These are for you, Mommy Mandy!

So we hear that movie clips, though appreciated, are tough to download on Afgahni internet, so Jake would like to say hi in a few still life's! We love you and Jakey Cakey is missing you, but he is overwhelmed with Auntie's! I've always been reserved on speaking for kids through pictures, but I think just this once, it'll fly...Seriously, green beans...? How about some of those mangoes you've been working on, or at least that beef, potatoes, and carrots pureed in a jar?
Lookit what I learned how to do! Flip my tongue! Isn't that genetic, paternal or maternal side? Yeah, I think I'll be a doctor some day too... I'm a smart one!Dad hasn't exactly mastered the art of thwarting my attempts at swatting my spoon, but that just makes it more fun! And my wardrobe changes with each meal: one night it's green beans, another night I wear pureed chicken, another night it's mixed berry yogurt! tasty and fashionable!
Leanin' in for a kiss, Momma! Miss you, so proud of you! Come home soon and safe!

My eldest sister...

Mandy, my oldest sister, has been deployed. She has warned us not to be too specific about where and how and when she goes, she's probably overly cautious, but I don't see anything wrong with that. A few weeks ago, she was in Texas, at Fort Hood, waiting with her battalion to go overseas. I decided to use a few days of my PTO and go and spend some time with her and Mom, attempting to distract her from the fact that she was away from Jake and Scott while still in the country.

One night, Mom and I "helped" her pack loads of interesting, mysterious, camouflaged parafenelia including a flack vest that weighed approximately 2.7 tons; amazing that Mandy, who probably weighs 115 lbs soaking wet, will wear something like that pretty much wherever she goes. But again, we're grateful for the precautions. A couple other fun little whatnots found in and amongst the canteens, gerbers, etc. were a couple of switchblades provided by Scott and Scott's Uncle Mike, one about 5 inches long, the other a little smaller. Obviously, these two men know how and what to arm her with whereas we inexperienced people trust that the army will fully outfit her. When we asked why they each gave her one, why she would need two such weapons, she merely stated without hesitation, "one for my belt, and one for my boot." Very strange, this world I just stumbled blindly into. Very foreign to the microcosm I live in. Amid all these preparations, we were able to laugh, donning "tattoos" and alter egos, which I think at least allowed Mandy to release some need seratonin.

Later that weekend, we visited Grandma Sue and Grandpa Gary's little piece of paradise that Grandpa Gary affectionately calls "Lonesome Dove." It really is beautiful, regardless of what all of you think of the fried, desolate desert you think of as Texas. And Grandma Sue and Grandpa Gary really know how to tap into the local beauty, the flowers and succulents that thrive there. We ate and talked, then ate again, did some dishes, ate again, played with some cute dogs. We laughed that basically when we finished eating, we immediately started preparations for the next meal. On Saturday, the day before Father's Day, Grandma Sue had promised to take balloons to the local nursing home to dress things up a bit in honor of the holiday. With two cars, Mom, Mandy, Grandma Sue and I headed to Walmart to have our balloons filled with helium and tied with ribbon, and they we would be off to deliver them to the nursing home. Grandma had bought just enough balloons, about 30, I think, for the 28 gentlemen in the home; we shopped around a bit, killing time while they filled them, then we started outside, to load them into our two cars. Before we even got to the car, at least two popped as soon as we got out of the air conditioned store and into the 90+ heat of the day. Yeah, the best laid plans. At one point, I've gotten into Grandma Sue's back seat in order to pull the dozen or so balloons in behind me; now I'm smoothered into a corner, the car is running and AC is blowing, but all I can see or feel is balloons, and my heart starts beating a little faster each second as I fully expect several of them to pop, giving me multiple heart attacks as I wait for Mandy and Grandma Sue to reappear out of Walmart where they have reentered in the hopes of getting a few extra balloons for the ones that have/will pop before we get them to the nursing home. I'm not really clausterphobic, but if I ever felt like the world was closing in on me, it was then. I ended up calling Mom on the cell phone in the next car over, slightly frantic and the soon-to-be-popping balloons now seemed to be sucking all the oxygen out of the car. Grandma Sue soon reappeared, and we started off with the first load. All ended well. The balloons were delivered, I lived to see another balloon-free day, and hopefully the residents were pleased with their Father's Day decorations.

Monday, we attended a deployment ceremony. From what I gathered, something more symbolic of maybe what it used to be. A high-ranking someone "inspects" the brigade, the colors of the various battalions are displayed and then wrapped, only to be unwrapped in Afghanistan. Canons are fired, people salute and are saluted. A couple of speeches are made.

We escape the base early in the day, and Mandy, using us as her excuse, leaves with us, and we drive just a little ways south to a little village-town called Saledo. I like Saledo; it's quaint and cute. There's a tea house that we don't quite make it to, several cute antique shops and what-not boutiques. In one fun little "mall," Mandy finds this great little purple, fuzzy puppet guy with three eyes and a long, curled nose, who we start calling Staney the Afghani; he will be Mandy's attention-getter for Jake when she skypes from Afghanistan.

I feel like I'm writing about all this trying to do the same thing I was doing while I was in Texas, trying to distract from the fact that my sister is far away. But there are only so many funny pictures to be taken, only so many silly stories to be told, only so many times you can sacrifice the color of your hair, so many times you can super-glue totally ridiculous tips on your fingernails, in the attempt to laugh or smile about something that you really want to cry about. I love my sister, all my sisters, and I want them home with me, on my commune, with their husbands and sons and cats. Instead, I am the only one of the four of us on the continental United States until Heather returns from Korea...

