Guest Post from Erika: Midwestern Adventure, Part Three

Ok, I have to start this final Midwestern Adventure post off with an apology. I have NO pictures of anyone over the age of 6 in Minnesota, except my darling husband! Where is the picture of Jason, in his TIE, picking us up from the airport? Where is the picture of Becky driving a freaking motor boat at top speed around Lake Minnewaytooconfusing while mediating a meltdown between her two little darlings (yes, simultaneously)? Where is the picture of the "grown-ups" (sheesh, when did WE become the grown-ups???) frolfing through frog fat in flip flops? Sorry, inside joke. Where is the picture of the FABULOUS new deck??? Or all the great meals we shared?

But really, Becky and Jason are people that I love very much. Good looking, good natured people! But the kids are still cuter. And so here goes: pictures of the 3rd leg of our Midwestern Adventure, aka The Drew Residence and environs in Shorewood, Minnesota.

Minnesota was all about cousins, hanging out with cousins. Unfortunately I never did get a picture of all three of the kids looking at the camera at the same time. Here is an example. I could get a:

or b:

but never all three at the same time. Those kids move fast! Here they are at the arboretum, rocking the double stroller:

And here they are sporting mohawks in the bath tub:



Martin loved hanging out at the Drews, especially in their big, beautiful backyard (a far cry from our tiny apartment deck). Here is Martin, with everything he needs in life to be happy.

Oops, forgot the most important thing he needs – mini Martin.

Awwww.


We don't see nearly enough of those Drews.

Guest Post from Erika: Midwestern Adventure, Part Two

Top Five Reasons We Love Visiting Elk Point, South Dakota
5) Pineapple Brats (no, REALLY)
4) Twin Bings! (It's actually a Sioux City thing, and now cousin Becky is addicted too)
3) Plum Dumplings, home made by Denise's Mom and helpers
2) Game Night: Sequence! (you didn't think these would ALL be about food, did you?)

but really, the number one reason...

1) Our wonderful South Dakota "family", which consists of Denise and Randy Briggs, their beautiful sweet daughter Cara, son-in-law Aron, especially delightful granddaughter Celia, parents, brothers, aunts and various and sundry other relatives who are all such wonderful, generous, fun and interesting people!

Here are most of them. Don't they look happy? That's because they are.

Denise looking for turtle eggs with Celia by the river.

Here we are, happy to be enjoying the lovely summer weather.

And there goes Peter. Bye Peter!

Those pictures were of our big outing. Mostly, we just sat outside and chatted. And ate. And chatted some more. Martin is helping them learn Czech. Celia is teaching Peter all sorts of things. She is going to be a star some day – that girl can Perform!

Randy and Denise have a lovely big yard, full of flowers. And a nice deck, perfect for BBQs. Denise's mom lives next door. Here are four generations of Denise's family (five are living):

We think Randy was secretly plotting to get us to leave Peter behind. He needs a new technician in the shop.

Cara and daughter Celia, plus one more who you can't see yet. S/he will make his or her appearance in another 7 months or so.

Celia was quite the task master. Got Peter to sweep up the place.

But it wasn't ALL work.

Peter even got to go for a bike ride! Now isn't that the most luxurious toddler ride you've ever seen?

Martin took him down to the garage to "help out".

Have I mentioned that we love visiting Elk Point? :-)

Oh, I almost forgot. We *finally* got Denise to fly in Martin's plane. The woman had not been in an airplane since 1978. Three years ago she made it all the way to the end of the runway, and walked all the way back. We are so thrilled that she did it this time! Yay, Denise!!!

Guest Post from Erika: Midwestern Adventure, Part One

Well you already heard all about Part One (San Carlos -> Elko), so I'll just post a few photos to make you really feel like you were there (without the air sickness part).

Here is Peter, flying like a champ. See how he amuses himself? (For a full 20 seconds?) I won't post the picture of him screaming his head off because I still want you to think he is adorable all the time.

Here is Peter, overjoyed to be out of the airplane in Elko. Uncle Dave is herding.

