The Return

Well, a lot has happened since Father's Day.  I'll start more recently then work backward until I get tired of writing words.
Yesterday, Anders and I met Former Vice President Walter Mondale at a town hall at Westminster Presbyterian Church (Mondale's home congregation) on the Nicolette Mall in Minneapolis.  I saw this event in the paper last week and asked Anders if he wanted to go, which he most enthusiastically did. Anders has been obsessed with the presidents since February when I gave him a place mat from the LBJ Presidential Library.  He knows them all, in order, and knows many fact about each of them.  In addition, he knows many of the vice presidents including Mondale, so his enthusiasm was not a surprise especially considering that Fritz served as Jimmy Carter's VP.  Carter is either Anders' 2nd or  3rd favorite president after Eisenhower who is clearly #1, then it's Carter or Van Buren in some order.  We were a bit out of place at the event as we were about 30 years too late for a Nuclear Freeze protest or 50 years too late for a SANE meeting.  We sat in the second row of the church, right behind Ted Mondale.  Anders listened for the first half hour.  He laughed at a Hubert Humphrey joke Mondale made, then got excited when he mentioned Reagan.  The final half hour was all about holding off the stink eye from Ted Mondale better than he held off Skip Humphrey in the 1998 DFL gubernatorial primary.
Mondale was great, so kind and gracious to us.  I told his aide that my son was four and he would not be able to stand through a book signing.  I told the vice president that his autograph would go in Anders' autograph book next to Mickey and Minnie Mouse, at which he laughed.

Anders was on Cloud Nine for the rest of the day.  He kept asking me if I had his autograph book, when he was not holding it like his most treasured possession.  Anders was almost off the ground as we walked down the Nicolette Mall.

Anna and the boys flew out of Houston on June 26th. I drove out on June 28th in this beast with Greg driving our car behind.

One should probably have a CDL to drive a rig this big. It took about half of Texas to learn how to handle this monster. Houston was the hardest, but I guess I'd say the same about them all: Dallas, Kansas City, Minneapolis.  The cooler temperatures were an immediate and welcome relief once we crossed into the North.  On day two, however, things took a torturous turn as the parking brake warning alarm started going off at Emporia, KS.  The parking brake, which by the way, was not engaged.  When I called U-Haul for help, their solution was to turn hard right or hard left.  As you can see from this picture, taking their advice would be about the only thing worse than listening to "DING! DING! DING!" in the cab for ten straight hours.  It's that sound that your car makes until you put your seal belt on, well increase the volume three times, then multiply by ten hours and you have it.  That would have been bad enough, but by the time we rolled north into Minnesota the real brakes were about 80% shot. Around Owatonna, I tried to merge into one lane for upcoming road construction; instead, I coasted past the line and gently cut off my fellow drivers as the two lanes ended.
I was happy to be fairly sound the next day when we unloaded the truck at our storage unit.  Upon finishing that task, we headed down to the Twin Cities to go house shopping in Eagan, a SE suburb.  Anna and Mandy had visited many homes and neighborhoods the day before so we had our search narrowed down to four homes.  The first home we saw together was our favorite.  I had seen it online a couple weeks before and had a feeling that it would be our home.  The problem was that there was another offer on the house, but it had not been accepted yet.  We put in our best offer, and late that evening learned that our offer had been accepted!  It's never over until closing, but so far the inspection and the radon test have come back in our favor.  We just need the appraisal, and then we close on the 30th.  We showed Anders the home from the car since the seller still live there and the elementary school that he would attend.  He liked both venues.  I thought Eagan would be old corn fields, but it's full of lakes, hills, and trees.  It seems like a great place for us, plus it's much closer to St. Paul than Sugar Land was to Houston, and St. Paul is no Houston when it comes to traffic!

We gave Henrik some rice cereal tonight because he was just too sad to obey our old doctor's order and wait for his next appointment, which is next month, to give him solid food.  He loves to eat and wants solid food so badly!  He took the rice cereal well enough. I think he was more surprised than anything.  Yesterday, Henrik Arthur looked like a baby picture of Dennis Arthur that Dorene has here, while today he was back to looking like me.  Above is Henrik Eats in its excruciating length (if it works, which it may not, and if it doesn't I don't know why, Mom).
I'm tired of typing.
Good night.