Back again...

Alright, so it's been awhile, and nothing like leaving my faithful readers hanging mid-international trip... Sorry about that. Mike's finished his 2nd year of pharmacy school, and we just found out yesterday that he just racked in another semester's worth of scholarships and grants. The kid's a genius, what can I say, let alone the fact that he's the leader of half of the student organizations on campus. My little flower business is practically booming; I've already got at least one wedding booked a month for the next four months. We've been taking advantage of some flexibility in schedules to do some traveling, and both Mike and I's work has been picking up a little over the summer.

I liked the way I started talking about our jaunt to Korea, but it'd take me forever to tell you all about everything with that kind of detail, and we literally filled as many minutes as we could while we were there, so aside from that first entry, we didn't spend much time on the computer. So instead, I think I'll finish telling you about our trip by telling you about the people we met. Some of these great individuals might sound familiar if you check Heather's blog at all, other's Heather didn't even meet...

First, there's Choy and and his mom, Shinbanook. Shinbanook is married to the pharmacist who lives/works just down the street from Heather. They've sort of adopted Heather, they've set up a sort of language exchange for Heather to learn Korean from them, and Choy to practice his English with Heather. When they heard that Mike and I were coming, they offered to take all of us "driving." Heather didn't exactly know what that meant, but she agreed and scheduled for Friday night, the first night we were there after we arrived on Thursday night. As it turns out, "driving" meant they drove us thru all the beautiful parts of Busan, Gwanilee, a gorgeous beach with a beautiful lit bridge that spanned the bay; at night it was lit beautifully. Having a car in Korea seems to be a luxury, so to be able to drive where we wanted was amazing, and in the end, they took us out for traditional Korean barbeque where they cooked all the food right in front of us. None of it was familiar to us, so Mike kept asking Choy whether certain combinations were appropriate, and Choy, very politely, would state that this would be "a new taste," meaning, no, normal people don't combine such things, but Mike could if he wanted to.

Shinbanook ended up offering to take Mike and I out again on Monday afternoon while Heather was at school. She fit us into her busy schedule for a few hours, this time taking us to another beach, then up the shore, north to an amazing beautiful traditional Korean house, which thru her friend Wee from college who she brought with her to translate for us, she told us was a traditional house of a very wealthy person. They had made this gorgeous house and surrounding gardens into an amazing restaurant where they just kept bringing food; Shinbanook even ordered Mike his own fish, worrying that he wasn't getting enough to eat! After lunch, they drove us to the APEC House, a circular building Busan built for an international conference held there in 2006 for many world leaders, including President George W. Bush. We also found out that good ol' George W. stayed at the hotel we ended up staying at for Heather and my birthday's Saturday night.

Choy ended up being a very gracious host, meeting us and going out with us, he even took us to a Korean baseball game with his friend Phil. This event might be one of the best expereinces I've ever had! Koreans know how to do baseball games; they sing and chat for each player, they fill the benches, make pom-poms out of newspapers, they cheer and grieve with each success and failure in the game. Makes American baseball seem downright boring!

Then there was Sun Sung Duck. Sun Sung Duck is the fish lady who runs a stand on Market Street selling, obviously, fish. She was the first to take Heather in, she was the first to adopt Heather as her own. And every time we passed her on the street, she smiled, waved us to her, gave us food, just welcomed us in as well. She was the epitome of the warm welcoming spirit of the Koreans in a world not always so trusting or accepting of people.

We spent several evenings with Jenny, Hannah, Tae-hun, Tyler Kim, Young Hee, and quite a few others. I love that nights out with good friends are fantastic wherever you are! And I will always count all of these people as good friends!

One day, in typical Meg-fashion I'm afraid, I went looking to buy flowers. One shop I stopped in, a cute Korean man helped me. I knew how to say "how much," "please," and "thank you." He proceeded to help me pick out my flowers with much grace, then asked me "birthday?" at which I responded no, then he asked "present?" and I said yes with a huge grin. He then proceeded to wrap my bouquet of roses and lilies which would have cost me at least 3 times as much in the US in a great deal of pink tulle and ribbon, making this huge presentation bouquet worthy of any Ms. America pageant! I didn't have the heart nor the knowledge to try and tell him that I was going to take his gorgeous work of art apart to put in a vase. I fanned out my Korean bills, he took his payment, and I thanked him profusely. And decided to bring this bouquet back to Heather's apartment before hitting the next shop.

At the next shop, I encountered a young woman, maybe about my age, holding a small baby, maybe about 3 months old. I feebly attempted my pointing and mispronunciations, at which point she put her baby down on a sort of changing table behind the counter. She started to gather and arrange my flowers, and her baby started to cry. I tried to indicate that she could tend to her daughter; she put my flowers down, went to her daughter, picked her up and placed her in my arms! This sweet girl calmed instantly and went quickly to sleep in my arms while her mom proceeded to gather my flowers. Again, in the end, I held out some money, she took what she needed, I reluctantly returned her daughter to her, and I left with flowers in hand.

All in all, the people we met and saw in Korea made the trip; seeing Heather in her element was priceless, seeing how everyone around her seemed to enjoy her adventurous spirit, her sweet smile, her generous heart, and her easy laugh. Choy shared with us that Heather is a bit of a local celebrity; many of the foreign teachers don't "waste" time getting to know the Koreans, their neighborhood, their language. Heather went there to do just that, and you can tell that they love her for that. And everyone that we encountered, whether people Heather knew, strangers on the street, everyone seemed genuinely interested and accepting and almost excited that we were there. Not that we're anything that special, but maybe Americans don't get to Busan that often, and when they do, they don't get to the areas we went to with the people we went with. All in all, this was one of the most memorable, enjoyable, amazing trips Mike and I have ever been on. And if you ever want the full story with all the bajillions of pictures, come find me; I'd love to show you!

