Back to our MN home

Well, we did make it back to Minnesota on Sunday, the 7th of June. On our way we drove across North Dakota, which was crazy windy, so we drove a little slower than we normally would. Saturday night we stayed in Fargo, ND and Caley brought us supper and we visited with her for a couple of hours. It was still really windy, in fact, her eyes got a little big when gust of wind would come through and asking if we worried about the trailer tipping over! 🙂 Yes, it was windy and it rocked the trailer with some of the gusts but it was not too bad. We had a great visit with Caley — she is working a lot of hours, with Wild Wings somewhat open, but limited capacity, and also taking two summer classes at Moorhead State. She said online learning is quite different from in person classroom, but is all doable.

We did get to see Jackie, Jermar and Jaxen on Sunday — they came over for a little BBQ and some good visiting time. This is Jaxen watching Boss Baby from Bumpa’s chair is his favorite relaxing position!! 🙂 He often falls asleep in his crib with his hands behind his head too!!

On Monday Jason and Jen stopped by on their way back from camping up north. They rented a trailer similar to ours to stay with some friends that have a cabin up there. They were definitely “roughing it” as there is no electricity and no cell service. Imagine Jason and Jen without the ability to look at their phones for 3 straight days!!! As I said really “roughing it”!!

Thursday, Jenny, Emily and Erin came up to visit. Emily did the driving so she could get a sense of how to get here from their house and could drive on her own if she wants. It was really nice to visit with them. I had started making friendship bracelets and Erin has been doing that for a long time. I asked her, on one of our family Zoom calls if she would teach me how to do a heart bracelet, similar to this:

We looked at a couple of patterns and I have been trying to complete one. It is a little more complicated that the simple chevron bracelet that I have done. Still working on it, but hope to have a finalized bracelet soon.

Memories

Facebook can be fun sometimes as it will share a picture from your past postings. This last week the following picture showed up:

Hard to believe this was only 6 years ago. The kids came up to our campsite at Woodsong (near Mora) and we asked them to “put their thinking caps on” so we could discuss the pros and cons of us moving to Louisiana with all expenses being paid by Louisiana. So Jackie and Caley came up with a different hat for each one of us so we could really “put on thinking caps on” and discuss our options. Although the discussion was sad at times, to think that we were actually looking at the option of moving so far away from everyone, but the end result was a great decision. At this point in time, both Mom and Dad had passed away — certainly if there were still around, we would not have considered moving that far. But when we looked at the package the Century Link offered to employees to move there it was like a great opportunity had been presented to us. Plus, an extra benefit, needing to work remotely and knowing that my current position at CH Robinson was not sanctioned to work remotely by the manager, I was offered another position at Robinson that could be performed anywhere that internet was available. That was a huge blessing for me as I had the opportunity to work with the best group of people (Ashley, Carrie(s), Michelle, Pam, Heather, Holly, Barb, Rick, Bridget(s), etc. hopefully I did not forget anyone….my apologies if I did) and make life long friends in the process. Moving to Louisiana was certainly an interesting experience and I know we were both glad that we did take that step. And with David being located in Louisiana, when they offered early retirement packages, he was eligible which was such another great blessing!

This past weekend we did go to Jackie and Jermar’s, and enjoyed sitting outside and doing a BBQ. Unfortunately Jaxen decided to skip his nap so he was just a tiny bit cranky (plus going through terrible twos), but it was great fun to watch his enjoy his own surroundings and constantly moving and discovering new things to do!