Flathead Summer 2010

While Andy went to Peru, the kids and I took the train out to Montana with our dear friends Betsy, Karl and Olivia. Unfortunately my camera ran out of batteries on the first day and I forgot the charger. So although I took pics with Betsy's camera and my phone, I will do my best to record the trip in words so it can be remembered in the future.



Betsy and the kids spent 3 days on the train (wow!) while our trip was a merely 26 hours. It was fun. We found train people to be laid back and very understanding. The space was good and it was fun to be with friends and be able to move around a bit. The kids even got to sleep flat on the floor and slept OK I think, all things considered. At least better than the adults! An added bonus was the "rails to trails" program which brought on a Native American musician and story teller going through North Dakota and a Park Ranger in Montana with all sort of cool stuff and info about the land we were travelling through. I was particularly surprised with the size of a grizzly bear pawprint that she had, like 18 inches across! Really amazing!



Of course I packed a plethora of healthy snacks but the kids only wanted sugary stuff. Oh well, the poor things were tortured with dried fruit, nuts, cheese and pita briead after the good gorp, peanut butter balls, and Betsy pringles were gone. They were in good spirits for most of the trip, just got a bit testy toward the end but were happy to watch movies in their movie theater fort. I had packed the bota of wine for Betsy and I which worked perfect (although I think I drank most of it) since we never would have been left alone to have a complete glass together. One or the other of us was needed by some kid or another pretty constantly so I tried to savor the moments that we were granted.



Jake and Donna's place on flathead lake was beautiful in so many ways. Just the layout of the house was smart and not excessive. The view from the loft, where the guest bedrooms were, made you feel like you were on the bow of a cruise ship. The house is so close to the shore that you can't see the land outside the door from that height so you almost feel like you should be rocking with the waves. Flathead lake is cold and clear and has the most colorful beautiful rock bottom I have ever seen. I wonder how many of varieties of rock are there, I came back with a collection! They have created a very warm place and welcomed us into their ever changing family. The gardens were amazing. Donna has a beautiful flower garden outside her kitchen window (no better place!) full of interesting and dazzling plants. They are growing tons of vegetables as well to feed the family who come there for pilgrimage every summer. I was there to share in the large amounts of spinach, kale, potatoes, and cabbage that were ready to be eaten. Unfortunately I left before the raspberries and cherries came in, but I took some spinach seed and will put it in my garden as a remembrance of theirs.



The rhythm of the days at Flathead lake was restful. Our kids were always the first ones up although they did eventually adjust to the later nights. They started out waking at 6 am but it was down to 7:30 by the time we left. I tried to keep them quiet with varied success but Donna and Jake were usually up early as well. I want to remember the sight of Jake out weeding the garden in his bathrobe at 6am. When not weeding or exercising the morning activity for "Grandpa Jake" was the puzzles in the paper. Somehow he managed to draw everyone in to the solving of it. Some of the puzzles stayed out all day (Betsy solved that one after lunch) and some were "too easy" and took less than 5 minutes. Regardless, it was a fun conversation topic over coffee in the morning sunshine. In the second week I would steal away to the lakeside for a bit of yoga "sun salutations" which I found to be the best way to start the day and it gave me the patience to deal with the kids. Donna also likes to exercise in the morning and I respect how she manages to carve out a little time for herself. She keeps the house to the highest standards and is always putting something away or cleaning. She creates the most amazing meals for an always flexible number of guests and seems to enjoy the quirks of personality that everyone brings to her table.



The kids played the morning away while we chatted, knitted, read (I read most of "The Spectrum" while there) or did chores. After lunch all kids had some quiet alone time -they usually needed it- and Isaac and I got in a nap, heaven! After naps we took turns helping Donna with dinner and supervised kids in the lake throwing rocks, playing in the sandbox, swinging and creating drama. After dinner was usually spent cleaning up, enjoying a campfire or more free play. One evening the kids put on a "show" for us. Although that was fun it was not repeated due to conflict in the production and directing staff.