Day 1-Korean Adventure...

I'm keeping a pretty good journal while we're here.  Though I'm not a diligent journaler in real life, more sporadic at best, when we travel, I'm pretty detailed; learned this when I was in Russia and had to do it as part of my class requirement, but realize now how valuable that is to me now 7 years down the road.  So here's my entry from this morning...

"Arrived Busan, S. Korea last night after about 12 hour flight from MSP to Tokyo, Japan, and about 3 hour flight from Tokyo to Busan; it's about 5pm MN time, so needless to say, we're a little messed up.  Heather met us at the airport, and after getting thru immigration and customs surprisingly fast, changed some $$ (about 1010 Korean won to $1 USD) and ran to hug my sweet crying sister.  After a crazy taxi ride to her apartment, driving fast, no usage of turn signals whatsoever, we arrived at her perfect little two room apartment.  (Here I drew a little map of her apartment in the journal...)  Tiny but great!!  Mike conked out pretty fast (he didn't get much sleep on either flight, but Heather and I went for a little walk.  "Market Street" is almost literally outside her door, with shops, lots of "walk up" food vendors, a pharmacy, the King Market where she gets groceries, fruit and vegetable stands, several restaurants and bars, and probably lots of other things that I just couldn't process on such little sleep and on sensory overload.  Everything is different here.  The noises, the voices, the smells, tastes, faces, everything.  We walked into the King Market last night, and I recognized the slightly sour smell that we Americans associate with uncleanliness, but is most likely the absence of DO and overusage of bleach, esp. in this warmer time of the year.  I remember this from Belize and Russia.  Heather's apartment, on the other hand, clean as a whistle.  Funny, she's been warning us of mold and bugs for months, but I think we have more of both in our apartment.  We walked, looked, greeted several people who seem to know Heather; I felt a little bit like I was with a celebrity.  Maybe it's our strange faces, so obviously alien, but people greeted us everywhere, from the stores and shops, walking along the street.  I've had Heather phonetically write a few things in Korean that I will struggle thru.  We walked back with a few groceries, sat and split a beer, and just talked for another hour.  It's funny, all of a sudden, I wasn't that sleepy.  My body was tired, but I was awake.  Probably the adrenaline and excitement of being here and seeing Heather.  We talked about family and boys and what we would cram into the next few precious days.  After midnight, we decided we should try and get some sleep, so Heather rolled out her yoga mat, bless her heart, and I crawled in next to the softly snoring Mike.  Wow, we're here..."

Holy travels, Batman!

Alright, so the McGrails are at it again. I hope this doesn't come off prideful or anything, but my family is fortunate to be able to travel, a lot. I guess it's kind of a necessity when one's family lives all over the world. It's funny, I was talking with a friend the other day, and she was saying how her family is literally in the four corners of the US, she was exaggerating a little, but anyways... Her family is in California, New Mexico, Minnesota, and Georgia I think. I kind of laughed in my head, yeah sister, you got nothin'. Try South Korea, Hawaii, Oregon, Minnesota, and Indiana. I cringe to myself whenever I think about how Mike and I went from being the third closest geographically to my parents in Indy to the closest, and we're an eleven hour drive. Ew.

Anyways, my family is traveling a little this week. Just got a postcard from Mandy and Scott while they were in Palau. Talked to Kate and Mom, the Rohls are invading Mom and Dad right around Finn's 2nd Birthday, much to Granma and Grumpa Tom Tom's delight, soon to be joined by the Sioux City McGrails, the Des Moines McGrails, the Des Moines Versteeghs, and the Ohio Cotters (Furlers). Oh yeah, and Mike and I are leaving for South Korea today, and I think we'll kidnap Heather and jaunt over to Japan for the weekend...

Yup, crazy traveling people. AmyJ, guess you're right, we are pretty transient. In the best sort of way! Someday we should just suck it up and get a jet... Anybody want in?

What do April snows bring?

Only life in Minnesota will bring snow at the end of April, just when you've convinced yourself that it's over until October, at least. This past weekend, Mike and I made our way north again to Duluth. It did snow here in the Cities too, but in Duluth, we awoke Saturday morning to a good couple of inches of snowy ice on our car. We drove up Friday afternoon for Mike to be inducted into the U of M's rho chi, honor's society for pharm school, once again confirming the fact that I married a genius. Here he is with another smarty pants, our friend Carrie Ann, and one of the professors. After dinner we grabbed a huge monster cookie at Old Chicago and celebrated the decreasing bustline of another pharmacy friend; yes, Skinner, we too will miss the Twins, but I'm pretty sure you're back will be much better off with less of them!

Saturday, we spent the day hanging out with our friends the Svobodas. Jen and Eric are one of the only couples that Mike and I know that the wives get along just as well as the husbands. And the four of us together are even better. They've got two little guys, Zeb and Jayven, and we had a blast, the six of us, having pillow fights, eating way too much food, playing Settlers and Marbles in one night ("Marbles!!"), and catching up on life. We're lucky that Eric and Jen put up with us skipping in and out rather quickly usually, so we decided this time, it was all about them. And that was so fun! Zeb is at the great age where he entertains us more than we need to entertain him, and though Jayven's not a big communicator just yet, he'll win you over too quickly with that flirtatious smile of his! Jen and I are both daughter #3 of 4 daughters, so we have lots in common, and Mike and Eric have eerily similar senses of humor. I only wish they lived next door... Some day, E, I'm tellin' you, the commune!! Thanks, E and Jen, for a fantastic weekend; I haven't laughed that hard in... I don't know how long!

