Chuck Norris makes onions cry

Happy December! This year has flown by, especially the months that involve school. The kids are doing well. Dylan's playing basketball and Maya's keeping busy with her art and writing. Speaking of school...

 

This week at school, one of my imaginative, verbal students (who threatens the staff daily) yelled at me, "I'm gonna get Chuck Norris to come here and defeat you." I took it as high praise, that he thought it would take the likes of Chuck Norris, Texas Ranger, to defeat me. I mean, I am not that tough. It also sent me on a search for Chuck Norris jokes. Here are some of my favorite clean ones:

 

Chuck Norris refers to himself in the 4th person.

 

Superman owns a pair of Chuck Norris pajamas.

 

Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.

 

When Chuck Norris' wife asks him nicely to do the dishes, he throws them in the garbage and tells her she looks fat.

 

Chuck Norris can speak Braille.

 

The only time Chuck Norris has ever been wrong was the time he thought he made a mistake.

 

Chuck Norris' driver's license photo looks amazing!

 

 

And here is a glimpse of what Jake has been doing at work:

 

Those were photos from the group that had a 12 course dinner in the the banquet kitchen. And this is the additional candy the club supplied to the members' children so they could adequately decorate their gingerbread houses.

 

This one is proof that I was right about our dog. Looks like Cujo.

 

 

Maya with her animal cards (she just told me it's a Desert Spiny Lizard) and Dylan building a fire pit.

 

After a conversation that I thought was just playful banter, Jake seriously purchased a replica of the leg lamp from A Christmas Story. After looking at it for a couple of minutes, I asked him if he could please put it away until closer to Christmas. Which he did, and I don't even know where it is now. So we have that to look forward to and enjoy this holiday season.

 

Pictures from Kayla's phone. Our good cat, Esther.

 

Kayla got her "first" tattoo. The photo she sent was the first I knew of it. She said strength was the word of the year for her, since she lost 2 friends and worked full time at the nursing home.

 

Anna and I had a great road trip to Minnesota State University in Mankato. We visited the English department, toured the campus, were impressed by the student union, and found an apartment she likes. She recently submitted her application to the college and plans to move in August. She's thinking about an interdepartmental major that combines English and Mass Communications.

 

It was great to see everybody at Grandma Olsen's house on Thanksgiving!

 

Owen, Matt, Dylan, Violet, Mimi, Maya, Annie...

 

                                              
                                                                    and Austin.

 

Owen and Maya playing "Flush the Toilet" on their own. I'd better get off the computer and help Maya bake cookies now. I'm looking forward to seeing all of you in December.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

First of all, congratulations to the newlyweds, Katie and Christian! Kayla and I enjoyed Katie's Skype shower very much. It was fun get to spend so much time virtually seeing Katie again. 

 

All of these teenage cousins are fast becoming adults. Kayla and Anna are both talking of moving out this summer, when they will be 18 & 20. Yesterday, I teared up just thinking about how my baby will be turning 7 soon.

 

As it turned out, though, 3 of my 4 kids still dressed up for Halloween. I thought only Maya would. But Kayla went to a college party as Catwoman, which didn't really warm my heart. I felt better when Catwoman got home safely. I was even happier when she got a CNA job offer in the new geriatric psych ward at Ridgeview Medical center. She's still working out the details on that one, looking for a schedule that works for her.

 

Dylan regretted his no trick-or-treating decision at the last minute, which did warm my heart. Harry's family was still home and they were excited he could make it, so he dressed up as a Boise State fan, and went with them. Dylan recently started rec basketball too, which should keep him busy through the winter months.

 

Jake got out the drill and made this disco ball pumpkin for us. Maya loves decorating for holidays. Jake was off today and at Maya's urging, put Christmas lights on the house and decorations in the front yard. She danced barefoot in the yard (it was 55 degrees outside) and made up a song.

 

 

Last weekend, Jake and a few others at Lafayette executed a 14-course dinner for an elite party of 10. Dinner was served in the banquet kitchen to rave reviews. I'll see if I can get a few pictures of that for the next post. Or maybe Jake can show you the DVD of the event.

