As I ate my last Estonian chocolate today I was thinking how fortunate we are to see what we have seen and have such a close family. Then I started calculating Ross' and my total years of education plus work years and it is 101 YEARS! So I really enjoyed the chocolate and realized how hard we have worked to get it. Then I thought about taking a nap:)
Cousins: This was about 1978 at a family "cabin vacation" - Carrie, Sara, Chris and Jenny doing who knows what?
A few years later all the first cousins - it has been said they look a bit like immigrants from who knows where? Chelsea, Brandon, Carrie, Molly, Sara, Jenny, Corey and Chris.

Cousins again - Molly, Lily, Claire and Molly's Aunt Audrey joined us for a night. Alex and Lily are 2nd cousins. Musical entertainment and the wearing of the favorite knitted Christmas hat by Lily made for a lovely evening. Alex appears to be thinking "What the heck is this?"

About this picture Amy says "Alex will always protect his girls" - The little kids just love each other and Lily seems to take a special liking to Alex, she is 2, he is 6.

This is what lots of rain does to our yard!!!! Yes indeedy, our house is behind all this.

Bad guys in the world: I have been following the bombings and shootings in Oslo - the "home grown terrorist" had just purchased 6 tons of fertilizer - not yet sure how that ties in - and has been labeled a neo-Nazi, a white wing extremist, a fundamentalist christian (I beg to differ with this as true Christians do NOT do this!) I feel sorry for the peaceful country of Norway home of the original peace prize.

Technology: my new stupid Smartphone came with a little sheet of paper for instructions and a DVD that is 90 pages long. I thought that was bad but now I bought a new little camera that will fit in a small shirt pocket. It too came with a little sheet of paper and a DVD with 212 PAGES.

I am determined to win this round as I now know how to answer my phone and I see that as one small victory!

Looking forward to Alex and Lucy overnight, MN Zoo tomorrow. Chris and Amy are attending the U2 concert which is a year late but Amy is happy as last June she was worried about being able to walk safely to her seat at TCF Stadium! Big steps this year.