Up here in the north

we had a beautiful down pour of snow on Friday.

Thanksgiving was full of things to be thankful for. The food was plentiful, the company delightful.

After the snow on Friday, before the wind came on Saturday and blew it all away, I took a stroll up the road to grab some pictures. The sun doesn't rise here in the east ... at least in the winter or summer. This was sunrise at 10:43 a.m. on Saturday.

We are looking forward to Christmas. Did some online Black Friday shopping and then did hit a store or two on Friday for a few little things. I've decided that I'm doing online Christmas greetings this year. At least for now that is the decision. I will have some guilt feelings very shortly about not doing Christmas cards ... and then we'll see if I cave in or not.

Hoping all is well with all of you!

........

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO EVERYONE!!!!

LOVE, THE AZ KUOPPALAS

Iron Range News

We left at 7:30 with Ruth on our ride.  Went first to the former Arrowhead Health Care
Center in Virginia, now under a new name.  We were on our way to see Lauri Kaurala.
First one we saw were Chris, Gabe and Josh.  Haven't seen Josh for a long time, he has
stretched.  Then came Josie, her husband Tom Ward and daughter Naomi.  We are
going toward Lauri's room which is way, way down a long hall.  (Place has been
enlarged since I worked there as relief.  Also saw our former neighbor, Bonnie Bohne,
on her 30th year as a nurse there.  Jon Sarkela was wheeling his mom, Elsie, back to the
Eveleth Arrowhead where she lives).  Saw Joan.  Saw Rachel and her youngest, Eric ?.
Lauri has a rare form of stomach cancer and has had a stroke.  He is on H2O.  I went up to him first, spoke very loudly in Finnish.  He opened one eye, told him to open the
other one.  Isä came up and also spoke in Finnish.  He tried to say something but could
not make it out.  If he doesn't start taking in more water and food he won't last long.

Then we went to Tristan's 4th birthday party.  Kathy, Brian, Heather and Heidi, Elizabeth, and Gary were there.  Also Cody.  Found out he is Jim Novak's son.  Told him to say hello to his parents from Reino and Diane.  Doubt he will remember.  Of course Laurie, Ruth and the two of us were there.  Sang "Happy Birthday", he blew out
his candles and opened gifts.  He seemed a very happy and excited 4 yr. old.

We wanted to get home before too late as knew there was going to be fog and there was fog.  Called TX to bring them up to date.    Hope you all had a good day.

another picture...

i'm sure you've all seen enough pictures from this end for awhile but i thought this picture was so cute that i had to share it! :) so here is a picture from when abigail got to meet her baby brother, she was very excited about him and every time she sees him says "baby, baby!" -debbie

more Michael

i figured i would add pictures of the proud mom and dad too..they were so nice to send so many pictures to us of little michael so quickly. it's been really fun to get to see these pictures even if its so far away. -debbie

MIchael William 2

since that one appeared i will add this one of little chunk-o's with his eyes open :) -debbie

Michael William

i'm going to try post a picture on here but since i'm at school i'm not sure how well it will work, and its a camera phone picture so the quality isnt great. -debbie

Palmer is a bit chilly this week

-18 this morning and my youngest cherub went out the door with a wet head and a sweatshirt on.

I remember watching a young girl in Phx when Blayde was young. She wore a sweatshirt in the summer going to and from school and I use to wonder what she was hiding. Was certain she must be hiding bruises under those long sleeves. Why else would she be wearing a sweathshirt when it was 100+ degrees outdoors? Then I had kids. The goofy things would walk home from school at the end of the school year .... in 100+ temperatures ... wearing a long sleeved sweatshirt.

Then we move up here. The temperature keeps dipping. -18 is a bit of a dive, not a dip, but still the same child goes out the door in a sweatshirt.

Mine is worse than the child I watched in Phoenix. She has a head of icicles this morning ... too bad her sweatshirt doesn't have some kind of winter theme on it.

Then again, come to think of it, maybe this isn't much worse than the Finns. Who else would jump from a steaming hot sauna into a snowbank? That is suppose to be good for you, right? Maybe the wet head accomplishes the same.

Isn't suppose to last long. We're forecasted to have snow at the weekend. We learned one thing very quickly. It will not snow at -18 and it will not snow when the wind blows. I feel warmer air winging it's way from somewhere!

Michael William

Announcing......   MICHAEL WILLIAM !!!  Born today, 11/16/09 at 09:52 to Eric and Rosie. He weighed 9lb15oz and is 22 inches long! Good thing he came on his due date and not a couple weeks later. Mom and baby are both doing well - Dad is too :). Abigail won't get to see her little brother until he comes home due to the restricted visitor policy to minimize h1n1 spread.

Stay tuned for pictures.