Sofi and Olivia and Karl and Isaac played pretty well for the most part but there were often issues. Someone wouldn't let someone else play or took someone elses toy....but actually that only happened a few times a day which wasn't really bad considering they were together constantly. The girls developed elaborate stories and dramas with the polly pockets and princesses and holed up in forts, gifting each other various toys to express their love. Isaac followed Karl around and worshiped him. Karl read to Isaac and included him in all sorts of games, mostly involving superheroes. Although I did pack 3 days worth of clothes for everyone, with the intention of washing, I couldn't get Isaac to wear anything other than his batman shirt (no surprise really). When I did manage to convince him that it needed to be washed, he did agree to wearing the superman shirt, with cape, that he got from Karl. When the big cousins came and Isaac had to share Karl's attention, often losing him temporarily to golfing and water sports, Isaac had a bit harder time breaking into the girl's games and fort. But he proved to be flexible and hold no grudges, welcoming any attention he could get.



The first weekend we were there we travelled to Butte for the National Folk Festival. The drive was a bit long (3+ hours in a full van) and was an additional challenge because Karl was carsick. Looking back we must have looked like a cartoon with Karl in the front seat throwing up halfheartedly and continously in a sloppy big plastic bag, Donna driving frantically, me trying to help from the seat behind, Isaac asleep, the girls glued to a DVD player and Betsy trapped in the middle of the back seat trying to stir up excitement for the festival by reading bios of the groups. I finally just had to ask her to "please stop", even though I know she was trying to help - sensory overload I guess. This experience inspired me to be perhaps hypersensitive to whether or not Karl had dramamine and a good bucket before long trips in the car.



It was a treat to stay in Betsy's uncle's 19th century hunting lodge tucked back in the hills. It was heavy and gorgeous, decorated with antiques and set in beautiful landscaping with horses right outside. Isaac was very excited to feed one and Sofi enjoyed climbing on the rocks surrounding the house with Grandpa Jake. There we were treated to sourdough pancakes made from 100 year old starter that has been kept alive by Pete, Donna's brother, who is a good oldfashioned Montana outdoorsman.



The folk festival was a bit challenging to navigate with 4 children. The first day we went from scorching hot sun to the wind whipping up the sand and storm showers. The kids enjoyed a melodrama about mining on Montana in the early 1900's and Betsy and I got to dance to a couple zydeco tunes (the great Gene Delafoze! So Tight!) while the kids sat down on the dance floor in protest. There were so many people there that it was difficult to find cover from the wind and rain and so we ended up leaving earlier (rushing through the rain and then resting in borrowed shelters) than we had wanted and going out for pizza. The next day at the festival was more enjoyable with less people there and better weather. We ended up splitting up and that went better as well, I think there was less to negotiate and it was good to spend some time alone with Sofi and Isaac. We saw and heard some great Native American song, drumming and dance and enjoyed mining for gold, decorating hard hats and browsing the arts and crafts. The kids got great body art (Sofi an angel mask and Isaac a spiderman arm) and I bought a beautiful silk scarf.

Betsy and I stole a morning to visit "Mission Mountain Winery" just down the road from Jacobsons house. We walked there and did some wine tasting, had a fried food lunch at the local watering hole and went back to buy a case of wine. We both enjoyed their "Cocoa Vin" dessert wine and their Reisling. The time with her was wonderful, chatting about the past year and the coming one. The kids, the family, and all that goes along with that.

The kids and I also enjoyed a little outing to play miniature golf, see some buffalo up close and then the kids got to eat some too (in the form of buffalo burger)! I know, leave it to the vegetarian mom to point out the connection, but it didn't faze my carnivore kids!

I often miss Betsy, but especially during Wednesday night zumba classes and on Saturday mornings during rummage sale season. We got to attend a great sale at a little town on Flathead Lake, Lakeside, which was fun. They have this huge festival with a rummage sale (no clothes -I mean no clothes for sale, not that everyone was nude :-) , silent auction, and crafters. We all had a great time and everyone got some treasures. I got a great necklace for $2 that I am particularly fond of...