The newest member of our family...

As most of you guys know, we had to put our beloved Linus down this winter. We've talked about getting another cat for a couple months now, but wasn't really finding anyone we fell in love with. Recently, Sally (our other Siamese) has been out of control; she's loud and hyper and needs attention every second she's awake.

So in an attempt to alleviate Sally's "distress" and bring another little buddy home, we contacted a pet clinic nearby and found Jackson, that's right Amy, how crazy is that, Jackson?!? We fell in love with him as soon as we saw him, and everything the clinic told us seemed to fit. We asked about his temperment, and they said he was extremely mellow, pretty quiet most of the time, and well, a bit lazy. We thought, "perfect!" When we saw him, we also loved that fact that his head is disproportionately large for his body, and his feet are kinda big too. He's about 3-4 years old, he's also a stray that someone had dropped off at the clinic, just like Linus was.

So we adopted him yesterday and brought him home. Sally's a little perturbed, but she'll get over it. And as you can see, he's just fine! Mike thinks we should change his name, but I'm not sure, I don't mind Jackson, but Mike kinda likes Charlie, not only because of our Peanuts' character thing we've got going, but because of his ginormous head! What do you all think? Let us know, and if you can, come say hi! He's super sweet and such a lover! Welcome to the Schroeders, Jackson... err Charlie... ?

Needed a little giggle today...

Alright, what's going on?!? Spring was almost here, and then it snowed, all day today! And it's not supposed to stop until about noon tomorrow! What's up with that?!? And I just read another crazily ridiculous incident by some more crazy Christians to a couple that I love, so I'm righteously indignant and a little pissed off all over again. Grandma Sue, thanks for the article; I won't lose all hope in the organized church just yet :)

So what better way to lighten your heart than to laugh with a one-and-a-half year old? Tried to get "oh man" on again, but I think it might be too big, so go to James' blog or youtube for that one if you haven't seen it already. In the meantime, this is a cute one of one of Finn's first affectionate interactions with Henry when I was there in early February. Henry's about 4 days old, and Finn's about a year and a half; you can see Kate a little on the left...

Things that make me giggle recently...

One:  Followed a car from St. Paul, along 94, onto 35W.  The driver has her hazard lights on, but I couldn't quite figure out why.  She was going at least the speed limit, generally a bit faster, zipping in and out around traffic.  At one point along 35, I pass her; her front end it completely smashed in, she's talking on her cell phone, and drinking a beverage as she continues to weave thru traffic.  The irony of her hazard lights, her smashed front end, and her total disregard for concentration while driving was delicious.

Two:  Customers generally either drive us retail people crazy, towards the poking out of our own eyeballs, or we choose to laugh instead and keep both our eyes and our sanity.  Sunday I attempted to help a woman find jeans.  And yes, this is often times an impossible feat in that jeans rank with swimsuits and bras in frustration levels for women.  This gal was pretty funny.  She wanted wide-leg jeans, okay, no problem.  Pointed her towards a couple of options explaining the differences in fits, and stating though none of them were called "wide-legs," several of them were wide-legs.  So you don't have any wide-leg jeans?  Yes, we do, these are some of your options.  Okay, but you don't have any wide-leg jeans?  We don't have any explicitly called wide-leg, but yes, these will fit like wide-legs.  Where are your wide-leg jeans?  Well, these are a few that might work, reiterate differences in fits, can I help you find your size?  But these aren't wide-legs?  They are not called "wide-legs," but they fit like wide-legs.  But you don't have any wide-leg jeans?  Ad nauseam...  Yeah, better to giggle than poke my eyes out...

Three:  Also while driving, got off 62 to head to work.  Right as I crossed the highway along Xerxes, approaching the businesses and houses before the intersection with York and 66th, two teens stood by the side of the road holding a hand-written sign stating "slow down, speed trap ahead."  And sure enough, not a block further, a cop stood by her squad car, speed measurer thing in hand, aiming to nail whoever did not heed the warning of the teens.  Seems to me like the youngsters might've been nabbed, and in their bitterness towards the injustice of the speed trap, thought to thwart the copper's plan with a little warning to oncoming motorists. 

Righteously indignant and a little pissed off...?

I think I've just found my unofficial calling.  I've tried a few different kinds of ministries, and for all kinds of reasons, they've never been a match.  But now, I think I've finally discovered the people group that I am specifically called to minister to in an unofficial way:  those shunned, disrespected, thrown-out-of-for-some-ridiculous-reason, offended by, or just not loved by the organized church.  

Just yesterday I received two emails from people I love telling me stories of how the church, "God's" people, have trashed and thrashed them.  Any of you who know me know that I don't get all that many emails on any sort of regular basis, so to get two in one day is fairly significant, but the fact that they both told the same story just really irritates me.  How did the church come to this?!?  Where do we get off telling anyone that they are not worthy of God?  How can we possibly talk about love when we are so judgmental?!?  We are the epitome of hypocrisy when we talk about acceptance and grace, but we only let certain types of people into our little cliques.  Are we so pure that we can claim, just like the pharisees and sadducees of Jesus' time that we don't need grace because we follow all the right rules?