Had to try

Had to try this thing I was talking about under Anita's post. This is a picture that I took when I was waiting to get a picture of the cheetah's. So I will add a picture of the cat also.

This is sad.

I think it has been a long time since I have been on here. Jenny told me that I need to read it and I see that there are a couple of new entries on here since I have been last. I could not even remember the user name and password. That is SAD.  So today I was talking to mother and we were talking about face book verses the blog. As far as family stuff goes she is right it is nice to have stuff here. Like this picture of my elk mount hanging in my family room. I had put this picture on facebook but why not here. This is the elk I shot last year. I paid for half the mount last year so I kinda had to pay the rest even if right now was not the time for us to be paying for this kind of thing. Well I better get back to work, but..... I will be back

Good day

Frans

Life with the Lindula's

It is Deer Hunting! One of my favorite times of the year. One night Shawn tells me that he will stay with Heidi in the AM and I could go out hunting. I head out and before I can get in the stand, I shot a doe. It was small but GOOD EATING! Another day I headed out again and got a 4 point within 15 minutes of being in the woods. We've been sharing hunting time as the other parent gets to stay home with Miss Heidi.

Miss Heidi has learned how to crawl. I think she has been crawling for a while at day care, but just started at home. The other day, I come in the house and she is sitting on the floor by her Daddy. She didn't want him and comes crawling over to me with tears streaming down her face. It was so cute and yet so sad... She likes her Daddy in the AM as he feeds her and brings her to daycare, but she is a Mommy's girl in the evenings.

Miss Heidi likes her Uncle Randy. He really enjoys his little "Peanut". He calls us up and says, "you going to be home, I baked Heidi a cherry pie" or "I baked her some bannana bread, can I run it over?"....

Shawn has been busy working and we are so thankful. Not many months ago, we thought he may have to leave and go work elsewhere and then the phone started ringing and he's been BUSY!

I'm starting my new job on the 30th. I'll be working as an advocate/paralegal with Legal Aid. The position involves housing and public assistance for the most part. I will try to mediate between renters and rentees to avoid eviction and mediate to ensure that individuals get the public assistance that they need/are eligible for. If it can't be resolved with me, it goes to trial with the attorney I will be working under.

This weekend should be fun. Dan, Mauri, Jay, Sarah, Jim, and Maggie are coming up. We are having a joint babyshower for Jay and Sarah Saturday night. Will be fun to see many of the Lindula's.

Take Care and enjoy your weekend!
H.

Alaska

Our world on Saturday looked like this. Driving down Palmer Wasilla Highway toward Palmer, the mountains ahead were gorgeous. Could have sat out there all day long and watched the clouds making them completely different every could of minutes.

Jumped in the car and took a 20 minute spin outdoors with the camera. Glad I did. Woke up Sunday to the world covered in white ... not just the mountains. Brock survived a nerve wracking "playing family taxi" day on Monday. His first experience with the driving in the white stuff. Hoping the weather gives me a chance this weekend to grab some photos ... and I'll share.

In other stuff over here:

• Blayde is still studying ... Accounting and CAD this 5 week block of classes
• Alyx is being the High School Senior and working at the assisted living facility
• Brock is working at getting a job and it looks like he will hit the Honor Roll this semester
• Anna has school, nose in the book and friends keeping her busy
• Tia is Tia
• The cabin now houses Blayde and Fred Kako ... he moved up here nearly a month ago
• Samuli, a Finn foreign exchange student, is living here with us going to the Colony with the kids and will be here until May. It has been a learning experience for all of us!
• I'm still working 40 hours  a week ... hopefully passing out more pain pills than puke buckets while I'm there during the day.
• Jari has been working at whatever he can get his hands on. Doing small remodeling jobs and whatnot. He has also been working on the storage room in the basement. It is nearly done. Now someday when I have a small bit of extra energy .... I need to go organize down there. Will be nice!
• We cook, clean, laugh, study, run our tails off being busy at who knows what, and are generally keeping busy at making it though daily life!

** Is this the new blogger format? If so ... I like it! Will go change my other one right now!

Brainerd again

There are several cacti in this pot.  Perhaps it's the Thanksgiving cactus that is now
blooming.  The inquisitive kid that was in the flower bed on the hillside is now peeking
from behind the cactus.  The Alaska flower pic from Anita is in the flower pot.

Brainerd

The African Violets are blooming.  Got new starts from a grocery store in Park Rapids.
The original ones were from Dorothy Armstrong's mother in 1964!  The Christmas cactus might show below and then again it may not.  We are inexperienced and with
dial-up anything can happen.

Me and T

Tristan enjoying grilled cheese he made while wearing

his apron from Auntie Jen.

Our first trip together to Vertical Endeavors climbing gym in Duluth.

