Chicago Exploration

September 3, 2015September 2, 2015Leave a comment

As much as I love the great outdoors and our National Parks, it is also fun to explore our urban areas. My daughter Jenny had a great idea the summer before she started high school, that she and I should go to Chicago. She mainly wanted to visit the Chicago Institute of Art, but she also had a plan for us to try getting around on the “L,” and to sample the food and do a little shopping. She has always had an interest in art.

I had been to Chicago a number of times and enjoyed it for a few days here and there. I am glad I do not live there and have to deal with the traffic, noise and crowds on a daily basis, but the food and the fun things to see are worth the trip. I made reservations for us at a hotel just off of Michigan Ave (the main drag in downtown Chicago where all the action is) to help save a little money, and we went during the week, so it was not as crowded. We drove down and then parked our car at the hotel and either walked to our destinations or took the “L” train around the city. This is about a six hour drive and the drive is part of the fun. You can learn a lot about your kids in six hours. You have a lot of time to talk about just about everything. She was the copilot and had to have the money ready when we went through toll booths. She learned a lot about travel and getting around a big city on those trips.

Once we got to Chicago I had her help me watch the signs on where to turn and she was good at finding the hotel and our parking garage. That first time driving in downtown Chicago was a little nerve wracking, but we enjoyed Chicago so much that we went back almost every summer for a while and sometimes Sara, my oldest daughter, came along as well. We got to be very comfortable at getting around in Chicago after a few years.

We saw the Institute of Art. I had been there before, but it was even more fun seeing it through my daughter’s eyes. The beauty and talent is almost overwhelming. I always say I cannot stay more than a couple of hours at any one visit. My mind is so overwhelmed, that I no longer appreciate the uniqueness of each piece after a while and feel like I am just glossing over a particular piece of art. So we have gone a number of times and saw different collections on each visit. We essentially learned how to look at art and really appreciate it.

We also visited the outdoor art in Chicago including the Bean, and we rode the “L” to Chinatown. It was our goal to try something unique each time we were there. We had a lot of fun trying things at the restaurants in Chinatown, and always had good stories to tell after that. We shopped in Chinatown and went into the bakeries. Over the years it got to be one of our favorite places and we visited it each time we were in Chicago.

We did the other touristy stuff on Michigan Avenue like shopping and going to the top of the Sears tower, but we also loved trying new restaurants. The first year we had to have Chicago-style Pizza and even though it is still a favorite, we also tried new restaurants with Asian flavor infused lamb chops and delicious things where we did not even know what we were really ordering, but we were there to try new things and get out of our comfort zone and so we did.

We learned to read train schedules and get around on the “L,” we rode to Chinatown and we walked all over and we learned to be comfortable and confident, or at least look that way, even when we were sometimes a little unsure of ourselves. We visited the Chicago Museum of Natural History and one year we took an architectural boat tour on the Chicago River. We always had a plan for all of the things we wanted to see each year, but we also deviated from the plan to explore the city and see new things. We always had very full days to make the most of our visit and we always found a new restaurant for each evening, and to make it more special, we would dress up for the occasion.

We had so much fun together and we never ran into any trouble. Even though we were tired at the end of the trip, I was glad we did it. We were exploring together. We had to read train and road maps together and read the city street maps as we walked to find new restaurants or stores. Jenny was really good at that at a young age and saved us a few times from going the wrong direction. We were not so much mother and daughter on those trips, but more like travelers exploring together, making decisions on where to go and what to see. We had shared experiences of everything from, “that was great” to “remind me never to order the curry baby octopus again.” Yes, that is a true story. It was baby octopus and it was very yellow from the curry on it. It was also one of the worst things I have ever eaten and I have eaten squirrel and wood chuck and every organ from the cows and pigs on our farm, so I think I am a good one to judge.

When you are raising kids, it is easy to find very legitimate reasons not to do these extra adventures. It always costs money that you don’t always have to spare and you have to take time off from work, even when work is really busy, but in looking back I am glad I did not make the excuses, and even though it would have been easier to have the whole family go or have Joe drive us like he did on our family vacations, the dynamics would have been completely different. This way the focus was on just us and we had to fend for ourselves and we got to do what we wanted without any guys. It made us more confident and self sufficient and it brought us closer together. No one and no amount of time can take away our shared Chicago adventures. They are a part of us, our stories and our memories forever.

Puppies Everywhere

August 26, 2015August 26, 2015Leave a comment

I am a dog lover. Don’t get me wrong, I like cats too, especially the farm cats we grew up with, but I love dogs more and cannot imagine living without them. I have two rescue dogs right now. One is a Pug Shitzu who looks exactly like an Ewok from Star Wars if you would put a little leather helmet on him, and I have a Sheltie who was surrendered because he has a genetic defect in his front leg joint. We got him as a puppy and he is now ten years old. He limps sometimes, but does pretty well.

I grew up with dogs on the farm and we had mostly mutts, but at the height of gas and cattle stealing, we had a Doberman. He was a really nice dog for us, but if a stranger drove in the yard he looked like he was going to attack. It really cut down on the salesmen visits. We had one dog on the farm, Prince, who pulled a red wagon in a harness my grandpa and dad built. One of us sat in the wagon and the others rode bikes down the driveway, and that dog would run down that driveway giving us the ride of our lives. Prince was a nice dog.

When my kids were young they wanted a puppy, and so did I, and so started the parade of pets we had at our house over the years. We had fish, birds, a rabbit, a turtle and of course the dogs. We had our own dog, but we also did foster care for the Humane society. The kids always wanted puppies to play with, and so I thought our best option was to do foster care for puppies. It was perfect. They came for about two to three weeks to be well fed, to play and grow, and be socialized. Just long enough so that everyone was tired of cleaning up after them, when it was time for them to go back to the humane society to find their forever homes.