Here's what I think:  I'm just as messed up as the next guy, depending on the day, maybe even more so.  I put on a happy face when in my head I am saying terrible things about my coworkers.  I think things that I am too embarrassed to admit.  Sure I don't act on them, but I think, and Jesus backs me up on this one, that thinking the act is the same thing, maybe worse.  Some would say, "well at least your not acting on those thoughts," but in all actuality, aren't I the worst of the hypocrites?  I can't even be honest enough with myself and those around me to admit my thoughts; at least if I did act on them, I'd have the gaul to admit my problems, I'd have the audacity to claim honesty in my life, instead of this duality.  So if I'm just as bad, guilty, sinful if you insist on Christianease, I think I should work on loving, celebrating the good in, and welcoming all those around me, saved or otherwise.  I think this is the meaning of grace.  When God calls us to be in his image, to give grace as He gives grace, I'm pretty sure He's not telling us that we're all that great; I'm pretty sure that in fact He's slamming us in the most appropriate way:  He's telling us that in the same way He gives us grace when we don't deserve it, every time we don't deserve it, that we should extend the same undeserved grace to those around us.  We are pathetic, grasping, undeserving people, every day, all the time.  But He choses to overlook that; the Creator of the universe choses to look only at the potential good in us: our choice to admit our wrongs and claim the only thing that could save us.

This is my mission field:  those who have been abandoned by those who have no excuse for not loving, for not giving grace.  And I'd rather swing towards the liberal in my acceptance than ever be accused of being judgmental or hypocritical; I would rather take the chance and not be right, then not give the chance at all...  I chose love and grace.  

Jake's almost laughing...

Let's see if we can get this video to work...  It's well worth the wait if we can!

There and back again...

So I did a little traveling recently.  Hoped a flight to Hawaii to spend some time with the Cudas and meet my nephew Jake, born just before Thanksgiving.  Yeah, I'm pretty much a spoiled brat, I get to go to Hawaii in the middle of February in Minnesota.  People don't understand though:  most people go to Wisconsin or Iowa to visit family; I have to go a little farther, but it does so happen to be a most popular vacation site!  Don't worry, it rained half the time I was there, if that makes you all feel any better.

I flew in on Tuesday, met up with Mom (Nanny Grandma), Heather (who decided that she needed a little break from Korea and all her students, and who also decided it was time for a good dose of vitamin D), my Dad (who just doesn't like to be left out of any family gathering, regardless of where it's located), Mandy, Scott, and Jake.  

It's funny, people always want to know what I did while I was in Hawaii...  Well, what do you do when you go see your family?  We sat around, talked a lot, played cards, watched

 "Lost," oohed and aahed at Jake, ate lots of food, and I guess I did find my way down to the beach a couple

 of times, but mostly just to sit and watch the sun rise (that whole 4 hour time difference can be a killer).  Here's Mandy and Jake hanging out after she got home from work one day...  And Dad and Jake at the beach...  And Heather and Dad at a yummy Mexican restaurant in Kailua...  And my Mom and I driving the Z... okay, not actually driving at that instance, we were parked in the driveway, but we had been driving, and we were still sitting in it ;)

Jake is so amazing.  So he's about 3 months old now, and he's definitely smiling, but he's not quite laughing; he's "aahing!" but not quite giggling.  And he totally reacts to Mandy.  I got this great video clip, that if blogger will let me, I'll try to post, where he kinda smiles at me, I get a little bit of a reaction, but then he looks over at Mandy, and this huge grin spreads across his face, he shows off his adorable dimples, and he just about wets

 himself he's so pleased to recognize her.  He's such a good baby, he's sleeping so well, eats so

 well, lets just about anyone hold him, and he 

hardly ever cries.  It's strange, I've never been a

 baby person, I was never the sister that babysat, in fact all my sisters hung out with kids way more than me, but I love being an auntie.  And I think I'll love it even more as they all get 

bigger!

I flew out from Hawaii Sunday night, and I flew into Portland, OR Monday morning (again that crazy time change thing...)  Kate, Finn, and

 brand-new baby Henry met me at the airport.

  James and Kate are sort

 of hilarious in this aspect:  they seem to take great pride in having their kids out and about, farther and farther, earlier and earlier.  We joked about how Finn had been in 11 states by the time he was 6 months old, or something like that.  Well, Henry had been out and about almost every day since he was born; I met him at the airport when he was four days old!  I haven't spent much time with newborns, in fact hardly any at all, so it was amazing, and very educational to spend those three days with the Rohls.  Here's Kate and Henry; looking pretty amazing for having just given birth and just being born!!  Henry is adorable, not in the direct way that slightly older babies are, but in the 

wrinkly-old-man sort of way.  And I don't mean that as an insult at all; he's quite possibly the cutest thing I've ever seen, but more so because he's so small (not literally, he weighed over 9 lbs when he was born) and warm and smooshy and bean-like; he doesn't even stretch his legs out yet, he's all compact and soft, and half the time, it took everything in me not to scoop him up every second.  I love older babies because they interact

 so much more, but there is something about a newborn...  Does this make sense to any one other than me?   Here's Auntie Meg and Finn, hanging in the living room, sipping some juice...

James and Finn are a hoot together too.  James is a great dad (here he is below with Henry), and Finn is growing into quite the little character!  James posted a little video I happened to catch on the camera on YouTube; if you search "Finn Oh Man," you should be able to find it, it's hilarious!!  Finn is walking,

 running, playing, talking quite a bit, and comprehending way more.  He's great fun, and he

 makes you feel pretty special, that you're the best auntie ever, though I'm pretty sure he makes all his aunties feel like that!  A true ladies' man, in the best sort of way:  already knows how to make you feel like you're the best!

