Father Pearson's Airport Adventure

In early December, “Father Pearson” returned from Florida and was waiting at MSP for “Mother Pearson” to pick him up. She calls him on his cell phone to let him know she is stuck in traffic on Hwy 169 and should be there in about 20 minutes. Curt takes a seat with his ever present newspaper and who should come walking by, but Forrest Nelson. Their discussion naturally involves golf but turns to automobiles as Ramona has recently acquired a new minivan that is the same model as Marilyn’s, the only difference being Marilyn’s is green and Ramona’s is silver. Just then Forrest spots the silver minivan and off goes Curt out the door. Curt waves at Ramona and goes to the side door to toss in his bags. The side door is locked so he goes to the rear door. The rear door is also locked yet he continues to yank on it yelling “Ramona, open the door”. The van starts to slowly pull forward, with Curt running after it hollering “Ramona!!”. As he reaches the van and again tries to open the rear door the van takes off and leaves the airport. With Curt furious that his wife has ditched him, he walks back inside and is consoled by Forrest as they both scratch their heads wondering what the heck Ramona is thinking. A few minutes later the silver minivan approaches and Curt heads out with his luggage, this time to unlocked doors. As Curt gets in he chastises Ramona and asks her what the heck happened on her last pass through the pick up area.

Ramona informs him that this is her first pass through the pickup area.

I would like to hear the version from the poor lady that thought she was being carjacked by some crazy man yelling “Ramona”.

Our family marathon participants

Kudos to Todd and Melinda for their stellar showings at the Phoenix Marathon..(Valley of the Sun...bands at every mile mark...on January 15.).Melinda walked a half marathon in 3;16;..Todd ran the 26.2 course in 4:11...Speaking for myself, and having just come from my (almost)daily 3 mile walk..(don't ask my time) panting, I have nothing but admiration for those two..You do us all proud!

UPDATE BY TODD:

Here are pictures of us crossing our respective finish lines. Melinda's time of 3:16 was her "chip time." The "gun time" is reflected on the clock above her as she crossed. As you will see, it took her 24 minutes to cross the start line (at which time her "chip time" started) because there were almost 20,000 people in front of her.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Kristin celebrated her upcoming 5th birthday with her friends at a place called, "Pump it Up". It is a party arena filled with blow-up slides with ladders, jumping tents, etc. Ten of her friends attended (including big sister, Katy, who Stephanie allowed to skip part of her school day to join us....hey, you only live once!) and Pump it Up provided everything from pizza, juice and cake to complete supervision, organization and clean-up. Us moms got to sit, watch and participate at our leisure and then share in the pizza and cake while the staff tended to the kids. They even compiled the "who gave what" present list. This place is a parents' dream come true! And all involved had a great time!! We can't believe our baby will be five on the 19th of this month, and off to kindergarten this fall. Oh how time flies!

Bye Ramius

Monday, Ramius' external tumor started bleeding so we took him to the vet to get him bandaged up and to drain fluid off of his lungs. Still, he felt good enough to go for a walk with the other dogs on Monday night.

By last night, the bleeding had increased substantially. After an amateur re-bandaging job, he laid down in the living room in an unusual spot for him and didn't move an inch during the night. This morning, I had to help him get up to go outside. When he came back in, he looked so very tired. It was clearly time.

The vet came to the house this morning to euthanize him here. We are very thankful for that because getting him into and out of the van would have been quite difficult, and he would no doubt have been stressed in the vet's office until the end. Instead, he died peacefully in our living room with his head in Melinda's lap.

Flashback to 12/10/05: "At this point, I'm going to predict that Ramius' new little angel is going to help him get through the end of the year." She did.

Todd

Name that sailor