Our first assignment was to care for and socialize six black lab puppies that had lost their mom. They were as cute as could be. The puppies were high energy, exploring everything and crawling around on the kids. The kids were so gentle with them, but wow those puppies put out a lot of poop. We luckily had a large mud room with a linoleum floor that we fenced off and covered in plastic and than heavy red paper used in the construction industry and then layers of newspapers that could be changed frequently. We went through a lot of newspapers. The Humane Society gave us stacks of them and we could come and get more anytime we needed.

Luckily it was summer and the kids took the puppies outside a lot on the lawn to play. They liked being outdoors and the kids had a blast. A lot of their friends came to see the puppies and play with them. We had a deck in the backyard that was about a foot and a half above the ground. One of the puppies strayed under there and the kids did not want to crawl into that abyss of spider webs and darkness under the deck to retrieve the lost puppy. Guess who had spiders crawling in her hair after that rescue. Those kids owe me big-time.

We had a big loud family and our house was always full of commotion. Kids coming and going, and TV’s on, and loud music. I always said our house was the best to socialize puppies. They were not afraid of anything or anyone when they left us. They were used to loud noises and used to being held and handled. I had to get up early every morning to change their mat of newspapers covered in puppy poop and feed them mushy food and change their water. That was the largest group we ever had. I was very happy to see them go to find their real homes. I was tired after a few weeks and while the kids helped a little, it was still mostly me and it was the first thing I did in the morning and the last thing I did at night. After that, we only had one or two or three at a time. Never six. It was just too much. Live and learn.

We once had two husky lab mix puppies and they were my favorite. The kids always named the pups, and with the huskies we had one that was mostly white with a little black and had one blue eye and one brown eye. It was a beautiful dog. The kids named her Bobby. She was smart and kept escaping from her pen. I would be cooking and all of a sudden she would be walking around my feet. She stood on things jumped on things and could escape that pen no matter what we tried. After a while we gave up and let her roam, but we had to potty train her and that went as well as could be expected.

Once we got a call from the Humane Society that they had a pregnant dog that needed foster care. Her name was Penny and we were glad to take her. I had been a Labor and Delivery nurse, so having a dog that would have puppies was a fun prospect for me, and I was glad to have my kids experience that as well. We had a nice bed for her and we followed the directions we got from the Humane society to give her space and let her nest and rest. She was a small dog and cute as a bunny. Very gentle and well behaved. Not sure why someone gave her up. She was such a nice dog.

We kept watching for those puppies and one Saturday afternoon there was one squirming little puppy. So cute. Black tan and white just like Penny. She had another puppy to be born, but it just seemed to be taking too long. I called the humane VACBot012 Society, but they always said the same thing. Just let nature takes its course. Probably good advice. The kids and I watched and waited giving Penny her space, but keeping an eye out occasionally. Finally, the second pup was born, but it was not breathing. Penny tried her best to get it going by vigorously licking it, but to no avail. When she stopped, I took the puppy and tried
to give it gentle mouth to mouth and chest compressions. If I could have built a defibrillator with two forks and the toaster I would have. I felt so bad. I wanted to save that puppy, but despite my best efforts, I could not save the puppy.

The kids had watched me try and I finally gave the puppy back to Penny who had been standing by patiently waiting for me, as if knowing it was not meant to be. She nested with her lost puppy for a while, but after a few hours, pushed it out of the nest and focused on her live squirming bundle of joy. It was good for the kids to see real life and death and to know that despite our best efforts sometimes things were not meant to be.

The first puppy grew fast and was loved and held constantly by the kids. They would watch movies with Penny on the couch and the puppy would be crawling all over them. Most of the time it was no problem to separate from our foster puppies, but Penny and her puppy were special. They were a little harder to return to the Humane Society, but they let us be there when both were adopted and we were glad to see them go to good homes.

It is important to have our children see and experience sadness as well as joy, happiness, separation and letting go, as it is a part of life. We cannot have complete joy without having experienced sadness and we have to know how to deal with all of life’s ups and downs. On the farm it is easier to experience and understand that death is a part of life. That was a harder lesson to teach in the city. We started doing foster care to have puppies to play with. We did not appreciate that it would teach life lessons in such a personal way.

Everyone Needs an Adventure Buddy

August 13, 2015August 8, 2015Leave a comment

My husband Joe and I just got back from our second trip to Voyageurs National Park by Lake Kabetogama on the Minnesota-Canadian border. We load our big Lund fishing boat, wear our adventure pants, head up north to a resort called Moosehorn, and rent a cabin for a week offishing Walleye. This is our second time to the resort because the owners, Christy and Jerry work really hard to make sure you catch fish and have a great time. We caught some really nice Walleyes, and more importantly, we were able to spend a really nice week together. I caught the biggest Walleye. More on that later.

You can do these types of things whenever you want when you are empty nesters. Joe and I have been on some very fun adventures together since our nest became empty. You can read more about by browsing the Practice Fun Living and Empty Nest Shenanigans pages on this site. We loved raising our kids, but the reality is that those years are about them, as it should be. We spent a lot of time in those years, through all of the different phases from diapers and then school, and all of the activities such as soccer, hockey, dance, plays, band and our wonderful family vacations. It was a hectic time, and with all of the kid activities, we sometimes had to work really hard to stay connected as a couple. We did stay connected; we now have been married for almost 30 years, and we can once again appreciate each other’s company as we are back to having things more about us and what we want to do.

I look back on those family years and even though some of them are a blur, one thing is for sure. I married a really nice guy who took care of us all and would do anything for his family. We recently sold our family home in Blaine, and I was talking to a friend and I told her that none of the light bulbs in that house had ever burned out in 25 years. At first she looked confused and then it dawned on her that of course they had burned out, I just did not have to change them because Joe quietly always replaced them. I don’t even ever remember having to ask him to replace any. He just took care of them. I also had my last car for ten years and during that time it never once ran out of washer fluid. Another thing that he just made sure was always done.