The airplane ride home went remarkably well. Doug drove us through some beautiful country early in the morning (3 hr trip to Spokan WA) and delivered us safely to the airport in good time. We checked in and breezed through security. The kids were very well behaved the whole day, and it helped that Betsy made sure I was well stocked with an assortment of bribery candy :-). They loved the airplane take offs. People around us laughed as they expressed their excitement in roller coaster type vocalizations. We had no trouble with ear pressure on the first flight to Denver and the kids enjoyed a movie. In Denver we got some pizza and ran off some energy in the airport before getting on the next flight. I gave them some new coloring books (Toy Story for Isaac and Princess and the Frog for Sofia) which amazingly occupied them through the whole second flight, which was a treat. The last landing was a little rough because Sofia and I both had lots of ear pressure pain, but Isaac was fine. We were happy to see Andy and Grandma Diane at the airport, and got some subway to eat at a park before the drive home. It was a long day but we were happy to be reunited with Dad. We all missed him, especially when he was back in LaCrosse and we were not.

I am so grateful for the opportunity to spend some full on time with the kids and do some travelling to a remarkable place. I am grateful for the hospitality which was such a gift and our friendships with all in the Jacobson-Holtz clan. I am grateful for all the ways in which they enrich our lives. And I can say that in this case absence does makes the heart grow fonder.

Local Celebrity

I returned home from a TV interview for the madrigal dinner and the kids greeted me at the door. Sofi said she waved at me on TV and wondered if I saw her and Isaac laughed and said I looked funny!

Barack the Vote!

Mary and I went to the Obama rally in La Crosse this morning. We arrived around 8:15 (the gate opened at 8am), and discovered that the line to get into the event went was 4+ blocks long, winding it's way from Main and 2nd down to Riverside Park, where it then folded back in the opposite direction because Riverside Park wasn't long enough.

When we finally got to the security check point, we discovered that we couldn't bring in our thermal mugs (which lots of people brought because it was so cold so early in the morning---you should have seen the number of metal mugs thrown into the garbage can at the check point). Which meant Mary was about to go back to the car and chance missing the rally, something neither of us were too happy about. Thankfully a volunteer quietly suggested trying some check points further down... that oddly didn't have any thermal mugs in their garbage. That tip paid off, but due to all of this we went through different check points and got split up for the rest of the rally.

Neither of us got very close, and spent most of our time looking at the back of a heads. But we were both glad to be there, and we enjoyed talking with people we bumped into afterwards.

Mary and I both were moved by one particular statement: when Obama asked the young adults in the audience to serve in the armed forces, to serve in the Peace Corp, to serve in Americorp... in short to serve their country. And in turn he promised that the United States would make it possible for each them to afford a college education. For use that hit home two things we were glad to here Obama reinforce: that college tuition is getting out of hand for the average American, and that we could use some help with that, but at the same time we need to be thinking beyond just ourselves, that we need to be serving others.

How many people were there? The Democratic headquarters in La Crosse printed 14,000 tickets that they handed out to attendees as the waited in line, to be turned in at the security checkpoint. But they ran out. One volunteer after it was all done said she'd heard there was 16,000 in attendance. The La Crosse tribune is currently posting 15,000 in attendance on their website.

For La Crosse Tribune reports on the event, click here.

Changes

So changes are afoot here in the Ender Stutesman household.

If things go as they appear they will, I will be starting a part-time job at First Lutheran Church in Onalaska, WI in the next couple of weeks. I've known the pastor, Breck McHan, for the past couple of years, as I've worked with him on our synod's annual assembly, helping out with the AV and technology needs. One of their secretaries recently resigned, and he was hoping to split the position with two part-time people, one as a secretary and one doing graphics and AV for the church (I'll let you guess which position I'm applying for). As Breck says, the timing is God inspired, because just a week before I found out about the position Mary and I decided I needed to start looking for a part-time job, just to get me out of the house and start moving toward my career goals. Breck appears to be pretty excited about the idea of having me on staff, and I'm excited to be working for God's church and to be a church's very own in-house graphics department!

For the Love of Chocolate

Mary loves chocolate.

More to the point, she loves dark chocolate. So for Christmas I gave Mary something I knew she'd love---a dark chocolate taste test. Seventeen different bars of dark chocolate of various brands.

