Fat Ninja

Well, we’re about three days into our vacation. We flew into Minneapolis on Friday afternoon. The kids did an admirable job of making it through the flights. Once we got in and picked up our rental car (A Toyota Corolla!), we headed out to the North Valley frisbee golf course to meet my friend Matt. After about 14-holes of some of the most miserable play I’ve put forth, we ended up calling it a day; mainly because Matt had lost his brand new $65 shades in the reeds on one of the holes.

After that we went to pick up Matt’s daughter, Shaina, and drove out to the Hudson, WI area, where Matt lives. The last time I had seen Matt’s place was the winter of 2004, and then it was in the final stages of framing. Now, it’s a beautifully finished home sitting on a nice 3-acre lot. After getting the grand tour, we headed to the grocery store to get fixings for some shish-kabobs. I always forget how long they take to make, but I think they ended up being worth the wait.

Following dinner, we got the kids to bed and I started to drink in earnest. By now another mutual friend, Gabe, had stopped in. I also got to meet the woman in Matt’s life, Ally, who struck me as a wonderful person. Matt disappeared for a while, so Gabe, Dave (Matt’s room-mate and co-worker), and I decided to play “HORSE” using the disc golf basket in Matt’s backyard. To overcome the darkness, we attached a headlamp, facing down, to the top of the basket. The effect was kind of haunting, as this glowing frolf basket just kind of hovered in the middle of all that blackness. Then again, I was pretty drunk. And as we drank more and more, we kind of lost track of the fact that we were playing “HORSE”. So, when we remembered what we were doing, we’d say, “Okay, okay. Let’s start over…so-and-so, you start…” We did this at least a dozen times before settling down in the grass to listen to some Bob Marley and babble on about religion and existentialism in a way that only a drunk can appreciate.

We woke up late the next morning and got on the road. Laura had an important visit with a friend of hers that’s doing time in the Stillwater Correctional Facility, so we raced up there so she could say hello and do some much needed catching up before we turned south for Iowa.

The drive down to Iowa was largely uneventful, aside from getting pulled over (only a warning) and having to drive through a torrential downpour. Nonetheless, we made it to Waverly unscathed, where we found my parents, my Grandma Fredrick, and the Bell family (close family friends) awaiting our arrival. After some visiting, we all sat down to a great dinner spread. After that, I put the kids in the whirlpool bath tub with some bubble bath, and they just had a blast.

Yesterday we all slept in, waking up around 11:00 AM. From there we drove out to a friend of Ann Bell’s house, where Ann stables her horses. Here we met Bootsie and Bud, two beautiful horses. Bootsie (so named for the white hair the rides up her�ankles from her hoofs)�is a recently retired riding horse that spent here youth teaching young children how to ride. Brynn and Byron were both quite amazed at the sight of her; but that jubilation paled in comparison to the pure delight they both found in riding Miss Bootsie around the yard a few times. After the rides, we all had a blast feeding Bootsie and Bud handfuls of oats. Unfortunately, Brynn’s tiny fingers proved tough obstacles for Bootsie’s otherwise gentle nibblings, so she got nipped on the tip of her pinky. Of course, she soon forgave Bootsie for the incident.

After that, we stopped at Dairy Queen to cool off, and then headed to the Kids’ Kingdom, a huge wooden play structure in Waverly. The kids had tons of fun running the ramparts, and braving the balance beam. After almost an hour of this, Brynn showed sure signs of fatigue, so we got her home and down for a nap. While she was sleeping, Dad and I drove down to the Wartburg campus for a quick 18-holes of disk golf. I fared a bit better than I had at North Valley, and I almost aced the 9th. Dad didn’t do too badly for a newbie either.

We closed out the evening with a barbeque at Rick and Ann Bell’s place. Some other friends of the family were there, and they had plenty of questions about what I was “doing these days”. They all seemed to like the idea of me working for Yahoo!, particularly Glenn Canon, who apparently uses every facet of our services every day.

I’m not too sure what all is planned for today. I know we’re going to try and head down to the Wartburg campus so I can see what’s changed. After that we’ll most likely stop in on my Grandma Fredrick to say hello. I’m hoping to take Byron to see Superman Returns at some point too. Luckily, it’s a vacation, so I don’t have to think too hard about what we’ll be doing each day. We’re just kind of taking it bit by bit. I’ll post pictures when we get back home. Take care.

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