 

Anna and I went to Bob Dylan. I warned her that nothing shatters your illusions like a Dylan concert. She grudgingly agreed when he opened his mouth to sing. The quality of his voice is equal to that of this photo. Unrecognizable. But still quite an experience. Mark Knopfler (of Dire Straits fame) played before him and with him for 2 songs. He sounded great and he was funny, too. Mostly, it was just fun to do something with Anna. We'll have more of that this week as we visit a college or two and check out housing options.

 

Since I've been posting so many pictures of this grizzly bear, I thought you'd like to see that he or she is settling in for the winter. As these three seem to be:

 

 

Fall

Life gets crazy in September and October, but now it's MEA break. I wonder who goes to the MEA conference. I would, if it was mandatory or if I would be paid no less than $5,000 to attend. Most things have their price. I asked Kayla how much money it would take for her to sell our cat, S'more. She stood firm in the hundreds, but started wavering around $1,000. We almost tried to give Luna away a few weeks ago, but Anna saved her with her tears and empty promises of taking her to the dog park. Mostly it was the tears, since Anna doesn't break those out too often. Anna's doing well at school. Byerly's offered her a supervisor position, but she declined since in the restaurant biz, waiting tables pays better. Kayla's job searching for a nursing assistant position at a hospital and has an interview next week.

 

 

 

 

 

Maya's loving first grade. She's still into birds, like this Victoria Crowned Pigeon which she immediately identified at the zoo. Thanks to Kelly for the great zoo pics! And here's Maya's awesome peacock Halloween costume. I think she might be the only one of my kids to dress up this year.

 

Jake took these picks at the end of our street. There's a couple of days each fall when the trees make a red golden tunnel over the road and this year, we didn't miss it.

Dylan turned 11! He had a busy 3 day weekend: went to a friend's house, spent the night at Isaac's and went to his party at Grand Slam the next day, then his last baseball game, 2 more friends' houses and a family party. The family party was also for Michelle & Isaac, who share a birthday with each other and Matt. Some of Dylan's highlights were playing with fire and having pumpkin pie instead of cake. Highlights for me were hearing the voices and laughter pouring into the house while I worked in the kitchen and having my grandparents there.

I was just at Cub with Dylan and he insisted we use the self-check out. In his excitement, he butted in line. I nudged him and he quickly apologized to the guy in front of us. The man responded instantly, "Are you sorry you cut in front of me or are you sorry you're wearing that Packers jersey?" Dylan laughed pretty hard and said, "I wear this jersey with pride!"

 

Jake's Fourth Family Food Feature

 

Jake just returned from East Lansing, Michigan, where he attended a week long Club Manager training. He brought us all Michigan State gear, perfect for me, since I was a Richfield Spartan (although not a very enthusiastic one) and my favorite color is green. Upon his return, Jake accompanied us on another trip to the MN Zoo. Maya would go every day if she could. Then, last night, he and Dave went to the Rush concert. He reported that, as usual, it was a predominantly male, white and nerdy, 40-year old-crowd, Geddy attempted to dance, and the music was good. I think Rush concerts are about the only place where men have to wait in line for the bathroom and women don't.

 

The kids are doing well. Maya started gymnastics. First grade is good. Every day, she makes lists of birds and animals, reads about them, looks them up on the computer and draws them. Dylan's playing fall ball. He has games Sept. 29, Oct. 6th, 13th and 14th, if you want to attend. Anna helped a lot while Jake was gone, getting kids off to school and taking our psychotic dogs to the dog park. Her classes are interesting. And she asked me to go to Bob Dylan with her in November. How could I refuse? Kayla's added working out to her 6 day work week plus school regime. She was just sleeping on the couch behind me, but she must have slumped downstairs.  

 

 

 

September article by Jake:

 

Welcome to fall y’all!  I want to thank my staff as well as staff in other departments for a great summer.  We all know that Lafayette Club is a destination spot for all things, especially during the summer months.  The summer of 2012 was one of the busiest in my memory.  Thank you so much for the hard work, diligence, patience, inspiration, creativity and “digging in” to get it all accomplished.  Also, many thanks to the membership for the opportunity to be part of a special place to so many.