The idea came from an article I'd read in Consumer Reports this past year. They'd done a taste test of their own on fourteen different kinds of dark chocolate, from the fancy organic kinds to the more consumer-based Hershey versions (not the well known Hershey bar, mind you, but their fancier dark chocolate versions). As I liked to think of it, it was a battle of local coop chocolate vs. nationwide drugstore chocolate (and that is where I got the various seventeen bars---throughout the year I bought any and all dark chocolates that I could find at the People's Food Coop and at Walgreen's).

Without giving the article away (because if you follow the Consumer Reports link above you'll only get the outline of the test, not the ratings---the results are for CR members only), what surprised me, and what Mary could not believe, is that Hershey's comes out on top. On the bottom was Newman's Own Organics.

Hence the idea for the taste test. It was more for me really---I just had to know, given no knowledge of the chocolate's origin, what Mary would really prefer.

So that is how we broke in the New Year. With four other family friends, who helped us break them into taste testing sized bits and label and number them to hide their identities. We decided beforehand though that seventeen was a bit to much to take at once, even in test tasting sized bits, so we just kept the sample size to a random six.

The results of the our sample of six? The top three (in no particular order, because everyone had their own personal top, but pretty much everyone agreed these were the top three) were...

• Equal Exchange Organic Very Dark Chocolate, 71% cocoa
  
• Hershey's Extra Dark, 60% cocoa (or as the label reads: "cacao")
  
• Endangered Species Intense Dark Chocolate with Cocoa Nibs, 75% cocoa
  

The least favorite?

• Dagoba Organic Extra Dark Chocolate, 87% cocoa
  (to be fair to this brand, this was one of Mary's top three, as she put it "It's the kind of bar was I can just have one square and feel satisfied", but was far too bitter for the rest of us)
  
• Lindt Extra Dark, 85% cocoa
  (tasted "waxy" compared to the others, and surprising because this was near the top in Consumer Reports)
• Cadbury Royal Dark
  (tasted "cheap" compared to the others... interesting, because it is made by Hershey's whose other bar rated top in both our taste test and in CR's)

We all agreed that after testing the six that we did, that it was just the right amount of dark chocolate, and that we'd be pushing it to test more. I guess no matter how much one claims to love chocolate, there is only so much one can ingest in one sitting. At least at our age any way.

I'll keep you posted as we get around to reviewing the other eleven bars....

Thanksgiving To Do List

In order to prepare for Thanksgiving tomorrow, one of the first things Mary did this morning was make a list of what she wanted to accomplish today.

Mary really should be the one writing about this, because she was nice and generous enough let me sleep in, and I wasn't there when the above list was created.

But as you can see, at some point the list was taken over by Sofi. Not only did she add the figures on the paper, but she also added lines to which Mary notated Sofi's agenda items that she wanted added to the list.

On Mary's to do list:

• Clear Hearth
• Put Up Nativity
• Put finish on floor
• Vacuum floors
• Clean Bathrooms
• Clear Ping Pong table
• Grocery shop (finish)
• Get flowers
• Pumpkin fluff
• Cut up pumpkins
• Vacuum basement & stairs
• (Mow Lawn)
• (Spread Compost)

On Sofi's to do list:

• Get a new kite
• Sofi kite & Isaac kite
• Go to the Museum
• Go to the Circus
• Eat Gingerbread man
• Pick up toys & dog
• Clean Sofi's room & vacuum
• Clean the dishwasher
• List the chores to do
• Write note to Santa
• Go to the zoo and see the Lions & Tigers & Monkeys
• Go to the Puppet Show
• Clean sofa
• Wipe TV

Mary and I accomplished everything on our list except for the last two items. Sofi actually accomplished about a third of her list...

• Eat Gingerbread man (which she worked on throughout the day)
  
• Pick up toys & dog (not sure where the dog part comes in, this may be referring to her new flash light which looks like a dog, but she did pick up her toys)
  
• Clean Sofi's room & vacuum (This may be more Mom than Sofi...)
  
• Clean the dishwasher (she put away the silverware, which has become her part of emptying the dishwasher everyday)
  
• List the chores to do (which she obviously accomplished right away simply by dictating this list to her mother)
  

Just before bedtime Sofi did point out however, in a tone of shock, that "We forgot to go to the zoo!"

