Our First REAL Cake Order

YaY! Rod and I got our first real *paying* cake order! One of the girls at Rod's work wants her very own birthday cake... And she designed it herself! Here's a picture of her sketch... It's due in January!

First Class Teens

Rod and I are going to be helping out with the First Class Homeschool Co-op Teens. We realized last summer after a church group camping trip that we went on that our teens don't have many of the issues that normal high school teens have.

And then we realized that with the backgrounds that both of us have in Youth Ministry... That we may be able to make this work. It may sound a bit odd considering that our kids are younger. But Josiah will be of age for the teen group in about 3 years. That will go by quickly. It would be nice to have something established for him & his friends by the time they need it..

So we are thinking about doing some youth group type activities with them. Have fun with them and then be able to engage their hearts.

Barista Zindra

I was reading Shannons recent Blog when I realized that I haven't blogged in about a month! Where has the time gone? Well... we've been up to alot lately. Here's a mini update.

Let's see.. Rod and I are quite involved with Friday School this term. Rod is teaching two Chess classes and a Paper Airplane class (Top Gun School of Flight is the title :) ) Both are a success. I thought all I was going to do was be in coffee corner block a, my block off (or help with admin stuff occasionally), and help out Rod in his classes block b & c.

A couple of months ago, First Class bought a real espresso machine for our co-op. Free coffee for Teachers. An Incentive to get people to teach. And everyone else only pays $2 per cup.

Well, the first friday morning, Chrissie, who's in charge of Coffee Corner asked if I could help her out in Block A. I said sure, I can do that! What I didn't realize is that I would become the new Barista! Well after we got all of the food together, they stuck me in front of the espresso machine and asked if I remembered how to make mochas... (we had a training when we bought the machine).

Ummm, well there's more to it than putting coffee and milk in a paper cup! After the first day, I had it down. Week two went without any major hitches. My biggest thing is trying to remember to hold/take off the thermometer when pouring the milk. It only fell in twice this last week!

I'm really enjoying it very much. I'm doing something fun, something that people like, and everyone comes up and talks to me while i'm making it! So i'm getting plenty of my words out on fridays!

When we first got the machine, I had told Rod that I would love to make coffees at friday school... i've always wanted to work at an espresso stand. Why? I'm not sure. Maybe for free espresso? Anyhow... I can now say that I am a real Barista! That was a fun surprise. I think I'd like to expand my repertoire at some point to make a few more drinks... I had no idea what it took to stand for over an hour making coffee. Remembering all of the details. Figuring out how to make them more quickly. There are enough orders, that the entire time I am in front of the machine, I'm frothing milk or waiting for the shots.

At training, the starbucks lady taught me how to make a caramel macchiato (sp?). So next week i'm taking my caramel syrup to make my first real one. Chrissie likes them too... What's been the real surprise, is that i'm really getting the chance to know Chrissie and Tammie. Both gals that I liked before, but we've now gone through the espresso making trenches together.. we'll be bonded for life :)

Garrison Keillor's Poem: MN State Fair

You had a bratwurst and corn on the cob

A hot fudge sundae and a shish kebob

You got a bucket of cheese curds in your hand

And yet you're stopping at the hot dog stand

You had a taco four inches thick

And a deep-fried walleye on a stick

You better be careful with that Pronto Pup

'Cause what goes down might come back up -Garrison Keillor

This saying is on the back of a t-shirt that Rod bought there at the fair! SO Minnesotan!

Minnesota Trip 2007

We've made it back from the land of "yah, sure you bet'cha!"

We left Friday night, Aug 24th and drove to North Dakota where we stayed that next night. In the morning we drove into northern Minnesota to the town of Nisswa where we met up with Rod's mom, Carolyn and Rod's sister, Ramona and her son, Ronnie.

We stayed at "The Grand Lodge" in a cabin for four days/three nights. It had four bedrooms, had a kitchen, a pool table, and a foosball table. Since it was a resort, we got to do some fun things like: sign the kids up for kids club and take a pontoon boat out fishing. That was one of my highlight moments. I love being out on a boat! They also had a pool with a great waterslide right at the resort. So they kids did a lot of swimming. I think the kids swam almost everyday we were on vacation! At night, we played cards with the family. They taught me how to play Rummy 500. I won, of course :) This was a great time to reminsce about days gone by. I learned alot about Rod as a kid sitting at the table with his mom and sister at night. Things like who had a crush on him growing up and who he had a crush in on Kindergarten. I learned alot about Ramona and the fact that in the little towns of Milan and Montevideo.. that growing up there wasn't much else to do for the teenagers but drinking.. and that they could get a beer for I think it was .90. One night we had a campfire and roasted hotdogs and marshmellows.

