- cheating. Jonas officially begins his new job tomorrow, yay! And I don't start work until 12:30pm, so I can sleep in, YAY! Of course, that means I work until 9pm, but it sure feels worth it on Monday mornings.

Thanksgiving this year seemed a little dull. I'm not entirely sure why; I had a pretty nice day. I guess it just didn't seem as festive as it sometimes does.

We first went to Dad's for a few hours. Kris, Dad, Jonas and I played Trivial Pursuit for a while until the turkey was done. We ate and visited for a while, then hopped in the car to head to Mom's. There we decided to play Trivial Pursuit again since we had the game with us. We'd also brought some Dairy Queen ice cream cake which we all eagerly dug into. We were exhausted by the time we headed home after 4 hours at Dad's house and 4 hours at Mom's. That is a lot of family for one day!

Once again in our attempt to sleep in we were woken up by the children upstairs, and Jonas is ready to complain to the office. We'd complained once before about the previous residents up there, but then it was an older, 12ish child. These kids are 3-4ish and I think the idea of being quiet because there are people living below them would for the most part be lost on them. But I guess it's worth a try? Maybe their parents can try to keep track of them better.

I did manage to go back to sleep for a few hours. It's impossible to describe how great it feels to lie dozing in the morning, knowing I don't have any obligations until later in the afternoon.

We'd arranged to meet Dad, Kris and Kris' boyfriend Ron at T. G. I. Friday's to celebrate Dad's 63rd and Jonas' 30th birthdays. Dad had some gift certificates he'd received from work that he wanted to use up, so it was as good occasion as any. It was a good time. I had the chicken fajitas and Jonas and Dad both had ribs. Kris had a chicken/pasta dish and Ron also had pasta, I think.

I've spent the last few hours paying bills and catching up on some paperwork I've been neglecting for a while. It wasn't a whole lot of work, just some of it complicated, and now I feel just exhausted in my head. Maybe if I ask adorably Jonas will treat me to a nice back massage.

I can't believe the weekend is going to be over already! There was so much stuff I wanted to get done. At least next week is a short one ...

Boy, we had a productive day (even though we slept in)!

It didn't start out as such a great day. The kids upstairs were doing their usual screaming and stomping bit. I did get to sleep in, but I sure would have liked to sleep in a bit longer. But alas, you cannot fight the herd of rampaging rhinos living above. All I could think about was how much I wish I had my own house, so I didn't have to listen to that crap every day.

So one of the first things I did for fun after I got up was search realtor.com for house listings. I found one that looked neat and was in our tentative price range: 4 bdr, 2 bath, 1950 sqft, built 1988. I printed out the info and after Jonas and I got ready to go out and run errands we decided to do a drive-by there first. (No, not that kind of drive-by.) Well, it looked OK, although it was painted weirdly. The neighborhood seemed, again, just "OK." It looked like it may have been a great neighborhood 5 years ago and now is maybe starting to go downhill. No big deal, we're just window-shopping right now anyhow.

Then we ran to the Mall of America to the T-Mobile store. Jonas had already decided to buy us a couple of phones, but we listened to the salesguy's spiel anyway. I get bored with salesguys, but Jonas is tolerant that way. I got the cute phone I had been looking at yesterday, and Jonas got his fancy-schmancy, bells-and-whistles version so we were both happy. Of course, we then spent several hours playing with them, calling each other, leaving each other voicemail and leaving each other text messages. Just like kids at Christmas! Oh, we also made a relatively quick stop at Southdale so Jonas could pick up some new shirts for work.

After we got home I thought we'd spend the rest of the evening just lazing around, but at some point (and I don't remember who came up with this brazen initiative), we decided to actually cook something for dinner. Yes, I know it's hard to believe we actually created a meal in our own home. Nothing fancy, just some Shake-and-Bake chicken, peas, and rice, but pretty good for us who usually eat out or make instant-type meals in evenings. *clap us*

I just now finished composing a really long and detailed email to a newfound relation on my Freiermuth side who lives in California. (I'm into genealogy.) He ends up being my third cousin. Now it's truly time to relax.

Jonas made us a dinner of mashed potatoes tonight, a recipe he got out of a Williams-Sonoma Mayo Clinic cookbook. It was made with chopped arugula, a green, leafy vegetable similar to spinach. It had a stronger taste than spinach does, though. I spread my potatoes on a pita bread and Jonas spread his on a crisp bread. It was a funny supper with just potatoes and bread but we both got full. After dinner we finished watching a documentary about the Spanish-American war.

I have a new aunt.

Last night mom called with some odd news. It turns out that she and her siblings have an older half-sister (Anita), a daughter born to my grandmother when she was 15-16 and given up for adoption. After her adoptive parents died, she decided to seek out her biological family. More details to follow later as we find out more, but I have to say despite being a bit of a bombshell, I am finding it one of the most exciting things to happen in our family in ages!

Mom and her sisters hope to meet Anita soon, perhaps later this month. I'd like to meet her too, but we don't want to overwhelm her too with much new family all at once. It seems kind of unreal to discover a lost relation after 60 years!

Currently reading at home: The Great Book of Amber (Roger Zelazny)
Currently reading at work: Morality Play (Barry Unsworth)

Tonight when I got home from work mom had left a message on our machine that Grandma died this morning. She was discovered by the hospice care folks in her kitchen. It appears she had a heart attack and simply fell to the floor, without any external injuries.

I have been home alone this evening so I have been grieving by myself. It's been a shock to lose her so suddenly, but I don't find myself grieving that she didn't live longer. She'd been suffering from Parkinson's disease for years, and more recently diagnosed and treated for Hodgkins. The radiation treatment she received for that sapped everything out of her. In July we had a family reunion, the first time in years that all six of her children were present at once, and it appeared to have been just in time. That day it was apparent she was finding it hard to enjoy herself; it was clear that every day was arduous and painful for her. It's hard to be sad in that respect. In fact, when you think about it, in cases of chronic and terminal illness the survivors are grieving more for themselves and their own loss than the loss of their loved one's life.

The reviewal (wake) is next Tuesday evening and her funeral on Wednesday.

Merry Christmas! We slept in for a while and then after I nagged a little Jonas started cooking the rice pudding he'd planned to make to bring to Dad's. We left here a little before 1:30pm and headed out to Dad's in Buffalo.

We got there and there were some goodies waiting for us in our stockings, candy and crackers and things. We exchanged gifts and Jonas and I got an electric carving knife, a relish dish and some crystal wine glasses from Dad. From Kris I got a gift card for JC Penney. We also got a one-a-day bathroom reader calendar, from Dad I think. Kris and I had given Dad 8 new place settings with an ivy design to match his kitchen and to replace the mismatched settings he's been using for so long. Jonas and I had gotten Kris a season pass to Valleyfair for next year and then I'd also gotten her a little gift bag from Bath and Body Works.

We played some cards until dinner was done and then we had ham, rolls, broccoli, baked potatoes -- and for dessert we had Jonas' rice pudding and cherry pie. Afterwards we played Tripoli for a while and then Jonas and I headed home around 7 or so. It was a great Christmas!!