Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Happy FQHS


The folks!


Tristan


Heidi's first Thanksgiving was spent at the homeless shelter!


Part of the clan that gathered


the remainder of the clan


Kathy Purkat



I heard a few years back that they should come up with a good name for the time between Halloween and New Year's since you can buy decorations for each occassion on the same day. The winner was FQHS which is Fourth Quarter Holiday Season. Since I was just thinkin' of that thought I would post some pictures from the FQHS!


As it was already put on here. . . I had some over to celebrate Isa's birthday. Tons of fun was had playing Taboo and of course, eating!




And then on Halloween night I saw this creature, and he wouldn't talk to me. Figured his silence meant that I could take pictures of him. Never thought that a creature who couldn't talk nor move an inch could scare a kid, but I heard that's exactly what had happened! This creature can explain that!


October came to a close and November moved in! Heather had asked me way in advance if I would be able to watch Heidi when she was in St. Paul for a conference. I assured her I could and then totally spaced it! Go figure, I must be related to Charlie! :) I headed out to the hotel one Wednesday night so I could be awake when Heather left for the conference. I stopped at Subway, on my way, and thought that I would eat that for lunch and supper and save some money instead of buying food at the hotel. That plan backfired on me! Heather called and said that it was fine for me to go to where they were at, and free lunch I got!


After Heidi spent time meeting people and seeing new things, I took her for a walk. Hard to believe that it was already November and the weather was beautiful. Took the camera along and we went to check out the St. Paul Cathedral up close. That night, we went for another stroll and this time to the capitol.


Elizabeth comes over periodically when she is in the cities working. One of these times she had asked me when I would be going to the range next. Told her that I was working at the shelter on Thanksgiving. We decided then that it would be fun to have our Thanksgiving meal with the residents. I first called for approval that Saturday morning and then we started calling to see if they were interested. The immediate response was "Absolutely!" And the planning began right away.
We were thinking that most of the residents would be present, but that wasn't the case. Most of the clan that arrived were able to meet some as they were heading out the door to spend thanksgiving with their loved ones. Others were met when they returned. And for those that couldn't meet the family, I heard about it for the remainder of the weekend. They kept saying over and over how nice it was to know that a family would spend it there. And the residents that were there were filling in the others how they missed out on the opportunity to meet a lot of people who were all really nice! Mom had mentioned in an earlier post how only one person partook in it. Though that is true, they were all talking about it for the next few days! I was dreading how it would all work out, and I don't think it could have gone better. Thanks to Liz for the idea, and thanks to everyone who came, it was a huge success! Here are a few pictures from the day. Well I guess I can't get it in order. So the first pictures are from Thanksgiving Day at the shelter.

The month wrapped up in Cokato. After getting off and getting new tires on the car, I went to Cokato to visit the Wuollet's and the Laulainen's! Amber, Ryan and Nolan were here for Thanksgiving and head back home on Thursday. This was my only chance for being able to see them.

Now December is here, and Charlie is out riding his dirt bike as I write this! The question is - will we have snow for Christmas this year!

Hope you all were able to enjoy your Thanksgiving!
~jen~




4 comments:

Kuoppala and Inlaws said...

Yes, we enjoyed our Thanksgiving.
Felt badly that only one joined us
for the dinner. Hope they ate left
overs when they returned. We had to go back to Bill's House after the funeral as we had brought 4 folding chairs and forgot to take them on Thursday. We brought two plates of fudge and Jen said they
really enjoyed that.

Lauri Kaurala passed away, then
Esther Laine. Seems like they come
in 3s and I wondered who would be
next. E-mail from Pauline Leppamaki that Denise Ylioja Nevala's dad passed away in Canada.

Kuoppala and Inlaws said...

The fudge went fast! The sour cream twists that the folks brought went fast! The residents actually saved a couple to have with morning coffee. By the time i awoke the twists were gone! For leftovers they were gone by Saturday evening, and a church in town brought tons of leftovers that was almost gone by Monday morning. Very little was left!

Can you refresh my memory? Who is Esther Laine?
~jen~

Kuoppala and Inlaws said...

Esther Laine worked at NW Paper w/
Ailie. Esther had a boat and we'd
water ski. Aili wouldn't drive her
boat so Esther could water ski. So
she taught me how to drive it. dk

Kuoppala and Inlaws said...

Thanks for the great post updating us on the happenings in your life and those around you. It is nice to see the pictures and to hear of the reactions from the residents after hearing stories about Thanksgiving day at the shelter.

Mother, I glad you had the chance to stop in and see Esther recently!

The talk of fudge jolts me to the reality that Christmas baking should be happening. We are hoping to get the house decorated on Friday, but only if we can get it scrubbed down first. Tis my rule. Had hoped to get that done Wednesday, but other things took over. Will try again for Friday.

Christmas cards will be a bit different this year too. Anita, not sure if I can join the electronic greetings yet, but I think studying metabolic pathways will win over cutting out cute shapes out of paper. Will see. The first challenge is to get the crew together for a quick snapshot. Last year we found a 10 minute window between kids working. This year I haven't found the window yet, but we are working on it:). It is a good problem to have. We are fortunate to have 5 kids working!

Test prep calls. Enjoy this season of Christmas celebrations and planning!

-b