Over the years he has had to do a lot of things for his family. I have come to the conclusion that it is not big spectacular things, but the small things that make a good dad and husband. He has not had to defend his family against an intruder or wrestle a bear or cougar in a National Park so the kids and I would not be mauled, although that would be a good story, but over the years he has had to take care of all of their gadgets that break, whether phones or cars, and schedule and keep track of oil changes on sometimes as many as five different vehicles. He has paid a few parking tickets for our college students—luckily no one has ever done anything serious, and when they were in High School he had to help them with their math and calculus, since he has a PhD and actually easily understood that complicated homework.

Over the years Joe fixed many a broken door, screen, window, dresser drawers and toys. He was there for them when they needed him and he has always been a low maintenance guy. Joe loves watching his Twins baseball and he is so easy going that he seldom complains. As our kids say, he can live off of a handful of peanuts and is happy with that. He mows the lawn, pays the bills, and would drive his family thousands of miles on family vacations. He had to put up with all of the pets our kids wanted over the years and had a real tolerance for all of the noise in our house when the kids were teens and had their friends over for movies, music and games. Those teens ate everything in the house like locusts, and were so loud you needed ear plugs sometimes, but it had to get really bad before he complained.

We did a lot of fun things with those kids over the years, and we had a lot of fun together. The guy has skills other than mowing lawns and fixing broken stuff in the house. When we took a driving vacation around Europe for our 25^th anniversary he bossed it up on the roads, including keeping up with the Germans on the Autobahn, and he caught on quickly to driving without obeying the traffic signs and weaving around the hundreds of motorcycles on the streets of Rome. I had my hands over my eyes more than once. Yes, we got a couple of tickets in Europe for driving down the wrong way in Amsterdam and in Italy, but that was my fault as the navigator and it was well worth it, for the great sites that we saw on that vacation. There was not a scratch on the car and after being in Europe for about two weeks. I knew he had this driving thing down like a local when we went to a German restaurant for pork hock night and he parked our car with two wheels onto the sidewalk, just like the locals.

It is good to have an adventure buddy with balls who is not afraid to try something new, and a guy with some skills who knows how to do everything from fix the computer to catch fish. We have zip lined, snorkeled, and we have sat our butts in the Natural hot springs of the blue lagoon in Iceland. We have visited the cliffs on the Mediterranean at the Cinque Terre in Italy, stayed on a farm in the Alps by Innsbruck Austria, and a castle on the Mosel River in Germany. We have hiked and fished in Hawaii, Alaska and Costa Rica and we hope to have many adventures ahead.

It is good to have the right adventure buddy. We encourage and reassure each other and more importantly we have fun together. If you cannot have fun together, a marriage will not last for 30 years. I have found that you have to find common interests, and the key is that you enjoy being with the other person.

We enjoy many things and we can still have fun at things we have been doing for years. We work together on the planning and preparations for our adventures and we have a list of future adventures that we already know we want to try. Last week at Kabetogama, as usual with our fishing adventures, there is a lot of trash talking about who will catch the biggest fish and the first fish. I make him take pictures of every fish I catch, no matter how embarrassingly small it is. I did catch the biggest fish this year and have been rubbing it in since we are back, but he reminds me that he caught the first fish. Most importantly, we enjoy our time together. We go with the flow; we enjoy not only the adventure, but the planning, preparations and getting there and back, and talking about it afterward even when it is trash talking about who caught the biggest fish.

Picking the right adventure buddy for both your vacation adventures as well as your own life adventure is crucial to enjoying your time on this earth. Who would have thought, looking from afar that the quiet guy who gets little recognition when he changes the washer fluid on the cars and changes light bulbs in the house, the guy who is mowing the lawn and paying the bills, going unappreciated and almost unnoticed most of the time, would be the best husband and dad a family could ask for. The kids and I have appreciated the things Joe has done for us, even though we have not expressed it as often as we should.

Appreciate your adventure buddy, your quiet guy who has done his duty for his kids and wife; the guy who asks for little in return, but shows up for everything from changing dirty diapers to hauling the kids stuff to college. It has been a fun ride and we have many more adventures ahead. Life can be fun with the right Adventure Buddy!

A Fish with a Hat

July 9, 2015July 8, 2015Leave a comment

When raising kids you cannot overestimate the importance of humor, especially during their teenage years. Teenagers can create enough drama on their own over things we adults just consider day to day events. For teens it can all become a big deal if not put into perspective. There is always that fine line of letting them develop and find themselves and their way in the world, and keeping a guiding hand so they make good choices. Keeping things light now and then is essential, even keeping it light when they need to know that they have messed up and they need a consequence.

I never liked cleaning that much, but I like a clean house. One of the things we used in our house for punishment when our teens rolled their eyes or said too many bad words or did not clean up after themselves or missed a homework deadline was to assign a “dirty job.” The more offenses or the worse the offense, the worse the dirty job. I had three teens in our house at one time and during those years I had some of the cleanest toilets ever! It got to be a funny thing too, where I even threatened their friends with dirty jobs. I actually made my son, Ben, and his friend clean windows at one point for leaving a big mess in our basement. I had dirty jobs ranging from cleaning up dog doo in the back yard to weeding or vacuuming, dusting, and, my personal favorite, the stinky trash can clean up. I heard my kids tell their friends that punishment in our house was a dirty job. It was said in an almost bragging but matter of fact manner.

My kids were so used to it that they would sometimes do something like mouth off and then catch themselves, and I would just point to the bathroom, and they were like, “Oh dang, sorry, I will go clean the toilet.” It was almost to the point of them self policing themselves by knowing that they had messed up and just going and getting the dirty job over with.

