The get-away

We decided to take a few days away from the cities in celebration of our 39th wedding anniversary. Since it was Stake Conference and the fact it did not start until 2:00PM, we decided to leave Sunday morning. A second purpose was to check out the true gas mileage of the RAV4. We stopped at the Pine City branch for 10:00AM church and then continued on to Duluth. A co-worker of Judy's offered her house to us and we took her up on it. The house was on the point on the other side of the lift bridge. We took a thousand pictures and will post them later. Wait! It was foggy (visibility was 100 yards at times), drizzly or rainy the whole time so not one picture was taken.

The next morning, we took off for Bayfield, WI. It is a small tourist town of 600 regular residents. There are some big houses overlooking the lake and lots of tall masted sailboats. Since it was after tourist season, not much was open. But if we waited around for the next season, we could have taken a large sailboat ride. We did stop at a Scandinavian shop that had lot of very expensive nice looking stuff. I was looking at a Norwegian sweater and all the sweaters were made in CHINA. Even Norway is outsourcing to China. Did not get one. I will wait for a trip overseas. I looked at Dansko clogs - too expensive for plastic souls with stapled on patten leather, leather or vinyl tops (I can do a lot with $125). We managed to find "Maggies Lunch and Dinner" open for a quick lunch. That was the community gathering place because it seemed like half the town was there. It was decorated with pink flamingos. We walked out on the pier and then headed back to Duluth.

Mileage results on the RAV: 23.5 MPH the first half of the way up to Duluth. Then I saw that the console gear shift was knocked out of overdrive (easy to do). After putting it back into overdrive, mileage went up to 25.4 MPH. That was at 75 MPH. Then on the trip to Bayfield, at only 60MPH and on a new, very smooth road we got an average of 28.6MPG. That was great on a car advertised to get 26MPG with a V6 with 4WD. That included slowing down for towns. On the way home the first 1/2 at 75MPH we only got 23.4MPG so I dropped it down to the speed limit of 70 MPH and the mileage jumped to 26.5 MPG. But that was after all the bad roads north of the 35W/35E split and the hills south of Duluth. So I guess the best mileage was at 60 but still above the rated mileage at 70 on smooth roads. Still not as good as the car I gave up - the Talon. Brett says he is getting between 33 and 34 MPG. Okay, now for the truth. The above numbers were from the fuel computer in the car. The actual miles driven divided by the gallons used tell a different story: to Duluth only 23.5; to Bayfield and back 26.6 and back home 23.5. So what good is the on-board fuel computer? It is good for trends only.

Trick and Treating in Oakdale

We gathered at Kirstin's house on Halloween evening to go trick or treating with the kids. Tana made Gigi's costume. She is Boo from Monsters Inc.
Lorelei was a sweet ballerina bunny, even sweeter afterwards with all the candy.
They are anxious to get out into the neighborhood. You can see Lorelei climbing out the door.
Pirate Joe is not afraid to take a bite out of a skeleton.
Marching along.
Liam was the Smiling Batman, with the mask in hand. Not sure what Logan's fascination with sticking out the tongue is, but every time I snapped a picture it was sticking out. He was the "Bad" Spiderman.
This was across the street. If a decoration said Halloween on it, these guys had it, including barking skeleton dogs and motions activated crawling slugs, to mummies and flying bats. And don't forget the fog bubble machine - when the bubbles broke it released the fog.

All night long Liam would say "Trick or Treat; Smell my feet; Give me something good to eat". He loved saying that. He was so proud of himself.
Then there was this little "Yip-yip" dog with a costume. They laughed and laughed at him; not that he did anything to laugh about. It was just jumping up and down at them.
My bag is getting kind of heavy.
Mom had to help Boo with the candy collection because of the sleeves, and besides, the hat did not stay on.
Then it was full circle when Kirstin came to the door.
Good times for all.

Shingle Creek Wierd Harvest Party

We had a Harvest party at church on Friday. Judy and I had a small "Dig Up Your Dead Ancestors" booth, complete with a graveyard brownies for people to look at Newfamilysearch.org. We have Selina as Frankenstein, Zack as a Viking, Amber as freckles and Megan must be Pink.
The master committee chairman Brian.
Here is Gretchen as Boo from Monsters Inc. Isn't she adorable? Good job on the costume.
There was a wicked witch, too. Don't know if she was from the West or the North.
There was a pie eating contest. It was chocolate pie so I was definitely in. I thought I did pretty well, but I did not hear the part about standing up when you were done. So I did not get 1st place. One of the missionaries did. My pie pan was really clean too. There was also a chili cookoff. I tied for first place but lost to the runoff drawing.
Smile for the camera.
Guess who this is? All she wanted to do was to get the pie all over her face. She kept splatting it in her face.
The answer is Lydia.

Harvesting the Carrots

Well, it had snowed already two times for a total of about 6 inches by the time I got around getting the carrots out of the ground. It didn't hurt them but instead gave them a drink. We had the twins for the weekend and decided to give them a little farming lesson. I let them each pick some of them but their attention span lasted for one carrot. Then they were off doing other things. I would pull another two or three dozen and they would show up again to pull another one. But the good thing is that they got to pull some. Besides they love carrots, especially Logan. He eats them one fistful at a time. They are watching how it is done. Liam got a good one.
So did Logan.
We had a several dozen that were in the 8-9 inch range with one that was ten inches long, just the orange part. The average length was about 6 inches. So I call it a successful harvest from one pack of seeds. We got a full 5 gallon bucket of them before I peeled, sliced, cooked and froze them. Remember to add a bit of sugar to the water instead of salt when you cook them. They are soooo tasty then.

1st Snow

Early this morning we got our first snow of the season. It was about 1/2 inch but still kind of fun to see. But wait a minute. The leaves are still on the trees. I have not had to rake them yet and already it snowed. But I remember when I was a kid that we always had snow on the ground for the season by the middle of October. But the past several years it has been well into December before we have snow on the ground for the season. Must be all the Global Warming Al Gore is talking about. The flowers are now gone around the flag pole . Well, they are gone all around the house too.Close up. Lorelei said she wanted to go out side to play in it. She could not wait.
Snow leading up to the vegetables.
I still have not pulled all my carrots yet. They are still okay, as long as the ground is not frozen. I'll get them this coming week. The first few I picked were sure good.

Rolling about town

As most of you know, Judy had foot surgery on her left foot. She was a sport about it and got this very stylish "Roll-About" to get around. Several people said she had a Libby mobile, because Libby Ames had one a while back. She was not allowed to put any weight on the foot for six weeks. She has been on this contraption for that amount of time and back at work for the last four weeks. She is shedding the scooter for an upbeat pair of crutches. She is going to physical therapy twice a week, starting a couple days ago. She is doing her exercises and is now putting 25% weight on it. What was done was to add two long screws to fuse the leg bone to the an ankle bone because of arthritis, shave some bone off her big toe because of a big bump and add that to a metatarsal to straighten the foot, rebuild the arch and align and lower the big toe and finally lengthen the akilies tendon. She had five small incisions that were stapled shut - no stitches. The big boot was put on after surgery over the dressings and was to remain on until a follow up appointment two weeks later. She is now wearing a fancy post-op shoe. She has followed everything she was asked to do by the doctor. A couple weeks of crutches and then nothing. Way to go, Judy.

Love that Chocolate!

One day we decided that it would be a great idea to have CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM CONES. They were delicious. See for yourselves.