Life at the Lindula's

Our month of October. I don't know what I've already posted, so may repost... Sorry about that!

WE GOT A LLAMA! - oh wait, I already told you that :)

Miss Heidi is growing like a weed. Here's a picture from the beginning of the month (I think) wearing her really cool "shades".

In October, Dan and Wendy Parks came for services and Audrey and Harry came along. It was fun to visit with all of them.

One of the weekends in October, Shawn had an auction in Palisade. Heidi and I dropped him off and we went to Brainerd. It wasn't long enough there, but at least Heidi made her first trip there. She made the rounds smiling at everyone. Here she is with Laura. An ongoing mission of mine to get pictures taken of her with various people. I have many fond memories of Laura and Thunderbay!

The ISD 2142 is trying to pass a referendum to save the district. I am the Cherry area coordinator, which means.... meetings, meetings, meetings and also talking to everyone I see to get them to support the referendum. If it passes some schools will be closed: Cook and Orr will close and a new school will be built in the middle; Tower-Soudan and Babbitt-Embarrass will close and a new school in the middle; Cotton and Albrook will close and a new school in the middle. Cherry will get some remodeling. They are also proposing a lot of changes in how the students will be taught and the schools will be improved. This has to pass. If it doesn't, the district will dissolve. Our areas will be picked up by other school districts which means a long commute for kids and higher taxes for everyone. Heidi is championing the efforts as well. Here she is in photo that will be going out trying to get people to save her school district. She's a little activist already.... wonder where she gets that from :)

Our weather has been a little weird. We've had snow, then it melts. Should be getting more snow soon. It's raining now, but should be changing to snow.
Shawn has been BUSY with work. He has almost finished 2 large pole sheds/garages and has another one to do yet this fall and possibly one more. That doesn't count the barn that he is going to build for us this year. We are thankful for the work and I just have to remember when he isn't home that at least he is working!!!

I continue to work at my job and have a second interview on Tuesday for a Legal Aid position. Hoping that it works out and I can work for them. It would really allow me to do what I'm most passionate about. One of my co-workers said that she knows that my company doesn't tap into what I'm passionate about and very capable of doing. I would be allowed to do that if I got a job with Legal Aid. We will see what happens. The positive part is that I don't hate my job and my job is secure so I don't HAVE to get a new position. For that, I'm very thankful and it takes the stress out of the situation. I also continue to be coordinator for Eveleth Horizons and we are working on a pretty big project (neighborhood revitalization). Miss Heidi goes with to most of my meetings and is quite the trooper. She will learn volunteering early and hopefully learn to love it and not resent it.

Next week, I have to be in St. Paul for a conference. I'm one of the presenters for a session and should probably get prepared. Oh well, I have one week to get ready and if I don't know my information, I'll never know it :)

Hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the week. Enjoy the rest of the month.... Wow, November is just around the corner and with that, deer hunting and Thanksgiving.

H.

Since its been quiet on here. . .

. . . decided I might as well put something. . .


End of September, I took some time off from the shop so I could help Elizabeth. Left the shop on the Thursday prior to head to the range. Worked at the homeless shelter through Monday morning and straight from there went to St. Paul to volunteer. I thought I was going to my apartment that night, so didn't bother packing clothes for two extra days. Taking a break from stuffing folders, Eliz and I went shopping and got some clothes for the next couple days! We called it quits after a pretty long day and headed off to the Hilton to get a good night's sleep. Before I knew it I was waking up to the ringing of the phone. Time to wash up in a type of shower I have never been in before (quite fancy) and time for a busy but fun-filled day. The Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless celebrated their 25th year anniversary! The above picture is of the timeline that people wrote on, showing what has been accomplished since it was first founded.

The newly announced Executive Director of the Coalition: Ms. Elizabeth Christine

Tuesday morning and afternoon was spent at the registration table. The amount of people I met was amazing, the connections I made was phenominal, and all this because I said I would help a sister out! Boy, am I ever glad that I agreed to (and Charlie allowed me to! Thanks Charlie!)!! Tuesday evening there was a gubernatorial forum held. Nine candidates running for Governor were present and strictly talked about homelessness and poverty issues. One of the candidates present was our former US Senator, Mark Dayton.