So yeah, five days in Hawaii, three days in Portland, all went by too fast.  But time with family is always a blast, and with all these new people hanging around, it's always a great adventure!  

For those with cats...

This video reminds me of Linus (and Sally). Meg wanted me to post it---it was sent to me via email, and I have no idea who did this cartoon. 

I'm doubting...

So I know it seems like we talk about our silly cats often.  I guess, especially for me, I don't have much of anything particularly interesting to say:  work is work, strenuous, annoying, challenging, but work nonetheless; Mike and I are pretty much the same as we have been for ten years, living day to day, he's still in school (he's really stuck in the ten-years-ago-thing :), no major changes, moves, etc.; our apartment is small and fairly nondescript; no kids yet or on the way; so that leaves our cats...

As we've mentioned in the past, our pleasantly plump applehead siamese, Linus, is getting on in years, and has recently developed a mass on the side of his head.  We took him in a couple of weeks ago as he was slowing significantly, and the vet drained some fluid, gave the poor guy an enema, put him on some antibiotics and bowel lossener, and said his blood work all looked good, and Linus might even feel lots better after we cleared out his GI track. 

Linus felt worse.  He fought, literally, tooth and nail taking his meds, stopped cleaning himself very well, started scratching fur off the side of his head around his mass and thus leaves little spots of blood everywhere, and started getting all boney and old-looking.  Mike and I made the very difficult decision to have him put down.  We made the appointment for this afternoon.  I had to work for a few hours this morning, but now I'm home, planned on soothing and lovin' on Linus for a few hours before loading him into the car to go and get Mike from school and then on to the vets.  

And of course, Linus is more personable today than he has been in weeks.  Presently he's sitting on my legs, purring away.  Does he know?  I know he doesn't...  I've barely seen him awake over the past few days, let alone snuggling and purring.  Have we made the right decision?  What if he's fine, and we're being selfish, not wanting to force feed him pills, clean up after him, etc.?  How do you make a decision like this?  I know this is nothing like with people, but so hard all the same.  In all our years of having pets as a kid, Mom and Dad made these decisions, they were the adults, the parents, they took care of these things.  But now I am responsible for ending a life, all be it feline.  I know this sounds terrible, but I almost wish Linus would've just died so that the responsibility of such a decision was lifted.

So I'm doubting.  And I'm sad...  I'm sure we'll be fine, just what I'm thinking, right now.

Grandma Weezie...

Just before Christmas, I drove down to Sioux City, IA, to where my dad originated to hang with my grandma.  Her given name is Louise, but ever since my oldest sister was an infant, Grandma Louise decided that "Louise" might be too difficult to say, so she decided to start little Mandy with "Weezie."

Anyways, Grandma Weezie and I hung out for about 36 hours, talked about family and politics, what I'm doing, Mike's doing, her garden, anything that came to mind.  It was nice to have no agenda, just to be with one person who will

 always be on my side, who likes for me just to

 come and visit, to be.  We visited the Floyd Museum, in commemoration of the only person to die on the Lewis and Clark expedition.  We made fudge, with a secret ingredient :)  

Just a short visit, but a great one.  

Thanks, Grandma Weezie, for being such a nice oasis for me!

Random updates...

Merry Belated Christmas and Happy New Years to all you that I know and love!!  Hope you all had a great one.  Ours was fabulous, one of the best I've had I think.  I missed my HI, OR, VA, and Korea sisters, but with the family I did see, we had a great time.  Loads of fun with the Schroeder/Peterson clan Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, then off to Chicago and IN with the 'rents.  So nice of them to let us sleep late, eat all their food, love on the kitties (no worries Heather, they're spoiled rotten), and play all of Mike's favorite games.  Mom and I indulged in facials, never had one before, and I'm not going to lie, I was a little apprehensive, but yes, I will definitely do that again.  A little tip for those of you who have not experienced such a thing, go find yourself a school that trains people to do such things, ie an Aveda Institute nearby; great service at fraction of cost!

Then Mom, Dad, Mike and I headed up to Chicago.  Ushered at, and therefore saw for free :) Blue Man Group, which is just as great the third time as it was the first!  Then Mom and I bashed around Chicago Saturday afternoon, shopping of course!  That night we went to see "Wicked," and if any of you get the chance, go see it!!  It was fun, funny, great music, great story, amazing talent!!  Sunday, Mike and I were expecting to fly back to MN, but we hit a bit of a fiasco with our flight.  Any of you who fly a bit, beware of AirTran, they gave us a terribly time, pretty unreasonable.  And thus, my sweetly indignant father insisted on driving us back home to MN!!!  Fortunately my Mom is a great sport, so she came along too.  They stayed with us a couple of nights before driving the eleven hours back to Indy New Year's Day. 

I must say, we are the most spoiled kids ever.  Between our two families, we are far too blessed and are surrounded by far too many generous people; thanks to all of you for loving us so well!!  Hope your holidays have been as fabulous as ours!

A revelation...

So I was just writing to an old Wheaton friend of mine, and I think I was finally able to verbalize something that I haven't been able to until this point. And I don't think it's anything terribly profound, but it's just so true to me right now, looking back on the ease of my faith in college. And I thought I would share it with you...