After a particularly busy day at the office, I came out to my car and found that some large bird had left a very gross, very large green chunky poop on my car window. I have to say it was one of the grossest bird jobs I had ever seen. I came home for dinner and around the dinner table sat my three teens and our favorite neighbor kid, Chris all wolfing down the spaghetti my husband had cooked for the crowd. They ate constantly in those years. I said “Please tell me someone forgot to do their homework or brought a note home from school saying someone did something they should not or tell me you left a mess that needs a dirty job, because I have a dosey of a bird poop on my car window that is green and chunky and now dried on and I sure as heck don’t want to clean that off.” I have never seen them all so quick. They were all talking at the same time, including Chris assuring me that they had all done their homework and done nothing wrong. It was precious and brought a smile to my face. No one wanted that bird poop job. I suggested that I could keep it there a few days in case someone needed a dirty job, but they all agreed that I better clean it off myself. Of course they were teens so my next maneuver was to start offering money, but clearly I was not offering enough, because no one took me up on that either. No one got in trouble that whole week.

We always had a lot of the kid’s friends over, and here in Minnesota the winters can be long, so humor was even more important. My kids always had a lot of pets, and we at one point had an aquarium. I learned a lot about care of pets and by the way, if you want to grow healthy gold fish the size of your hand, don’t feed them fish flakes they sell at the pet store, feed them wax worms from the bait store. I had a number of gold fish that started as the twenty cent small gold fish that were the size of my hand in no time. Amazing how fast they grow when you feed them wax worms. We had one fish we referred to as Betty Lou and she was queen of the tank. She was in a large aquarium with our turtle, Paco that the kids had gotten for free at some point. That darn turtle was getting huge as well eating wax worms.

I will admit, Betty Lou had originally been added as a small fish to the tank as food for Paco, but she was so fast he could not catch her, and week after week she avoided him and lived on to the point where she was too big to be eaten by him. One Friday night when all the kids had their friends over and the house was busy with activity, I said that Betty Lou had gotten so big she could probably wear a hat. They thought that was so funny. So I bet them that if I could have Betty Lou wear a hat, I would not have to do dishes for a month. They took me up on it so now I was stuck. It took me a long time to dig up enough doll stuff and Barbie stuff to find a little plastic pink hat that would work. I added a little elastic and it was game on. I had held Betty Lou many times while moving her during Aquarium cleaning, so I know I could safely handled her and she was used to it. So there I was gently putting a little pink hat on the big fish. I then released her in the tank and she swam around, as if proud of it. (No fish was hurt with these shenanigans). The kids were amazed and we took pictures, which all ended up on Facebook and then removed it. Teenagers are not easily amazed or amused, but when you can amaze them or just make them laugh, you make a connection with them that is precious. This was years ago and yet I just recently heard one of my kids friends talking about Betty Lou and the hat.

Teens need fun in their lives. When I woke my teens for high school at the crack of dawn, a time teens were not meant to get up, I would tell them once to get up and the second time I would jump on top of them and roll around until they were laughing and jumping up. They left in a better mood with a smile inside even if they were tired and sometimes crabby on the outside.

Humor and keeping things fun and light cannot be overestimated. It not only helps kids with a positive attitude, but it teaches them how to be happy and have fun and that attitude sets the tone for the entire home. If a family home has a fun atmosphere, it can be felt the minute you walk in and it affects everyone in a positive way. Sometimes it takes a little work to put a hat on a fish, but fun and positivity takes work and is necessary to set the tone for a positive home and a positive life. Teaching that positivity to our kids is essential for their ability to be a positive person in their own lives and bringing positivity to the world.

Touching Volcanos

July 2, 2015July 2, 2015Leave a comment

I have always been fascinated by the earth’s natural beauty and mysteries. If I had been born independently wealthy I would have put that money to good use. I would fly over volcanoes, and I would have been to every continent by now, and done every eco tour in cool places like the Galapagos and Madagascar. But even though I was not born independently wealthy, I have done my best to see some cool places. We took a lot of family vacations when the kids were young. I do think it is important to travel with kids, but that is not why I traveled with them. I traveled with them because it was really fun and we saw a lot of cool stuff. It was not a burden; I really looked forward to it. I loved the planning part and I loved being on vacation. I still do love vacations even though it is just Joe and I, but it is different without the kids. Not worse, not better, just different. Still amazing and still seeing cool stuff.

I have a fairly high stress job, and if you asked my employees what I am like they would probably
say type A, and that I can be really driven and intense, but none of those things were true when I was on vacation. Once I crawled into our Yukon packed for adventure with the kids, the stress all melted away. I felt patient and more go with the flow than any other time, and that was true no matter what the age of the kids. I still relax the minute I start my vacation. When they were young and in car seats we stopped if they got restless, we fed them when hungry and they took naps when they got tired. We went with the flow, had a good plan and if something unexpected happened, we just dealt with it and some of those unexpected events led to some of our best stories.

I always wanted to see Yellowstone National Park, as I was fascinated by the photos of volcanic waters and bubbling mud pots coming to the earth’s surface, and the best part is that it is not that far from Minnesota. It is one of our oldest and most impressive National Parks and a must see for every family. In July of 1994, we packed up our two little kids, five year old Sara and two year old Ben in our big four wheel drive Ford Arostar van. At the time, I was huge and pregnant with our third child, Jenny, due in December. We packed our cooler with cheese and sandwiches, water and Gatorade, and a back seat with a treasure of crackers, colors, toys, smarties candies and dollar store finds to stay busy on long drives. Each child got to help pack their own bags and a backpack with their special things to stay busy. We bought Sara a Polaroid camera and film for her birthday, which was in July, to take pictures at each sightseeing stop. We bought her a small photo album as well so she could put the “instant pictures,” as we called those Polaroid’s back then, into the album, and she wrote the location on each one with some help with the spelling. She was ready to start kindergarten that fall.

