Suddenly a week later

You guessed it, things got crazy again.

My paternal grandmother was something of a family anchor: Christmas Eve at her house was THE event that brought the far flung family together from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and points east. She passed away a while back (I think 8 years), and we began a new tradition. Every year around her birthday, we celebrate it by assembling in St Paul at the Lexington Restaurant - a mini reunion of sorts. The Lex was one of her favorite restaurants, and we always welcome her to the table by saving a seat and ordering a scotch and water for her.

The food is always great, the conversation lively, and by the end of the night, her drink has made its way around the table, with everyone taking a sip - a communion of sorts.

When it's this time of year, we always open the house to our cousins from Madison (technically Fort Atkinson... ok), and their three boys. Bella loves playing with Seeger (5), Liam (4) and Julian (2), and Isaac got right into the swing of it as well. It was a raucous, fun time. They stayed from Thursday to Monday.

When Seeger showed up, Bella marched right up, stood toe to toe and said "Hi. I'm Five". Seeger responded "I'm five and a half". Bella paused, then said "That's interesting. My grandma said you're six." and with the pleasantries out of the way, they disappeared into the fort made from sheets, chairs, beanbags, and the dining room table that served as home base for the kids.

Unfortunately, Isaac drew the short straw - we gave Julian his room and Isaac joined us in our room in a portacrib. It threw off his rhythms, and we had some good screamfests. Some of them might have been from gas too, however, since he's been experimenting with lots more foods in the last weeks... But hopefully he'll be back in shape tonight in his own crib.

Oh yes, the dad Harman is Dutch, so I endeavored to learn a few words in Nederlands for his benefit (yes, Pimsleur again). So when I walked in Thursday, I greeted him "Daag minheer!" (hello sir!), to which he looked wide eyed, and responded "Daag! Hoe gaat het met je?" (Hi! How are you doing?) Quick on my feet, I had to answer "Niet heel goed." (Not so good! Hey, I was just getting off of work!) We traded little Dutch phrases all weekend, and he was quite impressed with my pronounciation. Pimsleur rocks, as always.

While I did play hooky from the workouts (with bad sleeping, 6am workouts would be a recipe for disaster), work itself didn't give me many breaks, as the "situation" keeps getting more dicey... but my exit is imminent, and all I can do is try to put things in place to help them through this. In the "looking forward" category, I went to the annual party (Minneapolis office) on Friday night, and had a great time with the team: I'm REALLY looking forward to getting going with these people!

This Friday is a short trip to Chicago for a night for the Chicago annual party, then next week is my trip to California - I have appointments in San Fran (Stanford) and Fresno... and a possible jog to LA as well. There'll be a few miles on me in January.

Well, that gets us sort of caught up for the moment...