I had heard the list of speakers who were going to be there, and I was excited to hear one that was scheduled on Wednesday. The picture above is Liz with Karen Diver from Fondu Lac. I had heard her before and was anxious to hear what motivation she was going to give to the group. The conference came to a close, and when I got into my car it hit me, I was thoroughly exhausted. On the way home, I got a text from Charlie saying a box had arrived at the shop for me. With rainy weather for the next few days, and having time off of work, I opted to stay put and relax. I stopped in at the shop and picked up the box and knew I had tons of reading material! I receive newsletters from William Bernhardt, one of my favorite authors, and it stated that he has books for sale. Every book in the box has been autographed and now adorns my bookshelf. But those few days of rainy weather gave me ample opportunity to get some reading in! For those of you who are on facebook, become a fan of the coalition and you can see other pictures from the conference, if you're interested. But Liz didn't put pictures of her on so thought I would here! :)

~jen~

Fall Cleaning

Cleaned out 13 bird houses. 8 were occupied. This one is the duplex. Amazing the amount of branches they can get in there.

Happy Anniversary

Happy Second Anniversary Ivan and Missi.

Isa's Birthday travels & changing world in MN

Friday - beautiful colors in Brainerd

Saturday - woke up to snow in Brainerd

Saturday - tasty birthday cake made by Jen & gobs of fun with Taboo at Jen's with Charlie, Amanda, Cody, Jade, Cole, Jen, Brian, Ma, & Pa

Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday dear dad/grandpa, happy birthday to you!! Hope your day is wonderful so far!! The girls are off school today for Columbus day, so it is a lazy day around here! Thought I'd share some pictures that Lindsey took this morning....nobody's hair is brushed, Trina isn't dressed, Taryn and I are still in our jammies, and it's already lunch time! But I do have dinner in the crock-pot, and breakfast mess is cleaned up!! :) (We won't mention what the rest of the house looks like tho!) It's all good...! Happy Monday to all! Jenny

Life at our place

More about our month of September:

Jen joined the Kaleva Ladies!!! Here's a group photo

Shawn, Heidi, and I went to Parent's Camp at Hascib. Shawn's first time to Hascib. It was a great weekend. Heid's first trip to Michigan.
Shawn and Heidi.....

It was a chilly and rainy weekend. So, the weiners were roasted inside Saturday night :)

Shawn heard about a guy selling sheep and goats. He went to pick them up and came home with this too.... :)

I've always wanted a llama. Will have to see how long this Llama stays around. It hasn't taken to me yet, but he just got it last night, so hoping it will chill out and be a bit more relaxed. They are so ugly, they are kind of cute :)

Randall house

okay, i'm not my mother but since she never takes pictures i figured i'd post some of my own! :) no, i think its just she's a bit busier then me with between school, work, and parenting. life is staying busy here, currently dad is in Texas (not sure where) and mom is at school! so i'm home directing steven with supper on my day off from both jobs and school work finished for now, which is a first! Grandma had asked that i put pictures of John's swollen lips on here, a week ago today i got home from work to find steven reading bedtime stories and john with a little bit of a puffy lip, nothing major. the odd thing was that he had been sleeping and woke up with it like that..not long after i got home he told me to look at his lip again which was progressively worse..it kept swelling so denise went and got benedryl which he took and slowed the swelling down some, we brought him to my grandma randalls' house where my mom was for her to look at, and she decided to bring him to the ER, turns out its an allergic reaction to something which we're unsure exactly what, maybe a reaction to the cold that he's had..who knows! the crazy picture of me is with anna jurmu, elk river had their annual pig roast and hay ride, this year the theme was it was oscar and olga's pig roast so me and anna dressed up and played the role..was VERY fun! and of course our annual labor day trip to duluth as always was a blast!

Don't know where everyone has gone ...

I figure if I keep bombarding you all with pictures ... maybe we'll see some more from all corners of our family alphabet soup!

Fall is here and absolutely gorgeous! The mountains all around us are covered with snow this week. Unbelievable isn't it? I couldn't exactly stand in one place and spin the camera around in circles ... I had to drive a couple of miles up and down the same road ... and finally land at the mailboxes. This one is to the south ...

This one just because.

To the east.

The north ... I'm going to visit some of the north ones tomorrow ... just a tad bit to the left. (Look for more pictures!)

From the top of the hill at our mailboxes!

Happy Fall!

Good morning from Alaska!

I forgot the camera on my 9 a.m. run yesterday and missed a chance at capturing the mountains. The ones in the background of this picture are covered in white. Absolutely beautiful! In the meantime ... we're enjoying the fall. The weather has been gorgeous .. couldn't ask for any better.

Fishing rods really need to find their winter home. Keep looking at them but it won't help. Didn't catch anything at all this year ... maybe next year?!