Sara was always a good traveler and the best at going with the flow. She was the oldest, so a good helper with the younger kids and very patient if she had the wait for anything. She was our sweet Sara and still is our sweet Sara. Ben was an active kid even at two and so every once in a while when we had been driving too long, he would say, “Daddy I have to run” and so Joe would find a spot at a gas station or fast food parking lot and we would let him out of his car seat and let him run his energy off. He almost always had a smile on his face and was so excited any time we saw any animals at the park like the buffalo and the moose and bear. It was fun to see the world through his eyes. He loved books and would look at those as we drove or I had a bag of cheap simple toys from the dollar store and when he got bored, I would let him pick one. It took a long time for him to get it out of the packaging, so that kept him busy while we made more miles.

On our 1994 trip, we stopped at the Bad Lands and we eventually made it to Yellowstone. When we got there we tried to check into the park accommodations, but it appeared some mistake occurred and while we thought we had reserved a room with two queen beds, they had us down for a small room with just two single beds. Now this is just another reason that Joe will always be my best adventure buddy. He did not get upset or excited. He remained polite to the young woman behind the desk, but he was insistent that there had to be something else available for us. She was as insistent that it was July and everything was booked. He finally looked at her and pointed to me standing a ways away, clearly very pregnant, hot in the July weather, holding a two year old and with Sara beside me. He told her as he pointed at us this is what we are working with. Two small beds will not work; you need to give us something else. You must have some place set aside for these kinds of things or if someone important comes or a celebrity. It was so cute and he was half smiling as he said it. It was charming. She smiled because it was so cute and funny at the same time. She talked to some supervisors and they brainstormed as I went to the gift shop and looked to keep the kids busy and entertained. Well it took some work on their part, but I have to give them credit. They were awesome and got it figured out.

We ended up with a cabin in the park with two bedrooms. It was even better than what we had reserved. People are generally good. They tried their best to fix this problem and they solved it. They could have just said tough luck, we cannot do anything, but they worked and I don’t know how, but they solved our problem and made it a very special and memorable vacation for us. When we woke up the next morning the buffalo were sleeping around in back of our cabin. The kids watched them from the windows as we packed the car for the day’s adventures in the park. We stayed in the cabin for three days while we went sightseeing throughout the park. We saw the geysers bubbling boiling hot water from deep within the earth, and we hiked around the mud pots and Yellowstone Falls. I was as mesmerized and amazed by these surface volcanic waters as the kids. We saw moose with their babies and we saw bear and buffalo.

We loved it so much, we visited again in 2003 when the kids were a little older and Jenny could see and enjoy it too. She was and still is always up for an adventure. The kids were big enough on that trip that we had them participate in a park program for kids to become junior rangers and they soaked in the cool waters of the Yellowstone River and hiked to all the great spots. We would tailor our activities to their age on each vacation and as they got older we could do more things.

Yellowstone is one of those amazing jewels where around each corner is a natural mystery that grounds you to the bigger universe. It confirms you are a small thing in a big and fascinating world. To share that inner beauty and understanding with your kids at all ages is a gift to them, and a renewal for you to remember what is important. It’s not the paperwork that never seems to be done at work, but to really enjoy our time on this earth.

I have found out there are two parts to every vacation. The first is the amazing part of spending time with the kids and your husband when no one is stressed and everyone is having a good time. Also getting to know that the guy you married cares deeply about his family and can solve an unexpected problem that occurs without getting upset or treating the people who are doing their best to work with all of the tourists with respect. After all, he clearly learned a long time ago that he can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. He made it all better.

The second part of vacation is to see the natural beauty of our earth and to be amazed and surprised. Kids need to be amazed and surprised and we all need amazement and wonder in our lives, no matter what age. When we lose the wonder of life, we spend too much time sweating the small stuff and losing the focus of our short time on this earth. When we touch volcanoes we see the power and wonder of the earth. It renews our spirit and resets our priorities. Amazement and wonder is absolutely necessary for a happy life.

One Man’s Trash

June 18, 2015June 19, 2015Leave a comment

When I was three years old, my parents bought their own farm by Buckman, Minnesota, after initially living on my grandpa’s farm. The farm house at the new place was in rough shape and so they made a decision to tear it down and build a small new house for their growing family. The farm had great land, but the buildings and farm yard had been somewhat neglected over the years. They cleaned it up over the next few years, and over 30 years made it one of the nicest places in the area. They took a lot of pride in their farm.

When we first moved in the farm had what we lovingly referred to as the junk pile. It was back in a wooded area behind the barn and not visible from the house or driveway. It contained 50 years or more of discarded machinery and parts, an old car, fence posts, a sink from the turn of the century, a fish house, railroad ties, wagon wheels, hitches and harnesses for horses, old glass bottles, an old suitcase, tires, tools and the stuff went on and on. There were trails through the things, many of which where getting very overgrown by this time in the 1960’s and there was even a tree growing though the discarded car body. In hindsight it looked like the opening scenes of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the leaves and trees are growing over the statues and you have to swipe the green leaves away to reveal the treasures being hidden by years of jungle growth.

As we were growing up this should have been named the treasure area. We were fascinated by it. I spent a ton of time back there digging through the piles and piles and into the ground around it looking for treasures. I had a large ring where I collected all of the keys I found out there. I had glass bottles in multiple colors and I had treasures that I did not know what they were, but I kept them because they were cool. Hopefully I had a tetanus shot back then, because a lot of these treasures were rusty and some were sharp. I don’t ever remember getting hurt, but I do remember spending a lot of time looking at stuff, digging for stuff and collecting stuff. I still have some of that stuff.