I have an admission to make.  I have left something out.  In my past articles I recounted my memories of food, eating and gathering with my family.  There’s a big chunk missing.  My mom.  I only have one page to try and get down 18 years of praise, gratitude and humility.  From about the age of four to the age of 13, my mom raised five kids on her own.  She worked three part-time jobs, year round, to make ends meet.  She was a substitute teacher, she did administrative work for a business person, and she taught piano lessons.  At the time, we kids always felt like we were getting the raw end of the deal.  No sugary breakfast cereal, we never went out to eat (except for birthdays) and we had to eat homemade bread.

Homemade bread in our house was not from a bread maker.  The process usually began on Saturday mornings around 5:00 a.m. (at least that’s what it felt like).  Mom ground her own wheat to make the flour to make the bread.  The grinder was in the basement in the laundry room, next to the room that I shared with my two brothers.  Have you ever ground wheat?  If you haven’t, understand that a helicopter could land in your yard and you wouldn’t hear it.  Sometimes I think she ground the wheat out of parental spite toward a child.  If so, touché, Mom.  The dough was usually proofing on the counter by early afternoon, punched down, re-proofed, formed, baked and cooling by late afternoon.  That was bread for the week.  Looking back, the bread was fantastic.

The wheat that we had in the house (two 30 gallon drums) was also used for breakfast cereal a couple of times a week during the winter.  The night before, the whole wheat would go in the crock pot with water to be slow-cooked.  No kid wakes up and says, “Ooh, yay, whole wheat cereal!”  But once you got some half and half and some brown sugar in the mix, it was pretty dang good.  I still do this from time to time with my kids and get the same reaction out of them.  Hot, whole wheat cereal must be timeless.

My cousin Maureen and her family live a couple miles away and had a huge garden from which we would get bushels and bushels of sweet corn.  We’d spend an afternoon, shucking, boiling, cutting, bagging and freezing.  The best part of freezing corn is eating the “planks” of corn cut from the cob when it’s still hot.  Bags and bags and bags were laid up for the year.  We always had good corn.  We would also pick apples and can applesauce, cooked apples and make apple pies.  One afternoon, Aunt Dorothy came over and we made 30 apple pies.  The dough was made from scratch (using lard instead of butter or Crisco).  We kids had the task of peeling, coring and cutting the apples.  Our hands we purple with “apple rust” when we finished.  Once the pies were done, 15 of them were distributed about the neighborhood to families, friends and even people we didn’t know too well. 

About once a month, Mom would garner the energy on a Sunday night to fix up a treat.  In the summer, it tended to be what we called “scones”.  I think it was a recipe from my grandma who’s Scottish.  Basically it’s dough that you cut into smallish pieces and fry in oil.  Once out of the oil, dab dry with paper towels and roll in sugar.  The only issue with this process was that when we’d find out that Ma was making scones, we’d go tell the neighbor kids.  Pretty soon, there were 10-15 bikes laying down in the yard and a bunch of kids waiting for scones.  We’d sit on the steps with our napkin and blazing hot scones and chow.  It wasn’t a bad way to spend an evening in the summer.

 

Thanks, Mom.

 

 

Anyone want a free couch with a litter box full of rain water on top?

 

This couch has been sitting in our neighbor's yard for a few months. It started out facing forward, complete with cushions, looking pretty good, with a FREE sign. That night it rained. I figured they'd move the couch, but no. By and by it rained again, the cushions disappeared, and they turned the couch around. Eventually, the couch became faded and torn and more rain fell. I have sort of been counting and I believe rain has fallen on it seven times.

 

Yesterday, the neighbors placed this new FREE sign upon the couch, tucked into what appears to be a litter box. Last night, we got more rain. The Dead End sign is just bonus. This has brought me as much enjoyment as the Sign Spotting books. Maybe I should make them an offer.