The woodshed is full. What a nice feeling that is! We have trees felled and drying in the "woods" and more that need to come down before Mother Nature decides to land them on our cars. We've lit a fire several times. Sunday was a wet and chilly day ... fire felt good.

For a short while longer we'll enjoy this view out of windows.

Tia had a concert Monday evening .. they did a fabulous job! Always fun to watch and listen to their growing and maturing skills.

Happy Wednesday ... hoping your day is full of wonderful things.

Life at the beach

These are out of order, but I'm being lazy and don't feel like chaning them :)

I have a new goal that Shawn, Heidi, and I do a family activity one time per month. Time when we can forget work and all that other fun stuff and just focus on being a family. Heidi sees a lot of me, but Daddy has been very busy with work (we are very fortunate) so we need to take time to do family things.

This weekend.... we went to Two Harbors. We went Friday night and stayed at Superior Shores (I highly recommend it). Saturday, we did some of the tourist things. The greatest part of the weekend.... going to see Glady. Her memory wasn't so good, but it was enjoyable regardless. I'm also on a mission to get pictures of Heidi with her older relatives or friends who we may not be able to see for much longer. It is much easier to inform her of Mom and Dad's relatives/friends through pictures.


Here she is being the perfect "tourist" at the tourist information center.

Daddy and Heidi enjoying the beach....

Labor Day, Heidi and I went to Park Point. We thought the Randall clan was going to be there, but we missed them by a day... Heidi and I enjoyed our day. She loved the water and appears to put a lot of thought into it :)

She would giggle at the waves.... By the way, she can sit up on her own and has been able to do so for a while now. However, she also likes to pick grass to try and eat, pick up handfuls of sand, etc. It was a lot of fun to spend the day with her and let her see and touch new things :)

In other news: We have just been doing the same old, same old for the most part. Like I mentioned, Shawn has been very fortunate and has a LOT of work to do. We were worried how this year was going to go, but the phone started ringing with work and hasn't really stopped. With this amount of work though, it is later evening and some work on weekends too.

I continue working and am back to volunteering more for the Eveleth Horizons. Heidi gets to come with me for the volunteering so I can continue doing that.

Life on the farm: we got more animals... I'm sure you're surprised? I was selling my goats to get sheep and was down to 2 goats. SHAWN has bought 4 more goats, but all of them may be going out on a truck on Wednesday. We are up to 30 cattle, but 8 should be shipped on Wednesday. We got 2 more bunnies.. I got one, but it disappeared, so not sure how long these will last, but it is cute to see them bounce around the yard. (We got them yesterday and also got 4 kittens). I'd gotten 2 a week ago and they disappeared, so our success rate needs improvement!!! We've still got a lot of pigs... anyone want to buy pork? We also have our chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese. Someone came over yesterday and said all we need is an Ark :)

Hope things are going well for everyone!

Michelle and Daniel's Engagement

Well, it isn't "new"s anymore, as I am sure you have all heard, but Michelle and Daniel are engaged. They are planning a January 9th wedding. You will hear more details as time gets closer! For now, they are drafting invitations, looking for dresses, brainstorming, etc. Actually, lots of brainstorming is done already :). She is a rather capable planner!

We are going to have a little get together to recognize their engagement on Sunday from 2 - 5. If anyone is interested in joining us, you are welcome to.

For those that haven't seen Dan, I will post a picture for you.

What's New

I was thinking that I havn't read the blog in a while, so I decided to take a look and maybe post. Well, I guess Ivan beat me to it! He pretty much summed up what is going on in our life. Hopefully we will get the cupboards up this weekend then I can finally put some of the kitchen stuff away. We are not going to put everything away because the bottom cabinets will need to be moved once more when we put the flooring in.

Tonight I get to babysit for the little girl, and her brother, that I used to nanny for. They left because the dad got transfered to Belgium. That is where the brother was born. Then they got transfered to China, and finally, back to Minneapolis. It is great to see them again!

My two oldest girls, Sarah and Molly, started school last week, now work is kind of slow. I just have the two younger ones, Anna Sophia and Meara, and they both take their naps between 12 and 3ish. So after cleaning up lunch, I don't have much to do. Hopefully I will be able to check the blog more often!

This is Sarah: will be 9 on Sunday

Molly: will be 7 on Wednesday

Anna Sophia: 2 yrs

Meara: 1yr
Molly, Hannah, Michelle & Sarah
My sister Jenn takes care of Hannah and Michelle during the summer. I took care of them for two days at the end of summer. So I had 6 girls for a couple days!

Have a great weekend!

~MISSI~