On a back eighty acres on our farm, far from the farm yard was also an old farmstead sight. It was cow pasture for us, but in the 1800’s it had been a homestead for a local family. Many farmers in the 1800’s only had about 40 to 60 acres. As time went on and equipment got better, each farm could support more land. So more of the homes went away and land was sold to neighbors to increase the size of their fields. We knew little about this old homestead, other than we could see part of the foundation sticking out of the ground and the earth was all sunken around where the house used to be. A stray lilac bush stood a ways away almost as a silent tribute to a woman who had once lived there and tried to bring a little beauty to her prairie homestead. We had heard tales that the couple who had lived there traded and got along well with the local Native American tribe and in fact the woman would get a visit from the local Native Americans when she baked pie or bread and she would share it with them. I cannot remember where we had heard that or even if it was true, but it made for a really nice story to go along with the mysteries of the old homestead.

Growing up we found a lot of arrow heads in the fields all over our property and at our grandpa’s property. My mother still has a box of spear points she has collected form the farm land around there. We pulled old pottery pieces from the ground surrounding the foundation and we even found old tins and medicine bottles. I was reminded of all of these digs the other day when talking with my daughter who is studying Archeology. She is doing exactly what I was interested in back on the farm. I just did not know what to call it. I dug stuff up and I tried to figure out what some things were or were used for, and I tried to learn something about the people that had lived there. I day dreamed about it. I always wanted to know more about them. I missed my calling. I should have been an archeologist. She had said once people are messy and I love looking at their garbage from the past. I said me too.

I have always liked to read about past cultures and see their things. So it occurred to me, was it a genetic predisposition for my daughter to get her interest in digging into the past by looking at another man’s garbage, or in raising her did I make that sound interesting, or is it something that we humans all find interesting. I think we all want to know someone else’s story, especially a story from an era gone by. I would have loved to have met the young woman who planted the lilac on the prairie and gave bread and pie to the Native Americans. We make connections in this world on a daily basis with those around us, but when we dig into the earth and look to the people of the past, I feel we gain better insight into our own existence and it reminds us again to appreciate our time here on this earth. It reminds us that man has been living and loving on this earth long before us, and will hopefully continue long after us. What is important is for us to live each day to our fullest, to follow our dreams and passions and in the process to build good will, be kind and leave behind something to inspire others.

Intergenerational Travel

May 31, 20151 Comment

The title sounds like something out of Star Trek, but the actual trip proved to be more fun than space exploration. A few years back, when the kids were in High School, we decided to take a trip to Colorado with my parents, our teens, and an extra neighbor boy, Chris who had spent a lot of time at our house, and was very close to all of us. We planned the trip with Mom and Dad driving their big RV, and we would follow in our Yukon with all of our camping gear. The kids rode mainly in the RV with Mom and Dad and I rode with them a lot too. Poor Joe had to drive by himself a lot.

We stopped along the way to eat. It was great having the RV and its refrigerator with all of those constantly hungry teens along. We had reservations at Rocky Mountain National Park with the tent in a site close to the RV site. My dad was always the grill master and did a lot of the cooking for the crowd on his little grill. It took us a day to get there and our weather could not have been better. We settled in and as we looked around I could see this amazement on the kids faces. We had done a lot of travel with our kids, but Chris had not been so lucky, and none of them had been to the Rockies before. It was worth the entire trip just to see Chris’ face as he saw these beautiful mountains rising above the large cool pines. The campsite was right in the middle of all of this beauty. The sites, cool moist air, and beautiful smells were almost overwhelming at first.

The mountains are so large, it almost made you dizzy to look up, and of course at that altitude the air was thin. It is, in my estimation, one of the most beautiful places on earth. I am old enough that I remember John Denver’s best song, Rocky Mountain High. I could not help but think of the lyrics: “He was born in the summer of his 27^th year coming home from a place he had never been before…” The Rocky Mountains are majestic enough that it does give you a natural high and there is a certain comfort level when you are enveloped by them. There is no way to be stressed from the office when you hike the trails and witness the majesty of this most beautiful park.
We did activities for everyone. My parents were really flexible with that and actually it was nice having them along to give rides and pick us up. We planned a twelve mile hike up into the mountains to see a lake in the park. Dad drove us with his RV to the site to drop us off at the trail head. He got in a little trouble with the ranger for driving his RV on a narrow road, but he had so many years experience as a truck driver that he accomplished the task with no problems at all so the Ranger just smiled and let him go.

I loved having teenagers. On that same hike, we started off on the trail and I happen to look at my daughter Jenny’s feet and here she was going on a twelve mile hike with her purse on her arm and in flip flops. Well the RV had already left so nothing to do about that now. I told her she should have worn her hiking boots, but she insisted it would be fine and of course it was. It is nice to have young and tolerant feet! I had to smile sometimes, because I saw others on the trail look at her sandals and kind of cringe, but she did not even have one blister or anything.

We hiked up the six miles to the lake and it was worth every step to get there. It was a beautiful blue crystal lake surrounded by those majestic snow kissed mountains. I took a picture of Ben, Chris, and Jenny resting and eating our sandwiches by that lake. I actually have it blown up in my office, it is so gorgeous. Chris kept feeding his Oreos to a squirrel. It was so cute. We ate our lunch and took stock of our water supply. It was a little low, but to our surprise that big purse Jenny was carrying on her back also had a large bottle of Gatorade in it. That purse and little girl in her flip flops made everyone’s day. Gatorade was just what we needed for that hike back down the mountain where Dad and Mom were waiting with their RV. We also went White Water rafting down the Royal Gorge, and Mom and Dad stood on the Royal Gorge 050102 1310__1086 Bridge, watched for us and took pictures when we went by. We did a lot of fun things together on that vacation

I have to admit I was a little hesitant at the beginning of the trip as to how it would all work with three generations traveling together, but I have to say it was one of the best and most memorable vacations we ever had. I hope my parents can say the same thing. At that time Mom and Dad had been empty nesters for quite some time and were not used to the noise and commotion of a family of teens, and of course these children took after me and were loud and could have fun no matter where they were. But Mom and Dad were always upbeat and never seemed bothered by the commotion. They seemed to enjoy seeing the mountains through the eyes of this curious group of teens, who had never been to the Rocky Mountains before. They took in stride the shoes that they had to trip over going in and out of the RV and the constant feeding and care that it took to keep this group happy.