Captured!

Later that evening, Peter enjoyed a spaghetti meal with all of his senses. And I do mean ALL. "What sound does spaghetti make when dropped from six inches above the plate?" Martin's biggest question was "Why the heck do they put spaghetti (the messiest food there is) on kids' menus anyway???" Ok, but it *is* hard to eat spaghetti with just a spoon. Give him a break.

Peter helped Martin load up the plane on Sunday morning as we prepared to fly to South Dakota. The paint job is still pretty cool. We got comments everywhere we landed, almost all positive. Example: "Did Ted Nugent influence the artist?" (from the control tower in Casper, Wyoming). My favorite though, was the negative, somewhere in very rural Wyoming, or possibly Colorado:

Surly gas guy: Well that's an *interesting* paint job you got there.
Martin: Uh, thanks?
Surly gas guy: It wouldn't exactly be *my* first choice.
Martin: Oh, really? What would your first choice be?
Surly gas guy: I think they look best painted white with a little blue stripe.

He warmed up when he saw the faux bullet holes though. Turns out he had the same ones on his truck. Bonding with the locals!


Next post (and I realize this next post will actually appear *above* this post, confusing all of you linear types out there): Home Sweet South Dakota thanks to Briggs Last Chance Garage!

Guest Post from Erika: First Leg of Travel (Elko, Nevada)

Well, we flew to Elko yesterday from San Carlos and it was a pretty bumpy ride over those mountains. I learned several valuable lessons:

1) Always carry an extra barf bag (ok, what is the politically correct term? air sickness bag?) in case one has a hole in it.
2) A sleeping bag, even a wet, very smelly sleeping bag, is still warm when the cabin temperature drops to 32 degrees.
3) The person who gets motion sickness should not be the one in charge of keeping the head set on the upset wriggling toddler for 3 hours.

Doesn't flying sound glamorous? :-)

You all can extrapolate the rest. At any rate, I was never happier to see my dear Uncle Dave's smiling face when we landed. He kindly chauffered us to our hotel, and then took us out for a real Basque meal (Peter's first!). I think we were all a bit disturbed by the amount of food we were expected to eat, but managed to enjoy ourselves nonetheless with Beth and Kristen helping to keep the little guy happy and occupied until well past his bed time.

Congratulations to Jan and John Maas who have been married for 50 years, and whose big old celebration provided the occasion for this mini family reunion! I told Martin we are definitely having dancing at our 50-year wedding anniversary party. Woo hoo!

We depart in a couple of hours for South Dakota, and I have a new pre-flight checklist that includes Drammamine. Wish us luck!

More Puccini and Peter at Chez Kosina

Peter the baby toddler has entered a new stage of development. We'll call this the Climbing Stage. Here is how it works. Erika will be in the kitchen, doing something that requires near-constant attention like toasting walnuts. (I know, I know, I've tried to tell her to stick to something simple like Egg McMuffins, but she refuses to listen). Peter, in the mean time, will be in the other end of the apartment (the playroom), doing god knows what.

Every few minutes Erika runs down the hall to see what Peter is doing. She does this more frequently when things get quiet because as all mothers know, a quiet baby toddler is a baby toddler who has found something so dangerous/interesting as to be completely absorbed for however long it takes to gravely injure himself.

Now, here comes the Italian opera. This morning it's Tosca. Appropriately dramatic and tragic for the variety of tableaux that Erika is greeted with when she peeks around the door frame:

1. Peter sitting innocently, *reading a book*!!!
   
2. Peter standing with both hands on the cat, fists full of fur in each hand
   
3. Peter STANDING on the dining room chair next to a large window, giggling
   
4. Peter sitting calmly on a cushion, playing with daddy's sock
   
5. Peter struggling valiantly to wiggle up onto the dining room chair, which has now been wedged between the table and the sofa to discourage mounting
   
6. Peter sitting calmly on the sofa, looking perplexed (how IN THE WORLD did he manage to climb up there???)
   

sigh. This is how Erika has lost so much weight. It takes her two and a half hours just to prepare breakfast, and by then it's lunch time and she's thinking "Why bother?". We really should go back to the restrictive child gates in every room, but then Peter spends all of his time trying to climb up Mommy instead of chairs and tables. Equally hard to prepare a meal with a whining toddler attached to your leg.

