Posts Tagged ‘family’
Risking Again
After last week’s risky and dangerous commute home from work, I intended to be more cautious about venturing out when the weather gets wild and the roads are dicey.
However, there are some things that cause us to push that envelope of safety, like, say… a funeral for a family member. That is what we were faced with yesterday. The service for Cyndie’s aunt was at a church in Plymouth, MN, not far from the location of my day-job.
I stepped out to clean off the front steps yesterday morning, and soon learned the snow was coming down so fast that the areas where I shoveled were getting covered right back up in minutes. That caused an alert that our drive to the cities was going to take much longer than normal.
I rushed inside to let Cyndie know that we needed to depart as soon as possible, and anything she was hoping to accomplish before leaving needed to be immediately re-evaluated as to whether it was more important than possibly missing the funeral.
It was another day of crash-defying navigation in horrible visibility with heavy snow falling and roads slippery and snow-covered. Just the conditions I never wanted to find myself in again for a very long time. It’s exhausting.
To complicate matters, we needed to drive separately. We would both stay overnight in Edina, and I would drive to work this morning, while Cyndie will join immediate family at the cemetery for a brief burial service. After that, she will drive home to take over from our house/animal sitter, Anna, who stayed overnight at Wintervale for us.
I drove ahead of Cyndie, but kept a close eye on her in my rear view mirror. Together, we slowly made our way with barely a minute to spare, luckily avoiding the fate that we witnessed maybe a dozen times along the way, of cars losing control and crashing into the ditches all around us.
It was crazy making. It was white-knuckle gripping of the steering wheel the whole way. That kind of “edge-of-disaster” driving is really, really exhausting.
Follow that with heavy emotions of a funeral service, and that’s one heck of a draining day.
Wouldn’t you know, tomorrow we are due to get hit with another big snow event.
Something tells me I won’t be driving to work Tuesday.
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Flying North
Today, we fly back to winter, just in time for a blast of snow and Arctic cold air to put an exclamation point on the end of our 9-day visit to Florida. We ate like royalty, played cards, laughed, shopped, explored, watched movies and never wore mittens once.
Yesterday, maybe as a primer for our return, the temperature hovered on the cool side of comfortable, compressing our outdoor activity to a couple matches of bocce ball and a walk back to the house before the next rain shower.
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Barb was the difference maker in both close competitions, despite the missing sunshine that would have allowed for much more relaxed muscles during tosses.
We expect to arrive to the Minneapolis airport in the late afternoon today, and hope to drive the hour toward home without suffering any delays that may result from snow-covered roads.
Whether I will be able to execute my usual commute across the Twin Cities in my return to the day-job tomorrow morning remains a mystery, at this point.
The forecast (as of late last night) is rather ominous:
The predicted high temperature on Wednesday could remain in the double-digits (F) below zero. That will be the warmest part of the day.
One tiny shred of consolation about coming home to this brutal weather, is the fact that the polar vortex pushing down into the middle of the country will have an impact all the way to Florida. Cyndie’s parents had us put the insulating cover on their pool last night, in preparation for the cool week ahead.
Good thing we are going home, so we don’t have to suffer in any of the cold Florida weather they will be dealing with down here.
It’s all relative, isn’t it?
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Shopping Dining
Yeah. Remember that thought I tossed out before we left, about considering posting one picture to portray each of our days. Never mind that.
Yesterday, we shopped the Miromar Outlet mall.
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In the evening, we dined at Divieto Ristorante.
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In between, we snuck in a little swim.
Rinse. Repeat.
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Multitasking Indoors
It was a mostly cloudy, very windy, and generally cooler day yesterday, so the bulk of activity was indoors. Leisurely reading was the early pursuit, followed by a combination of watching memorials for Walk Off the Earth keyboardist, Mike ‘Beard Guy’ Taylor on YouTube, while the NFL playoffs were on in the background.
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We’re Acclimatizing
Our first day at Cyndie’s parents’ Florida home was a period of acclimatization to the dramatic change in environment. We are adjusting to the 1-hour difference of the Eastern time zone by soaking up the sun while lounging in and around the pool.
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Plane Delay
Our plan for the day played out perfectly, right up to the point where the pilot, standing next to his suitcase, took the microphone to speak to the throng standing in queue to board.
The walk-around revealed a leak that would require taking the plane back to the hangar for repair.
How can you argue with a delay situation that involves not flying in a plane with mechanical issues?
We didn’t settle into a bed until the wee hours of this morning, but did so safe, sound, and thrilled to be laying heads on pillows.
We’re here!
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She Knows
I walked into the kitchen and said to Cyndie, “She knows.”
Cyndie instantly agreed, “Oh, she totally knows.”
Our departure for a 9-day getaway to visit Cyndie’s parents in Florida was still a day away last night, but both of us picked up a powerful vibe that Delilah was already beginning to mope as a result of our telltale activity.
She laid under the table and watched us with her eyes, without picking up her head. Suitcases had been brought out of storage. Cyndie was kicking into high house-cleaning gear, and both of us were mentally grinding through virtual lists of tasks to be done, items to be packed, “i”s to dot and “t”s to cross.
Delilah has witnessed this scene before.
One of our newer house and animal sitters, Anna, will be taking care of our place while we are away this time. I’m hoping the weather will be uneventful and the predators all stay away while she is on duty. Wouldn’t it be a shame if we lose a hen (or hens) during her stay?