In regards to her drawing, I was informed that this is a picture of her and Isaac. Isaac is on the left with a "spider kite" and she is on the right with a "kite box" with an "owl inside, with eyes looking out".

Mary's Brain

Sofi drew this yesterday morning, before Isaac and I woke up, during the one-on-one time that she has with Mom before she goes to work. She told Mary "This is what's inside your brain."

Mary can only assume that the big black spot must be the Madrigal Dinner, as it is becoming crunch time for this big event coming up on the first weekend in November.

The Dark Side

For most of my life I had this memory of my mother being angry most of the time when I was a kid. I can't recall lots of incidents, except one when she was sitting next to me on the piano bench while I practiced. I took piano lessons for eight years, and amazingly never learned how to read straight through nor how to improvise, though I tried to do both at some point. Consider how long I took lessons, and the minimal outcome created, I'm sure I didn't try too hard when I sat at the piano for my requisite 30 minutes every day. So as my mother sat on the bench next to me, seeing me watch the clock and me loathing every measure of music, I'm sure her blood boiled. All I recall is a shriek, and thinking that my mom was possessed.

This was just one incident, and I can't recall any others with this detail, but for most of my life I remembered my mom as being easy to anger. So much so that in college I would speculate with friends that I was probably the way I was—shy, checking how others feel before doing anything—because I spent my childhood trying to tow the line so mom wouldn't explode.

I say that I remember her this way for most of my life because I don't remember he like this anymore. Or, to be more accurate, I still remember it like this, but I'm starting to think my memory is just plain wrong.

I told my mother how I remember her and she simply laughed. She does recall being an angry mom, but it wasn't when I was in childhood. It was when Michelle and I were teen-agers.

Why am I doubting my memory? Because I am now a parent myself. And even though I'm not sitting next to anyone on a piano bench, I'm feeling my blood boil on occasion. Many occasions actually. I've never thought of myself as an angry person, but lately I certainly seem like one.

Which is why it was very nice to do what Mary and I did this weekend.

Mary and I are having our first today. It is our first night away from both kids. All night. Thanks to the grandparents, we have an entire weekend to ourselves.

We headed out to Myre-Big Island State Park, near Albert Lea, MN, in search of fall color. The fall color report at Explore MN said it was peaking there. This may be true, but like most everywhere else the heavy rains and winds that Minnesota and Wisconsin have experienced have stripped most of the leaves from the trees, and the peak is just not that spectacular at Myre-Big, nor is it anywhere really. This photo is about as close to leafs of color that we got (and yes, it was raining this weekend, but we have the gear for that, and it was actually quite nice... after all a weekend without the kids in the rain is better than...)

What is interesting to note is our feelings as we pulled out of the drive way. Mary was sort of teary with the thought of leaving the kids all night. As for me, I was thinking about the best route towards Myre-Bigs.

On our way there we enjoyed listening to podcasts, and one of our favorites is This American Life. The particular podcast from This America Life that we listened to happened to be titled How to Talk to Kids. As usual, most of the acts were intriguing, and a couple got us talking. One in particular was the last act. It was by Dan Savage, titled Use Your Words. In a nut shell, he talks about how sometimes adults just blow up at kids. And he concluded that, in his opinion, kids need to see and hear this at times.

As you can surmise, this struck a chord with me. It was so refreshing to hear that other parents loose it too (including Alex Baldwin, as Dan Savage points out).

"They" say that parenting will change you. And it's true. But what I never thought is that it would changed even the memories of my past. It took becoming a parent for me to realize that a fundamental memory that I had of my childhood is not accurate. Sure my mom was angry. But it wasn't her I'm starting to realize. It was me. Who wouldn't get mad when a kid doesn't listen... for the umteenth time.

It's just odd to think that I'd probably still be perpetuating this memory and how it formed my character if I hadn't gone down the road of having children of my own.

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PS: Regarding Myre-Big Island State Park, we'd recommend the non-electric site 23. Very nice, in the woods, near the lake. (The photo at the top is actually a picture of it at night... kind'a. Our tent is glowing orange on the left. The mess of light is me playing around with my LED flash light while Mary took an extremely long exposure). And the park's backpack sites are accessible by canoe, which we'd like to go back and do some day... with the kids.