Prom boots and a weekly letter

Editorial Note: This letter contains language that any respectable adult would have edited before posting on a blog, but I don't feel like it. It does contain some adult language. You've been warned.

4/24/10

Hola!

No beautiful Saturday today. It is nasty and rainy. Chris and I are grateful to not be running today. We ran eight miles yesterday in the Bush Lake/Hyland area. Things spotted on the run included, but were not limited to: a flock of wild turkeys (one right in our path… I now know what it feels like to be scared of a turkey), a condom on the road, and a baby turtle (that I’m fairly certain was dead). Such is running in the Twin Cities, I guess!

The Twins have continued to steam roll everyone in their path… beat the Royals something like 8-3 last night. Pretty crazy stuff. We are counting the days until we can get to another game. The seats were great… closer than I’ve ever been to any sporting event. The line to the women’s restroom was, sadly, still excessively long! Chris was stoked because you can get a kids meal with a hot dog, chips, and a drink for $5. Always the bargain shopper, he is. I have to say, however, the hot dog was pretty much a ‘you get what you pay for’ experience. Jerod was not really a fan. I couldn’t help but think of the Dan Aykroyd description in ‘The Great Outdoors’ … lips and assholes! I’ve been posting these letters to the blog since they tend to tell everything that we’ve had going on. I think this one may require some heavy editing. Somehow lips and assholes and condom on the road don’t seem real appropriate.

The kids had a very ordinary week. We’re all ready for summer and soccer and baseball. Right now, however, activities are pretty much at a standstill.

A few weeks ago, Chris had a scheduling snafu and ended up with a couple extra hours to kill in uptown. So, off to the Walker he went. We ended up with a membership, and the guy is now smitten with modern art. It kind of cracks me up, because in my mind, he’s always been pretty skeptical about such art! At any rate, the kids really enjoyed the sculpture garden.

Tomorrow’s my dad’s last Sunday at his two little churches, and I believe the movers come on Wednesday. I see some heavy lifting in our near future!

Oh… I was just sitting here trying to think what excitement the past week held, and I nearly forgot the “best” part! On Thursday (while Chris was whooping it up at Happy Hour), Jerod was tossing a ball around on the patio, and the inevitable finally happened. He left a baseball sized hole in the glass on our storm door. I happened to be sitting at the dining room table and was able to see his reaction. Pretty priceless, really. I don’t know how much a kid’s expression can really say, but to me, his clearly said, “Holy Hannah, they were right when they told me not to hit the glass, and I just did it, and my mom’s gonna go postal.” Needless to say, he was pretty remorseful. He and Chris took it to Jerry’s last night, so the repair is in process.

Here’s some more useless info. for ya: my neice Joelle (who went to New England with us), went to prom last weekend. Just straight up craziness, if you ask me, that she can be old enough for such nonsense. In typical Jo fashion, she wore boots with her prom dress (I just inserted a picture up top). If my baby niece really must be a teenager, I’m grateful she’s one that’s true to her own self and a truly unique individual!

Sculpture Garden Pics

After nearly 10 years, we finally made it to the sculpture garden.

Outdoor Baseball!

Thome on the jumbotron

Mauer on the jumbotron

My new best buddy, Scott Podsednik

The view from our seats

Where the heck are our seats??!!

Elise's fashion creation

Here's the letter for the week. It was a good one (the week, I mean... not the letter)!

April 17, 2010

Hello-

It’s another beautiful Saturday here in Pleasantville. Chris and I are getting ready to head out for a seven mile run. We’ll then be coming home to shower and get ready for our first trek to Target field. We’re looking forward to a game that will require sunscreen as opposed to a vitamin D supplement! They’re playing the Royals, who they beat something like 10-0 last night. Hopefully they’ve got a few hits left in them for today.

This week brought a first in parenting for me, as Elise had to get a filling. It sucked! She did fine, but I was a wreck. After her run-in with Swine ’09 last fall, I HATE the Elise/anesthesia combination. Her quintessential Elise moment of the week was on Wednesday, when she came out of her room dressed in a shirt and pants that could never dream of looking ok together. When I told her they didn’t match, she replied with, “Mom… THIS (pointing at her shirt) is my favorite shirt. THIS (pointing at her pants), is my favorite pair of pants. They match.” I’d imagine you can just hear her snotty little ‘my mom’s an idiot’ voice. FYI… two favorites, apparently, comprise a match (despite color).