We left the resort we went to Bloomington about 3 hours south. This is where we stayed for three nights at a Mariott. (It also had a pool!) We had sort of a relaxing day.

The day after we headed for the Minnesota State Fair. It's sort of a Pilgrammage, actually. This is where we met up with Rod's dad, Harland and his "friend" Linda. The MN state fair is It's not like our state fair. Everyone has great pride (to a point that's pretty cheesy) in their fair. Thousands of people go everyday. It's crazy. We don't go on weekends.. But what we do go for is family time and food. They have fun stuff for the kids to do like the Home Depot building area.. where the kids build something. Each of the kids came home the project they made. There's a parade.

But I think what Minnesotans really take pride in at their fair is their food. And boy is it good! I think you can get everything but ice cream deep fried on stick. And they have their famous Cheese Curds. Which I make fun of every year. I really had a good laugh at myself this time because I actually LIKED the cheese curds. Cough, cough, I guess they've grown on me. It used to be something that we got because Rod enjoyed it in his childhood. Yah, now I like them too. But boy, the price of them has increased since we were there last! I guess there's something going on with the price of cheese. They were $5 for a basket.

I recently lost my cell phone (before this trip) that had numbers and pictures etc on it. And that was not a fun experience for me. So when we were there at the Fair and we lost Josiah's backpack, I thought that there would be no chance of getting it back! After looking, we called lost and found, and someone had turned it in. I was so thankful. there was so much in that bag (everyone's stuff) that it really upset me that we had misplaced it. I couldn't believe that someone actually took the time to turn it in. I will definately pay that one forward!

The day after the fair went went to the Mall of America to go to Camp Snoopy. I guess they recently changed the name to "the park" at mall of america, because Nickolodeon bought the rights to it. But the locals still call it "Camp Snoopy". Ramona can get discounted arm bands through her work.. so that was really nice! Normally, it's just our family that goes to camp snoopy. But this time, our family, Ramona and Ronnie, Carolyn, Harland and Linda also came. It was so great to have everyone there! If we wanted to go on a big ride, someone took Julia. If Ramona didn't want to ride, we took Ronnie. That was a fun bonding day.

We rode from the time we got there until closing (except for a family dinner at Famous Daves, a great BBQ restaurant). Julia loves "horsies" so we ended the day on the carousel... I think we rode it 5 or 6 times right before closing. We didn't think there would be enough there for her to do, but at age 2, she LOVES rides. There was NO way we could have not let her ride, because she just enjoyed it too much! There's this one ride, the timberland twister, that's like a teacup ride on steroids (well a rollercoaster). It has to be my favorite. Josiah loves it when I go on stuff like that because I always Scream.. and he thinks that IS SO FUNNNY!

The next day we went back to the Mall and looked around a bit and went to Lego Land. We stayed at the mall a few hours and then headed to Mona's. It was about another 3 hours away.

We stayed 2.5 days at Monas. Saturday night Rod, Ramona, Carolyn and Harland played Buck (a complicated game that Jay and Faith would love). They must have stayed up til 3 am playing. Rod and Ramona had the best time.. they played against their parents. You would have thought those two were serious card players! They were so serious about beating their parents (but still weren't able to). Sunday we had a family get together. the adults played Buck. I think I got the jist of it, but they are all so competetive that I wouldn't dare play! We saw Aunts and Uncles and Cousins. It was a great time to catch up with everyone. Rod's cousin Stacey, who lives on the east coast was home, so we were able to see her too.

When at Mona's we stay at Mona's. And she's such a gracious host. She's really taught me alot about how to host people. It's really a gift that she has. She has a three bedroom place in a quad-plex that is really quite nice. It's big enough to where it doesn't feel particularly crowded.

But what I like best about it is, that when you get up in the morning you see them and when you head to bed at night you can say goodnight. And those moments, particularly at those times of the day.. are times that are talkable moments.. the moments where you say things that need to be said or things you want to say or things you should say. In those times, when things are settled down after a long day, it seems we learn the most about each other...

Overall it was a great trip. It was fun and we spend quality time with the family. Rod's brother, Paul and his wife, Debi, weren't able to come up this time.. So we missed seeing them. And we have a lot to be thankful for. The trip went well, the car ran fine, the A/C ran exceptionally well, the kids got along, the kids got along with Ronnie, Josiah's turned in back pack, Rod had time with his mom, time with his sister and some time with his dad, and we didn't have any doctor related health issues and we didn't even lose anything! Woohoo! Thanks Lord for another safely returned trip home!