Since last time I wrote Anna started a new teaching job at Armstrong Elementary in Missouri City.  Anders ended physical therapy and swimming lessons.  I finish my first year at St. John's and graded over 1,000 AP US History exams in Louisville.  I really thought that May would be slower than April, but it turned out to be more hectic, and I'm still not entirely sure how that happened.
Anders reads, plain and simple, no equivocation.  He is much steadier on his feet.  It used to be that brushing up against him could fell Anders, not anymore.  Yet, sometimes his head seems drawn to a door or cabinet into which it "bonks."  We call slight impact, "little bonk," indicating that it's nothing to cry about.  Anders is also working on his fake tears, much like Brett Favre's fake injuries during his Packers days to get sympathy from the refs.  Tonight I asked Anders, because I could not tell, "Is that a fake laugh or fake crying?"  He replied, "Fake crying." 
Anders and I were in the mall last weekend and Anders took a knee to stop our walking so I started calling Anders "Denny Green," after the former Vikings coach who infamously put the best offense in NFL history on ice just before halftime up ten against the Falcons at home in the 1999 NFC Championship Game.  Anders does not know what "Denny Green" means, but he loves the phrase "take a knee." So he now takes a knee to slow down bed time, and announces it, "Anders take knee!"  Anders better watch himself in public when we get to MN next week because that phrase might trigger a fan's post NFC Championship choke syndrome.
I think we will make it a long way by reading highway signs.  We find as many letters in the alphabet and numbers as we can.  The alphabet is easy, but numbers above 11 are hard.  I think Anders is excited for the trip.  Anna is eager to flee the air that you wear down here.  The humidity is truly inhumane.
I received some sad news tonight, my uncle Luverne Neste died this evening.  Old age and cancer did what the North Koreans, Chinese, Soviets, a combine accident, and a smokeless tobacco habit could not do.  He was 82 and one of the funnies people I know.  He had me laughing out loud in our final conversation on the phone last weekend.  Luverne and his wife Mary lived on the neighboring farm.  He and my stepdad raised Angus beef cattle all during the years I lived on the farm.  They sold off when my stepdad got sick while I was in college, but Luverne continued to maintain his farm and my mom's farm for the past dozen years, until he received his cancer diagnosis last week.
It's funny how life works.  I got that call from my mom as Anna, Anders, and I were celebrating an early Father's Day at a Greek restaurant in Houston.  What a different mood in the restaurant with the flaming cheese, oompahs!, ouzo, and bright decor from my mom's call.  We compartmentalize life in a way that is both very strange and very necessary.
We leave here Friday.  We'll get to Marquette, KS late Friday night, spend the day there Saturday.  Then on Sunday, it looks like we will head for Decorah.
Take care all, and I promise, Dan, I will write again before August.