Last day Of July - 2025

 After heat, humidity, smoke from Canadian wildfires giving unhealthy air alerts we have made it to August!  A month of adventure - on 3 July our air conditioner died and it took a week to get a company out - holidays, heat, summer and all that - so we got new air conditioner, furnace and water heater as they were 22 years old and reaching the end so $17,000!  Last week our garage door cable broke so couldn't get out of the garage for a day and I almost missed getting to the local farmer's market to get my dozen corn on the cob!

After close to 30 years we still have season tickets to the Guthrie theatre downtown Minneapolis and this month we saw Cabaret and it was a full house and a fantastic theater play - remember the Kit Kat Club from the past?

View from the Endless Bridge at the Guthrie and it's beatiful year round.

And the wall at our of our favorite Indian restaurants just a block from the Guthrie.

We were lucky again this year to have my niece Carrie and grand-nephew Gus (real name August named after our German relatives from way back) and he was born on my birthday in 2022.  He knows we have the same birthday:). They live in Portland, OR.

Carrie was the middle daughter of my brother Keith and sadly he died in 1983 from a rare form of leukemia leaving a wife and 3 little girls ages 7, 4 and 6 months old.  Every day I am thankful we can be in their lives.

Of course when there is a deal on caramel corn I gotta get it - $3.60 per large container and 5 years ago when I was going through chemo for the Stage III ovarian cancer it was one of the few things I could eat and I still have a little snack every day and here I am - still alive!

So it's always good to have a stash of ice packs in the freezer when your air conditioning dies!

At least once a year the "grandparents" get together for dinner usually at a nearby restaurant.  Daughter-in-law Amy's dad and partner and Ross and I and of course they have the best creme brulee in town!

Still doing my park walks and this was beautiful and quiet and a 1.3 mile walk from our house.

Sooooo - getting ready for daughter Jenny, granddaughter Rooke and her boyfriend to visit for the last couple weeks of August and of course everyone wants the famous Jones Mac and Cheese.  

This is the street art on our Bloomington City Hall when I go to the farmer's market.

Daughter Jenny when she is on an overnight tactical dispatch call sitting with the police in a room monitoring "situations" in Anaheim.

Of course the best of the month - my favorite Rod the Bod and he is still alive and kickin'😍

As a little treat to beat the heat and therapy for all the usual summer road construction I made the drive to the nearest DQ for my favorite very healthy snacks.

Grandson Alex is about to start his 3rd year of college and his previous hand-me-down car "bit the dust" and he's thrifty and likes to negotiate and he got a good deal on a 2015 car in good shape with only 60K miles.  We are fortunate to be able to help out a little now and then and the grandkids don't even ask for anything.