And Julie.

Teija and Anya are cool names.  They're by no means ordinary or usual.  Sadly, their oldest sister is . . . Julie.  It doesn't quite fit.  We call the sisters, "Teija, Anya, . . . and Julie."   

"Is she your mother?"

When our kids were little, they loved a book called, "Are you my mother?"  

Today, while Anya and I were teaching the Water Safety Aide Class for ISD 196, one of the students in our class looked at Anya, then looked across the pool at her sister Teija and then looked back at Anya and said, "Is she your mother?"

When we finally stopped laughing, Anya said, "No, that's my sister!"  They're seven years apart, but Teija definitely does NOT look old enough to be Anya's mother!!!

The House Is . . .

 BLUE!!!

We're not quite finished - the bottom boards on the back of the house and on the north side need to be painted along with painting the caulking by the chimney, and we have behind the tomato plants on the garage left to do, but we're are almost officially done wearing Smurf blue!

Tentmakers

A year after college, I joined an organization known as "Tentmakers".  Through them, I was placed at Granite Falls Lutheran Church where I worked part-time and was the youth director part-time, following the example of the Apostle Paul who also worked part-time as a tentmaker while sharing the gospel.  It was a lovely experience and I formed several life-long friendships. 

Fast forward to Sunday.  One of the girls I worked with at ISD 196 left for Tentmaker training and I'm going to be on her prayer team.  I checked out their website and Tentmakers has really changed since I was there in the '80's, except for one thing - the founder Dick Amundson is still in charge!  I told Ally to give Dick my greetings!  I'm sure he'll remember me - I was at his sister's church!    

Girls Night Out!

Our adoption agency, New Life Family Services, held a fundraising event on Tuesday night up in Bloomington, "Girls Night Out!".  Micah was contacted a few months ago by NLFS, asking if she wanted to have a table there selling her baked goods.  Naturally, she said, "YES!"

I volunteered to go along with her and help out.  Little did I know my job would start way earlier than 4:45 p.m. on Tuesday!  But we got it done.  Bribed a group of girls who had arrived early ("will work for cookies") to help us carry our stuff in and got it all set up.  And waited . . . and waited . . . and waited . . . and then . . .

Before the event actually started, Micah had sold out of all of her chocolate chip cookies!  She was excited!  Our favorite customer was the woman who's daughter had just taught her how to use Venmo.  She came back three times to practice, each time spending more than the time before!

We also loved seeing all the NLFS staff that we've gotten to know over the years.  Our social worker Brita was there and sadly, her Venmo wasn't working for her at all.  Micah said, "I trust you.  You can send me a check."

Micah did well, bringing home just a few cupcakes and cookies.

Two Days at ISD 196

This week, I worked two days for ISD 196, teaching CPR on Tuesday and First Aid on Wednesday to two different, but delightful groups.  

I walked in to work on Tuesday "mask ready" with a face mask in my pocket.  Sam's district (ISD 191) had already sent out notification that beginning August 8, no matter what your vaccination status was, face masks were now required for everyone.

I laughed when the assistant aquatics director told me to hide it.  They're hoping that we can make it until next Thursday without requiring masks so that we'll have a summer "mask free"!  That's when summer programming ends.

Thankful Thursday!

After thirty-five days without a truly working washing machine, ours FINALLY got fixed this afternoon - twice!  The new control panel arrived on Tuesday and that got put in right away.  Then the machine began flashing "F5".  We knew that meant the lid wasn't locking. The  repairman, of course, didn't have the part we needed for the lid lock, but he could get it up in Coon Rapids, so he took off and came back a little over an hour later with the part we needed.  We are so thankful for everyone who helped us with laundry during this time and we are even MORE thankful that our machine is back in business!