You can't see them, but the leg straps were dragging on the ground

behind him.  It was quite comical.

Thomas the Train costume while he's holding good 'ole Thomas.

Got a nice pumpkin full of Candy at the Cherry Firehalls activities

then went to Grandma Kathy's neighborhood in which he was pulling

Grandma driving my Jeep behind him. 

We had to unhook the "train" at every house we went trick-or-treating at.

Hope all is well with everyone, we hope to have some fun pics of Tristan since he got his first pass at Giant's Ridge this year....Rental pass, he skis for free! And now that I fixed the posting problem, I will hopefully post lots more soon.  : )  LK&T

....

wow, nothing like a good ol' chewin out to light the fire under all our pants! not much new around here....the girls had today off school, and I was hoping to go to the veterans day parade, but lindsey was sick, so we couldn't go! We ended up having a chill day around here, and I was able to get some organizing done:)
Frans brought the girls to the zoo last saturday to see the komodo dragon...pretty neat! Members got to see it before they allowed the public to see it....and Toni made it in the paper!
I am ready for it to start cooling off here....I wore a sweatshirt and jeans today, and I was too hot!! It probably got to about 95! Still running our A/C! What's the weather like in MN and AK?

OK, now that that worked I will
try to post more tomorrow now that
I have figured this out! Have a great night! : )


Well I have no idea, but this is completely different than before...
Can anyone read this? I have a
text formatted style sheet....not the
nice user interface we used to have!
LK & T

Me and T

Oops!

By the way, the kitten's name is Duchess!

~MISSI~

New From Farmington

Ivan has asked me to post some pictures on the blog, so I will! Some of you may have seen on Facebook that we got a new kitten a week ago. She is a nine week old Chocolate Point Ragdoll. She was found abandond in a parking lot, and a lady from my church was fostering her for Last Hope. This lady new my mom had a cat similar to the ragdoll, so she brought her into church and showed my mom. Then my mom showed pictures of her to me and Ivan and I fell in love with the little cutie! She is really a very good kitten. I think she feels at home now and is exploring all the different parts of the house.

More fun news, we turned the heat on last night!!! After a year and a half, we finally have all the insulation in the exterior walls and attic. Ivan hooked up the new thremostat last night, and I came home to a warm house! We definately need to get the ceiling fans in because there is a definate temperature difference from the main floor to the second floor.

Ivan is working hard and lots of hours. They are on mandatory overtime right now, he has to work 4 weekend nights a month. (he is on third shift now, don't know if that has been posted yet)

I still have the four girls at work, and everything is pretty much the same. I have been babysitting a lot for the first baby girl I had here, Paisley. Her family moved to Belgium when she was six months, then to China this last spring, and now they live back here in the St. Louis Park area! It is great to see her and her brother!

Well, I should go wash dished before the babies get up from nap! Have a great day all!

~MISSI~

Gettin yelled at!

Okay, "yelled" might be a little strong word... but, she's right. I havn't posted anything here for quite a while. So... HERE YA GO!

Now, keep in mind, that although this may seem like complete sensless rambling to some of you, in my head (somewhere deep) It actually does make a little bit of sense. Possibly only when I'm looking at it while I'm typing. But, if I don't look at it again after I'm done typing, then it will still make sense, right?

I'm told that today is a holiday... Not really sure which one. I know we don't have turkey in the fridge yet, or in the oven for that matter, so I'm thinking its probably not Turkey day. And then if I dig deeper into the depths of my mind, I know it aint Christmas yet... How? 'cause the plastic tree is still in the closet.

I rode my dirtbike over the weekend. To some that might be a minor thing... To me, its rather news worthy. I of course am riding it as slow as the gentleman was riding in his wheelchair that I saw at the grocery store... but hey... riding is riding!

Summer is going to stay all winter long this year. Although the forcasters will argue, I feel it in my bones... 'course, my bones are getting older, and slightly more confused every year...

I'm running out of things to rant about... errr oops I'm not ranting... I'm rambling...

Good day!

Charlie

Kuoppalas and In-laws nation wide

Come on everyone. Some of you aren't posting anymore. Please get something
on this blog. Thank you. dk

Taryn's baptism...

We had Taryn's baptism yesterday... She was awake and smiling the whole time, it was so cute! Baptisms are such a special time, but why are they so stressful planning for??! Is this the case for anyone else that has planned one? But the day turned out wonderful, with good visiting and good food too:) As soon as the baptism ended, Taryn zonked out for hours!
All was perfect with the day until Trina kept me up all night! She didn't get a nap yesterday, and when she goes without a nap, she doesn't have a good nights sleep that night....wierd! so I am tired today!
Hope everyone has a great week!
Jenny