I’ve tried to point out to her that it can happen at any time, hoping she won’t suffer too much if a loss occurs on her watch.
We drive to the airport this afternoon for a flight out around the dinner hour, departing just as a mass of colder air with a chance of some snow is expected to pay a visit. Guess it’s not the worst time to be escaping to Florida.
I’ve been pondering what I might choose to do for blog posts while we are away. One possibility that keeps tugging at me is the challenge of choosing one photo per day to convey what we are experiencing. At the same time, I assume a week of leisure might free me up to do more writing than usual, so maybe I don’t want to restrict myself to a single picture.
Either I’ll write more, or I’ll take a break and write less. We’ll just have to wait and see what captures my fancy, after I settle in to that eastern time zone with the warm, humid air.
One way or another, you can rest assured that, for the next week, I will somehow be sharing the most delectable morsels of our adventures in Florida, visiting Cyndie’s mom and dad.
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Festivities Continue
This time, the party moved to our house. All of Cyndie’s brothers came over, bringing some of their kids, along with the Fisknes family from Norway. When our kids learned of everyone’s plans, they decided to make the trip, too. We all had a great time hanging around the fireplace, eating an impressive lunch buffet Cyndie set out, walking the labyrinth, feeding the horses and chickens, and playing card games.
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Eventually, the American contingents all headed back to the Twin Cities, but the Norwegians stayed for a sleep-over at the ranch. That was always in the plan, but we rearranged the days a little to avoid the rain we are expecting today.
We decided weather like that was more fitting for shopping at the Mall of America.
The main highlight of their visit (among many), was seeing the girls succeed wonderfully for their first attempt at making pasta from scratch.
The fresh pasta turned out great and made for a scrumptious dinner. I even got in on the kitchen activity, (an uncharacteristic place for me) sautéing vegetables while the actual family cook was busy with the more important task of teaching the art of home-made pasta.
It was a perfect way to fend off the onset of the wet weather we are expecting to face today and tomorrow.
It all felt downright festive, if I do say so myself.
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So Christmassy!
Christmas morning with Cyndie’s family is all breakfast and presents, on a grand scale, both. After getting lavishly fed, we headed downstairs to find 23 people’s-worth of presents around the tree.
It doesn’t take too long for Santa’s little helpers to distribute the packages around the room.
Then begins a cacophony of ripping paper, saving bows, exclamations of surprise/love/and delight, and many voices talking all at once.
As quickly as possible after everything was opened, I needed to slip out for a return trip to the ranch, where Delilah was patiently awaiting some attention. She was very grateful to have a chance to get outside to do her business. I granted her as much time and freedom as possible, trying to make up for the many hours she has been left alone in the last few days.
She seemed to think it made for good opportunity to hunt critters that live in the grass beneath the snow.
“Wha-aat?” she says after we get back inside. “I’m a good girl!”
After I got her fed, and darkness moved the chickens into the coop, it was time for my second drive of the day to Edina.
The Christmas feast which included salmon and beef tenderloin, easily justified the added driving.
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Cyndie stayed at her parent’s house overnight Monday and all day yesterday to help with preparations.
Christmas 2018 was definitely a day that felt wonderfully Christmassy in our family! The added blessings of having Norwegian relatives joining in the festivities was icing on our cake.
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Festivities Underway
The week after the winter solstice has become a time of amplified car commuting in my mind, ever since we moved an hour away from family in the Twin Cities, to rural countryside in western Wisconsin, where we have animals that need tending.
For some occasions, we have been lucky to find sitters to live in our house and care for our horses, chickens, and dog, but holidays are a tough time to ask others to do the job, at the expense of their own family gatherings.
Generally, that means we do the hour drive to participate in a few hours of holiday festivities, and then duck out early to make the hour drive back home again. Although the commute has become second nature for me to get to the day-job, the short time between trips each day around Christmastime makes the driving seem much more significant.
And, on Christmas day, we do it twice in one day.
It is not ideal, but it is always worth it, on both ends. We never regret time spent with our animals, and the time with family is forever priceless.
This year, we have an added bonus of relatives visiting from Norway. That wouldn’t be my relatives. The Fisknes family are from the Ravndal clan on Cyndie’s family tree. Cyndie’s great-grandmother was a Ravndal. We drove out to Eden Prairie last night to greet the family of five who are initially staying at the home of Cyndie’s brother, Steve.
After Christmas, the plan is for them to spend a night or two with us at Wintervale.
We don’t have oodles of snow to show off, but that might just change right in the middle of their visit. Precipitation is coming, but there is a sad chance it could be rain and snow mixed. Yuck.
The horses are enjoying the lack of snow cover during their brief forays onto the frozen grass of the back pasture. Yesterday, when I opened the gate for them, Delilah and I lingered in the field with them to appreciate the moment.
All three horses emptied their bladders in quick succession, and then followed that up a short time later with a rambunctious roll on the ground. Seemed like a very business-like routine in preparation of an afternoon of free grazing.
I am getting prepared for some free grazing of my own. Our kids will visit us this morning for our little personal family Christmas brunch, and then we drive to Edina for Christmas eve gathering with Cyndie’s cousins on her mom’s side.
I will sneak out early to drive home. Christmas morning, I finish chores and drive back for the Friswold gift exchange extravaganza.
The festivities are definitely underway.
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Relative Something 