Jerod is on page 396 of 749 (he just gave me the exact numbers) of the final Harry Potter. I went to his parent teacher conference on Thursday. He’s doing well,(tearing up reading, science and math; doing less than stellar in handwriting) other than some squirrely behavior lately. I think he’s definitely ready for summer.

April 18, 2010

OK… so we left for that run at 8, and I didn’t get finished before we left. After that, the day was a complete whirlwind. Everyone is raving about the new Target field. I’m sure it’s lovely, but all I really know was that I got to spend 2+ hours in the sun watching America’s favorite pastime, and it was awesome. The good guys won 6-5… it was pretty unbelievable. After the game you could watch post-game interviews on the jumbotron (no idea how to spell that). It was really cool to see Coomer up there interviewing Mauer and then Thome (our new DH). We did learn a lot about outdoor baseball. Things like, we really need four hats (instead of one) when we walk out the door, and a hat won’t protect a seven-year old’s neckline from sunburn. We’ll do better next time!

That is all I know for now. I see on the Twins schedule that they play the Tigers on the 27^th, 28^th, and 29^th; so you can look forward to that on your radio :-) I’m going to wind this up so we can get ready for church. Jerod will be serving as a greeter today. Should be interesting!

Letters

picture from last Saturday's Easter Egg Hunt

Circumstances of life are such right now that I'm in a place that requires letter writing. It's a lost art, but one that I'm trying to find. My skills are beyond rusty. But, I'm writing a weekly letter to a relative who doesn't have access to the 'world wide interweb' and they contain pretty much all the minutiae of our lives. Since I'm doing the writing anyway, I've decided I may as well post the text (or most of it anyway) on here. Since you care. :) Here's this week's report on the Holts of Bernard Place:

Hope this finds you doing well. We’ve had a busy but good week with more beautiful spring weather. I feel an awful lot like my grandma when I write these letters… all about the weather and the minutiae of daily life!

In our house, the best news of the week is that the Twins are off to a blazing start. They dropped their first game to the Angels, but have since won four straight. We haven’t seen much of the action, as that west coast game play is too damn late for our old souls. We did stay up last night to watch them beat the White Sox in overtime, though. J.J. Hardy got the winning RBI. He’s definitely in the running for the title of “Anne’s favorite Twin.” I’m sure he’ll be flattered… ha!

Jerod got a very obnoxious, very Edina hoody yesterday with a big ol’ hornet on the front and his name on the back. We have come completely to the dark side of WASP-y suburbia!! He finished the sixth Harry Potter yesterday and was disappointed because he only got 18 out of 20 on the comprehension test. He’s such a little nerd!

Elise is still nuts. I can’t remember if I mentioned this already or not, but she learned to ride her bike without training wheels last week. It was a very Elise moment. On a random Tuesday she says to me, “I’m going to learn to ride my bike without training wheels today.” I’m like, yeah… whatever. She proceeded to hound me until I took her outside, removed the training wheels and took her to the street. Within five minutes she was totally cruising. She still has trouble getting started on her own. Once she’s going, though, there’s no stopping her.

My folks closed on their townhouse last Tuesday. We went out to see it. They’re moving on the 28th. Once the moving ball got rolling, it went quickly! Tuesday was also my dad’s b-day. He chose Friday’s, of all places, because they have some foo foo cocktail he wanted to order. Seeeeriously!

Chris and I are currently training for the Minneapolis half marathon on June 6, and then will begin full marathon training after that. It’s definitely a daunting challenge, but I’m looking forward to lots of time on the trails. It’s not always fun, but it’s always quiet… which is a treat for me. Tonight we’re heading to Nye’s to watch our normally vegetarian neighbors eat some polska kielbasa (sp??) in honor of her birthday (she’s of Polish descent). Should be interesting!

So... there ya go. I don't promise it will always be interesting. Most weeks it won't!