So when do we get to the Can't Stop Folding Laundry stage? Or, better yet, the Obsessive Kitty Petting stage? Guess we'll find out.

Pictures. Yeah, I know. Working on it.

Quick Update

Didn't mean to leave y'all hanging there. In brief, here is the news of note:

1) Martin accepted the job! He will start saving the world energy (ask him, it has something to do with computers and power metrics that is beyond my tiny feline brain) in another week and a half.

2) Erika has discovered the perfect soundtrack for screaming babies: Italian Opera. Picture it: some Italian guy, wailing mournfully about his lost love and then, Peter chimes in: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! It's perfect. Now, before you call Child Protective Services again, this is the third meltdown this morning, and it is only 10:30. She has tried and tried and TRIED to pick him up, soothe him, help him stop crying, and he gives her only the universal baby sign for No Way Mom, which is both hands waving across the body like an over-eager umpire insisting that the guy was SAFE. Or is it OUT? Can't remember the last time I was at a baseball game...

3) Are the Kosinas moving to Nevada City? Who knows. Stay tuned (again). Martin wants to practice his new bicycle commute (the job is in San Francisco) and then we'll see.

4) Peter is now 12 kilograms, which for all you Americans out there, translates to Damned Heavy. Or around 27 pounds. Had to keep up with the elongation, which the doctor puts at 33 inches or 83.75 centimeters. He's a big guy. Must be all the "daddy omelettes" that Martin has been concocting for his breakfast lately.

5) And yes, Peter turned 15 months old this week and Erika has yet to post any pictures anywhere. She's been busy with, uh, making trips to the library for more Italian opera. And cooking. Oh my, has she been cooking. Chocolate raspberry clafouti anyone? Sorry, it's all gone.

6) Record high in San Francisco this week has been 58 degrees. Fahrenheit. I'm going back to my nap now until the sun comes out.

Pawlene's Perspective for the 100th Time

Yes, with a lot of little help from Erika, and no help at all from Peter The Marauding Toddler, I am posting to this blog for the 100th time.

When this blog started two and a half years ago, we were happily living in Portland, Oregon. Peter was but a twinkle in Martin and Erika's eye, we were looking for a house to buy, and this blog was mostly about Food. My, the more some things change, the more others stay the same.

But first, the news. Here is a quick highlight of This Week's House Drama. When Erika last reported on the house we made an offer on in Grass Valley, she mentioned that Another Cat had suddenly come into the picture as part of the deal. Well, we had a little chat and Erika and Martin immediately revoked the offer. There might have been a few other factors at play, like the 20-minute commute to town, which was starting to sound really long, and the fact that the situation with the bank was getting more complicated instead of less, but still. Another cat? No way. Erika and Martin have mixed feelings about the whole thing, but feel that it really was the right decision.

However, there are a few other house options under consideration, both in Nevada City. Stay tuned...

In other late-breaking news, Martin has finally received a job offer that actually interests him. He is currently contemplating it. It sounds really cool, but we don't want to start counting those chickens yet so that's all I'm going to say about it right now.

And now for the REAL news. Allow me to quote from the thank you note that Erika and Martin received from our latest house sitters:

"I can't tell you how much we appreciated having a [blah blah blah] AND of course, the BEST cat in the world! I've had cats all my life, and have never met a more friendly and loving one."

Someone *finally* appreciates me for who I am. Not one mention of my size in that note, mind you. All about my *inner* beauty. Hmmph.

Oh, and for you photo hounds, here are the Kosinas in attendance at one of the coolest weddings ever (Congratulations, Tracy and Jason Starr!). That large boy on Martin's shoulders? Peter.