"Anyways, nice to hear from you, again. Been missing my Wheaties recently... Have dealt with a couple of things this past year and not going to lie, my faith has suffered. Still love God, desperately even now, but man, his people can really mess you up. We are going to a great church, but we're not real active in anything. It's funny though, sometimes I almost feel more effective as a witness, the less holy I am. That's probably a good and a bad thing, but the best I can do right now. Many of the gang that I work with are not Christians, one even fairly atheistic Jew, but the spiritual talks are abundant and not forced. But all that to say, I still miss the easy support that a place like Wheaton offered. That people like you always offered, thanks for that..."

That thanks goes out to all of you out there too, who have always been such easy support. And when I say easy, I mean not forced, gently and naturally given, with great love. So my question for all of you, my easy supporters, how do I move on, how do I without cynicism and with much grace, move on from that which has been, into a new season, one of more deliberate faith, of more active faith, when I still hurt and flinch in the presence of other Christians?

Twinkle Lights...

I don't know if it's just getting past Black Friday or what, but after all was said and done this weekend, I was actually in the mood to put up Christmas stuff!! I decided to do a real tree this year, but we weren't actually sure what the ruling was in the apartment building we live in, so we got a potted Norfolk pine! I love him!! Mom, he's just like Maurice, so we call him MJ, Maurice Junior. And I love the whole snowflake thing, so I put up my snowflake lights. Hope you all are getting to enjoy the holiday pre-season :) We're even getting pretty cold here all of a sudden, -14 with the wind chill today, ew. Here's what our living room looks like, and I'm not quite done, but I kinda like the simplicity of just the lights and greens. Maybe I will be done... We'll see. And you all, come see!

Heather Feather...

I am thinking about my older sister nearest in age to me today. As I sit and drink coffee and eat my Ezekiel bread, I think about her... Let me introduce you to her, if you don't know her already.

Heather Feather, Mary Marie McGrail. Okay, so her given name is Heather Mary McGrail, the others are a few nicknames she's received along the way. Heather is 4 years older than me. She has her masters in English, with quite a concentration in linguistics, literature, and an unnatural eye and ear for grammar. She thinks about a PhD, but isn't there yet. She has lived in Iowa, NY, Missouri, NJ, Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana, Oregon for a summer, and now South Korea. She has written two novels, but hasn't let anyone read either, grrrrrranimals. She did let me, many years ago, read one of her short stories, and I will always remember it; it was memorable for a couple of reasons: I'm not going to lie, it was a bit morbid, but even more so, it read like something I would read in my AP English class in high school. She has a way with words, not in a snobby way, though sometimes I do feel the pressure to use really big words around her, and occasionally I need a dictionary to translate her sentences, but in that way that if someone were to narrate your life, she could do it better than you.

She notices things around her in a way that I do not. She sees things in people that I do not see. I think it's the artist in her; yeah, did I mention she also an artist? She can draw and paint, she's done ridiculously amazing things with beads. If any of you are ever in our apartment, she did the pencil drawing of the curly-haired guy in our office.

And now she is in South Korea. She had tossed around the idea of teaching overseas for a little while, and then one day, just decided to do it. After some snags along the way, South Korea it was. She's been there since the middle of August, and I think of her whenever I call "home" on my cell phone because "Heather" comes right before "home."

Heather is a bit of a home body; she's a caregiver and a taker-carer. Because of this, I think she's missing home a bit more than usual right now. This is one of my favorite qualities of my sister: she knows how to completely care for you. The best way to explain this to you is with a little anecdote:

When I was working with the church up in Duluth, and I feel like I've told this story before, but stick with me. I had the brilliant idea to borrow my parent's RV and take a bunch of the high school juniors and seniors on a college-hunting trip. But we wouldn't waste our time on any colleges that were close enough for them to visit with their parents, no we would go to Chicago, a couple of places in Michigan, and one in Indiana. We hit five colleges in three states in about 48 hours before we headed to my parents' in Indianapolis for a night's rest before trucking back to Duluth, a mere 11 hours away. Oh yeah, and I was the only "adult" and driver with about half a dozen students. By the time we hit Mom and Dad's, I was pooped, to say the least. Mom and Dad were gone, somewhere, but Heather met us there, in the driveway, had snacks and soda out for the gang, had places for everyone to sleep, had a cozy fire going in the fireplace, and just took over. At heart, I really am an introvert, and I was drained; Heather seemed to just know that. She told the gang where to go to find anything and everything, had beds set up, got me some hot cider to drink, and tucked me into bed. She made us breakfast the next morning, gave me lots of loving and encouragement, and sent us home, refreshed and ready for the drive.

This is just how Heather is: humbly just caring. Heather, wish you were here drinking coffee with me, or I was there eating sushi with you, but know that you are well loved and missed, and we'll be seeing you, and I'll bet the time between now and then will fly.

Linus has a lump...

For those of you who don't know, Mike and I have two Siamese cats. We started with Linus, who someone had left behind at the apartment complexes that Kate had been working at the summer Mike and I got married. Mike hadn't enjoyed cats up to that point, in fact enjoy is a little soft, he didn't really like cats at all. And Linus won him over. Linus lets Mike pile driver him and body slam him, Linus lets him hold him on his back in the shape of a bean. Linus hides in our suitcase when we try to pack to go on trips. He grunts a little when he has to jump too high or pretty much whenever he jumps down from anything. He really enjoys marshmallows. And he really likes to be vacuumed.

When we lived in our house in Duluth, he'd have these random spurts of energy where he'd start in the basement, come bounding up the steep basement steps, slip and slide like a cartoon character across the wood floor thru the kitchen, into the living room, where he'd then lead the first five steps, grapple up the rest of the steps, race around upstairs before he'd finally be satiated. This is especially funny when you've realized the normal pace of anything for Linus is less than slow.