I was a little worried that the kids, with all of their electronics and such, may not like the rustic camping and all of the hiking and being in close quarters with us and the grandparents, but they also were never crabby or a problem of any kind. Once in a while during the trip one would retreat to a bedroom and play a game on their phone or something by themselves, but soon they would be back again in the thick of things. They never once fought or got into any trouble. They were easy to be around. It was fun seeing how everyone interacted. They would help with cooking and small chores around the RV.

Everyone got along the entire trip and some became very close. I think my kids became closer to their grandparents and I know Chris became closer to them and to us too. Our kids became closer and they still talk about this trip as one of the best. It was a one hundred percent success story and now that our kids are gone from home and my parents are not as flexible to travel that far anymore, I am sure thankful that we did that trip with them. It has provided fond memories for our kids as well as us, and for my parents. Life is short and the time you have with your kids at home and your parents is short. Take those opportunities to try something out of your comfort zone. For us intergenerational travel meant witnessing the beauty of our county together and seeing it through the eyes of the young and the older. For us it strengthened our family bonds and created a common memory and stories that we all share.

My Wild and Crazy Dad

May 17, 2015May 21, 2015Leave a comment

My dad was a fun guy when we were growing up. There was nothing he would not try at least once and he never met anyone that he did not like and everyone liked him. He was a positive guy with a positive attitude. He is still fun and still positive, even though he is in his Eighties.

He grew up in Montana originally, and then his family moved to Buckman, Minnesota. Dad was very talented musically. He could play guitar and when he sang he sounded like Johnny Cash. He actually played in a local band with a woman who played accordion and concertina and sang and they had a drummer. He quit the band when we were young and I think the staying up late on weekends in the local bars playing music became a problem for a guy taking care of a young family. However music was always part of our family activities. We even had guitars along when we were camping. Yes, we actually did sing Kumbaya around the campfire with our cousins. Everybody had a lot of kids, so camping was a few adults and then a boat load of kids that were all different ages. Everybody got included in everything no matter what age. Those were fun times!

He and Mom raised us on a beef cattle farm by Pierz, Minnesota, in which they took great pride. My dad’s main job was driving truck for a road construction company and he drove everything from the large belly dump trucks to hauling heavy equipment. Many times he had to be gone during the week, living in our Winnebago travel trailer and coming home on weekends. So my Mom, a strong woman of German heritage, and we kids took care of the farm and cattle during the week. Beef cattle were fairly self sufficient in the summer. Towards the end of the week we would have made plans for our family adventures. We went camping, swimming and boating. Dad got a large truck tire inner tube at one point and blew it up and we took turns trying to stand on it while swimming in the local lakes. He was with us the whole time trying to stand on it too. We all took a lot of dunks in the lake before we mastered that.

When we were teens, my Dad bought a boat and a pair of water skis and we all learned it. Dad was first to try since it was his idea. He mastered it in no time and was skiing on one ski. We had a lot of fun with that boat in the 1970’s. He was always encouraging us to try new things and he always exuded complete confidence in our abilities. My mom was the same way and taught us to drive tractors and ride horses. She went along with all of our shenanigans.

We were the first in the neighborhood to buy snowmobiles, also in the 1970’s, and we used an old cover of a washer to pull behind the snowmobiles with a long rope like a snow saucer. I am surprised we survived that swinging around in crazy fashion through our snow covered farm fields. When our neighbors and cousins got snowmobiles we would have large get togethers in the woods and start a campfire, roast hot dogs and drive snowmobiles at night.

For big family adventures we planned vacations around farm work and Dad’s road work. I remember we went to Colorado in a long weekend by driving all night long. When we reached Greely, Colorado, there were lots of young people driving and walking along the roads for a concert in town. We experienced the beauty of Colorado and had great family time together.

There were very few things that my dad did not try and very few that he did not master. He and Mom were excellent dancers, and he taught me to polka with him too. My grandpa, his dad, spent a lot of time at our farm too. Grandpa and Dad built us a teeter-totter that not only went up and down, but also around. It was dangerous looking back at it, but it was really fun and no one got seriously hurt. They also built us a harness for our German Shepard dog. We hooked him up to the red wagon, with one of us sitting in the wagon and the others driving bikes in front of the wagon, and that dog would run like his tail was on fire down our long driveway giving the kid in the wagon the ride of their life. The dog loved it. When we brought out the harness he got all excited.

My dad is still an adventurous guy. Even though he is in his eighties, he likes to travel with their RV and go fishing and camping. He and Mom still attend fun community and church activities, go out to dinner, and play cards with friends. He is still as fun as ever and still finds friends no matter where he goes. He has taught us to be accepting of everyone, to explore the world, show kindness, be adventurous and not be fearful to try new things. Life is a gift.

