Mother's Day at Ruttger's

May 8, 2010

Hey there-

How goes it? We “enjoyed” some May snow yesterday. We’re spending Mother’s Day weekend in the Brainerd area, and I think there was something like three inches. Craziness! I’m happy to report that as of about 10 a.m., it was completely gone and we’ve enjoyed a beautiful sunny day.

Chris and I indulged ourselves with some Ficus enterprises (Chris’ vending machine empire, in case you don’t know) profits and bought a Garmin for running this week. It’s pretty much the coolest dang thing ever for a couple of running nerds such as ourselves. We had eight miles scheduled for this morning, and it was awesome to just take off and go and have your time and distance measured, requiring no thought or advanced planning whatsoever. We got to run along lovely Bay Lake, and despite yesterday’s snow (BOO!), it turned out to be a splendido day for a run.

Jerod had his first soccer practice of the season this week. He is a member of the mighty Pelicans. At this point in time, I am receiving a failing grade as a soccer mom. The coach sent an email a couple of weeks ago. Being that it’s “summer soccer,” I quickly skimmed it with the intent of reading more carefully and digesting the info later. On May 3 I got around to reading more closely and read “first practice will be Apri 28.” DOH. I then saw that the next practice would be May 5. Cool, I think, I can get us on the ball now. It also mentioned that the first game would be coming up at Pamela Park. So, on Wednesday we got J all suited up and headed to Pamela Park. There was no sign of Pelicans anywhere. The email was older, so neither Chris nor I could pull it up on our phone, so we had to go all the way back home to pull it up. Turns out practice was at Normandale Park. Double DOH! We did make it to the last 15 minutes of practice. Ugh.

Chris and I got to trek back to Target field last Thursday. Sadly the weather was not as nice as it had been on our first visit. It was yucky rainy. We watched a few innings, then decided to head to Kieran’s to watch the end. The Twins stunk it up against the Orioles and lost 2-0, so I’m glad we didn’t stick around. Yesterday’s (Friday) game was cancelled due to crappy weather. First weather related baseball cancellation in 30 years for the Twins. I personally think it’s a good problem… well worth it to have outdoor baseball (though perhaps we should have given that retractable roof a little more consideration!). They dropped another one to the Orioles today… hopefully they’ll get back on track soon.

We found out this week that Elise had been assigned to a.m. kindergarten for the fall. I had really hoped for p.m., because she gets so stinking bored in the afternoons. One of my well connected Countryside neighbors this week managed to get her daughter and Elise switched to p.m. Yahoo!! She’s counting the days and ready to go J

That is pretty much all the news that Bernard Place has to offer this week.

This is not all that interesting

May 1, 2010

Wowza—it’s May!

We are chugging along, still generally enjoying this early spring. Big news of the week for Chris and me is that we are now on a Ragnar team… a.k.a 12 people crazy enough to sign on for a 198 mile relay running race from Winona to Mpls. We’ve talked about doing it for years, and this week it finally came together. Four of the people we know, the other eight are total and complete strangers found via a ‘find a team’ function on the ragnar website. We’ll each run three legs—that can vary in distance from three to eight miles. And, here’s the kicker, the race goes through the night. Hmmm…

My parents arrived on Wednesday as planned. We went out yesterday evening and had dinner with them. Their place is really nice. I wish it were just a wee bit closer, but overall it’s great. I think they’re going to come tomorrow evening (Sunday) and we’re going to eat with Donna.

Today and this evening will be a first for this Kansas rooted family. We’re going to a neighbor’s Bar Mitzvah. I’m pretty excited to experience something different. The ceremony is this morning, then tonight’s the par-tay. I can already tell you that I would compare the amount of planning work that Valette (the mom) has put in is on par with that of a wedding. It’s pretty insane… I cannot even begin to imagine what the final price tag will be. All for a 13 year old boy!

Chris and I are looking forward to our next Twins game on Thursday. Those damn Tigers won the series last week. Can’t win them all I guess J Seemed like last night they were back on track against Cleveland.

The kids are good. Hard to believe we’re just 16 days away from having an eight year old. J’s decided that he wants to take two kids to a Twins game and then have a sleep over. While I’m not thrilled about the sleep over part, I’m totally stoked that we’re not looking at a party with throngs of seven and eight year olds!

Elise is… umm… just Elise. She’s spent pretty much the whole week in a foul mood. Not exactly sure what her deal is, but I think she’s officially sick of me and ready to go to school.

That is kinda sorta all I know.

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!

Goodbye Training Wheels at OneTrueMedia.com

In typical Elise fashion, she decided she wanted to ride without training wheels today, so she just did it.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com