One afternoon, again when we were in our house in Duluth, we had left for a quick trip to the grocery store, or something, had come back within an hour, and as we pulled up the driveway, there was Linus hanging, head first, out of the kitchen window. We hadn't remembered that we had left that window, the only screen-less one in the house, open. Our other cat, Sally had escaped first and went to hide under a bush, and Linus had thought this was a good idea, but changed his mind just a little too late. There he hung, his entire body out the window, with just his two back feet clinging to the window sill, until we came and grabbed him.

So a few weeks ago, we noticed Linus had a bit of a lump on the right side of his head, about the size of a grape. We were a little nervous, but not too worried, and because Linus becomes Dr. Jekyll when we take him to the vet, we decided to wait a little bit and see what happened. It, of course grew quite large fairly fast. Mike took Linus in to just have the vet look at him. Linus wouldn't even let the nice man close enough to have a good look. The vet offered to put him under, give him a proper exam, and then biopsy the now ping-pong-sized mass on the side of his head, just under his ear.

We accepted this offer, made Linus fast for 12 hours, he was a very unhappy kitty, to say the least, and took him in again. As I walked into the office with the growling and spitting cat carrier, the receptionist recognized our little angel by sound alone. I received the all-okay call a couple of hours later, went back to pick him up, was informed that he was a little crabby and would be groggy for a while, but he came thru pretty well. The unfortunate news was that the vet had not seen anything like this before and would like to send some of the collected cells away; we'd know a bit more in a week.

And if any of you have ever seen a cat waking up from anesthesia, it's quite possibly the most sad and pathetic thing I've ever encountered. You can tell that he doesn't know what's going on, why his legs aren't working properly, why he can't avoid running into anything within four feet of the direction he would like to go. And he would just lay there with his eyes wide open, head down to the side, and just lay. I had to check a few times to make sure he was still breathing.

Anyways, this long tirade ends with this: Linus has a lump. It's origin is unknown, it's mostly squamous cells, they cannot tell if it will invade the bone in his head and jaw, but it is unlikely to metastasize. The vet assumes it has come from a salivary gland, and when I asked him what he would do if Linus were his cat, he sighed, said he hated when people asked this, and said we wouldn't operate on it. Linus is old in cat years, not elderly, but old. He may not recover, the vet might not be able to get all of it, and right now he has pretty good life satisfaction.

But now I feel a little like we are in kitty hospice, looking for signs that he might not be doing well. Is he going off by himself because he knows it's time, or just because he wants to look out the window. (The vet said that we all will probably reach the point when we will just sit and look out the window, that this isn't necessarily a bad thing...) Is he still eating, is he sleeping more than his typical 18 hours a day, does he chew his food or just swallow it, and is that because in typical Linus manner he generally wolfs his food, or is it because he has a tumor that has grown into his jaw and he can no longer use his jaw to chew?

For now, Linus sits on my lap, still loving to sit in the most irritating positions (between you and the keyboard, on top of what ever book you are reading, on top of whatever project you are working on, especially bad when beading, etc.) so that you are ensured to pet him, and we type this little story, he and I, about the life still to be lived, just one with a few more golf ball-sized lumps along the way.

The holidays approacheth...

Good grief, what happened to the fall. And the beginning of November for that matter. About a week and a half until Thanksgiving, and only about a month and a half 'til Christmas. With Mike and I working not holiday-friendly jobs (retail and hospital), spending time with family is looking a little different this year. Not to mention that our siblings are all over the country and the world. Literally, Hawaii, Oregon, Virginia, one here in MN, and South Korea. I wonder, if we hopped our own private jet, flew directly to each of these places, spent at least an hour at each place, how long would that take us?

Thanksgiving we are scheduled to be with Mike's parents, which is nice in that they are in town, or at least within an hour of us. Mike and I both work, hospitals I guess really do need to be open all the time, jeez, in case of, I don't know, a life or death kind of situation ;) And retail, and the whole black Friday thing, just isn't pretty. So it sounds like we might be having a slightly less traditional Thanksgiving meal on Friday or Saturday, but again, it's nice that they are so close so we can do a good few bits several times over the weekend. And Christmas this year is with my parents, again, kinda tricky, especially for me. Mike doesn't have to work, but man, those last minute shoppers are killers. We're actually heading to them on Christmas and to stay for a few days, then be back in time for Mike and I both to work New Year's. Kinda cool again, though; because they are so close, we'll probably be able to do some of Mike's family's Christmas too.

I'm sure some day, whenever we start to have kids of our own, the holidays will start to look pretty different. We may even have to start hosting our own holiday celebrations. In the meantime, it is still really great to continue on in our families' traditions, even when they do start to evolve as we do into adults.

I'm going to try and remember these happy thoughts as the holidays get closer, and the shoppers get crabbier. For those of you who have never worked in retail around the holidays, and even for those of us who have and do, please remember that the people trying desperately to help you find that perfect gift are overworked, underpaid, and generally harassed more in these two months than most of us are in a year. And give them a small break...

One last time for the season...

I love fall, have I told you that? And I guess I'm still stuck on the whole apple picking thing 'cuz we went again. Or at least I went again with Mike and two Gap-ies, Natalie and Brit. I mean look at these beauties, and I don't just mean me and the girls ;) Yummy!! We're late in the season, so we were only able to pick Regents and Haralsons, but still de-lish! I'm still shocked at how many people haven't ever been apple picking before, I mean seriously, this is one of the ultimate fall-time activities! And if you have kids, it's a must! Here are some cute picks...