Not Real Adults

May 3, 2015January 21, 20161 Comment

Our family adventures gave our kids the self reliance to go on their own adventures as they became adults. When our youngest, Jenny, graduated from High School she was 18 years old and my son, Ben was already in college and was 20. The two of them and one of Ben’s friends, who had been at our house on and off for years, came to us with a plan for an adventure of their own. They wanted to take a two week driving trip to Glacier National Park, Idaho, and back through Montana and Colorado. They borrowed our Tahoe and took the GPS and mapped their route, through the national Parks and federal campgrounds and all of the sites they wanted to see. Ben was studying geology and he knew specific areas he wanted to cover. They took the cooler and did mostly camping, but occasionally stayed at a hotel for showers and better beds. They made plans for the amount of money they needed and packed everything up and off they went. They stayed in contact, so we knew they were doing well and they posted pictures frequently on Face book and Instagram, of the gorgeous campsites, mountains and streams they were seeing. They actually planned ahead and took organic shampoo and they cooked over the campfire. As parents it was a little scary, but we knew they had the skills to handle the adventure and we were proud that they had the self confidence and drive to plan and go on this adventure. Everything went well and they returned with great stories and we could tell that they had bonded and seemed even closer than before they had shared this special adventure. After they had returned, I happened to be at a neighbor’s garage sale. She had a son Jenny’s age. He was at the sale hanging out with some other friends. He asked how Jenny was doing and I said that she had just gotten back from their adventurous driving vacation out west with her brother and his friend. He was really animated and excited and said that he had seen Jenny and Ben’s pictures on Instagram and mentioned one particular one with their orange tent in the foreground and the mountains in the back. I told him they had come back with some great stories about how they had gotten lost at one time, but Jenny then found their way out of that situation by navigating, and how they had met one guy in the campground who had taught them to bake bread in a Dutch oven over a campfire. The young guy’s mother was overhearing our conversation and asked me with a look of disbelief. She said, “They went by themselves?” I told her “yes,” and repeated the details, “my son who is 20, his friend who is also 20 and Jenny who was 18.” She repeated in disbelief again, “but by themselves? I said “yes.” “With no adults?” she said. I said “No, they are all adults. Jenny is 18 and the other two are 20.” She looked at me and said insistently and in a firm tone with her forehead furrowed, “No I mean real adults.” I responded, a little confused and in a slow way, “They are real adults. “ She walked away shaking her head. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t tell this story tocriticize her as a Mom. God knows raising kids is not an easy job, we all make mistakes and there is no perfect way. But what struck me is that we try so hard to protect our children sometimes that we lose track of the reality of their age. In fact her son was also 18 and even though she felt he was not a “real” enough adult to be trusted to go on a road trip to some National Parks in the western United States, in fact he was adult enough to walk to a local recruiting office, join the military and be surviving in the deserts of the middle east and, all of that could be done without her permission. The one thing I have learned in hindsight is that our kids at every age would always live up to our expectations. When we showed confidence in their abilities, they had confidence in their own abilities and could be successful. We taught them early on that mistakes were OK and trying new things was essential, for a fun and full life.

Put Your Adventure Pants On

April 30, 2015March 18, 2015Leave a comment

A perfectly clean house has never been a priority for me, so I was not surprised when I went to move my bedroom dresser to retrieve a dropped necklace and found it face up, in a snow pile of dust bunnies. Some bunnies were so large that one could imagine spending time in a craft project, gluing eyes on them to look like real bunnies. Creepy for sure, but they were that large.

This would be embarrassing for many who pride themselves on their house cleaning skills and while I would never want a dirty house, a little dust here and there has not bothered me, especially when our kids were home. I would rather go walk in the woods with them and pick up fall leaves for an art project or play with the hose or in the sand box than clean house. That was true when they were older too. I would spend time with them outdoors or we would take them biking or playing sports. Even now that we are empty nesters, I would rather go on the boat or hiking or biking than clean house. I have no remorse about those choices.

While cleaning the mound of dust bunnies uncovered by my jewelry mishap, I found all kinds of other interesting things lost in the abyss of the dresser caverns. Other jewelry pieces that were never missed enough to do a full scale search and a stray button, but to my surprise, among the lost items was a photo of me standing on a Glacier in Canada.

It was taken in 1995 when I was in my mid-thirties and I am holding my baby, Jenny who was less than a year old in the picture, but is now a college student and beside me stands my Ben, who was two years old and now is also a college student and my oldest, Sara who is five in the picture and is now out of college and in the working world, making a life of her own. It was striking and it transported me back in time. I have a smile from ear to ear and we all look happy, having just exited the large glacier snow bus onto the Athabasca Glacier in the Columbia Ice fields, during a two week driving vacation we had taken to Canada in our Ford Aerostar van.

I know the word fearless is getting a little too much use these days, but it is a good word and it described what I saw in the picture. The photo was a proud reminder of our fearlessness to adventure out even with three little kids. And I have to say, I have nothing but good memories of those trips. We must have had fussy kids sometimes, but that is not what I remember and when our grown kids talk about their vacations they do not remember anything negative about them either.

I remember the trip went well. We planned ahead on these adventures, but our plan was never so rigid that we could not fly by the seat of our pants sometimes, and we could adapt to unforeseen changes in weather or unplanned events. On this particular adventure we did a large loop through Canada and saw everything from the dolphin show at the Edmonton Mall to the glaciers and mountains in the Canadian Rockies. We had three little kids, but no worries. We made our way, day after day experiencing new sights and foods and we laughed and we had fun. We would go with the flow and eat when we were hungry and sleep when tired. We played in Hotel pools and ordered Pizza.

The saying in our family since the kids were very young is “Put your adventure pants on and let’s go!” We have been on many adventures with our family and now as empty nesters, my husband and I have sought many new adventures. Our kids are not afraid to go on their own adventures through college or with friends and I like that fearlessness in them when it comes to travel.

I look into the face of that young woman, 35ish version of me and those little kids, smiling and knowing Dad is behind the camera smiling too and I see happiness and see a family who was never afraid to put their adventure pants on. I look back and I wonder how we had the guts and the brains to make those choices. I cannot explain it because I think we are very average in many ways, but I am sure glad we did it. Life is short and I know it is said too often, but those child-rearing years flew by and those kids are now gone. I am glad I spent little time worrying about dust bunnies and cleaning, and took the time to enjoy those kids and show them the world with our adventure pants on.

Fun Living

Stories by Joan Quade

Category: Raising Kids