Family Gathering

Heidi, Marshall and Corinne flew into Minneapolis late Friday night. Saturday we gathered at the barn with most of our Minnesota relatives and some family friends. Cousin Linda even drove up from Chicago! And Troy came in from India the previous night. It was a beautiful day, and we enjoyed getting to eat and visit together. My cousin Pat came to the rescue and asked for my camera to take photos. Thank you, Pat, these capture our time together.

Janet and Aurelia in the foreground; Pat and Peder standing behind them

L to R: Chad, yours truly, Peder Doug, Levi, Lynn

Marshall and Heidi

Heidi, Chad, and yours truly

L to R: Janet, Linda, Leo, and Steve

In the foreground is Aurelia. L to R: Annika, Felix, Deborah, and Keith

This is Heidi's high school friend, Julia, with her husband and two children.

Andrea holding Corinne, with Marshall

Troy and Donna

L to R: Pudge, David and Jerry

I love this photo of Sarah and Peder

Corinne turned 7 months Saturday. We celebrated with this cake.

Revelation: Felix loves babies. He just loved holding Corinne, and he was good with her.

It was really nice to see everyone and Heidi and I were so glad people could come to meet Corinne for the first time. 

And the tree is gone.

With no takers on our office tree, it was cut down on Friday. The leaders of our office requested no photos be taken during the cutting since it was a sad situation. I respected that and waited until the tree was down and the pot was outside.

Our lobby is no longer beautiful.

Only the stump was visible.

The remodeling continues . . .

We have not found anyone to adopt our office tree. In the meantime, one of my friends brought in his copy of The Lorax by Dr, Seuss, and his stuffed animal of the Lorax. 

Our furniture has been put into storage. We have red paper covering the hallways and stairways to protect carpeting. This afternoon part of the back stairway railing got cut away. There were sparks!

The railing leaning against the wall was previously attached on the black line on the lower left.

Lorna and Nick's Wedding

Thursday Jerry, Janet, my cousin Pat and I drove to Indiana to attend the wedding of my first cousin, once removed, Lorna. She and Nick have been dating for seven years, so we have had many times to meet him and get better acquainted.

This is my Aunt Ginny, also Lorna's grandmother. It was really nice getting to spend some time with her over the past couple of days.

 

My cousins, John, Diane, Linda and David—father of the bride.

Cheryl and Dave, mother and father of the bride

L to R: Janet, John, Linda, Diane, Pat, and yours truly

Me with my brother and sister

Lorna and her father entering the church. She was just beautiful!

I took this photo while the professional photographer was getting everyone in place. I love how Lorna and Nick look just great, in spite of everything else going on. They are a very special couple.

Linda, John, Janet, and Jerry at the reception

Lorna and Nick opening wedding gifts yesterday

The new space is becoming more obvious

Wednesday I entered the office and the first thing I noticed was the hole in the wall, making the new entry to the kitchen and dining room obvious. Here is the before and after photo:

 I've been away for a few days. I have a feeling I'll see more changes when I go to work tomorrow.

Office Remodel Update

For the past couple of weeks we haven't seen much change in our office, but today that all changed. Arriving this morning, the first thing I saw were the big holes cut into the walls of our future large conference room.

The holes will become windows and double doors, duplicating the conference room directly below.

This is what it looked like a couple of weeks ago.

This is what it looked like about 6 weeks ago.

And this is what it looked like about 8 weeks ago.

By the way, we're still trying to give this tree away. Anyone?

The Remodeling Continues

While we haven't seen too many changes in our office this week, the workers have been just on the other side of the wall that separates us from what will be our new kitchen, dining room, and small conference room.

This is our lobby today. 

Going up the stairs, this is the view:

Up until now, this open doorway was the entrance to the photo studio. The interior walls have been demolished and soon this area, along with an additional 8 feet (more or less) will become our new large conference room—directly above our previous one on the first floor. This new one will be a bit longer, extending to include the area which was previously our mail room.  By the way, our tree in the middle of our lobby is still up for grabs. Anyone? I had contacted a local high school to see if they could use it. They sent over a couple of staff members who looked at it and liked it. They thought they had just the spot for it, but today I learned their grounds and building manager told them it wouldn't work. 

Looking across the atrium, one sees the former Reference Library. This will become the new office for Jim Parrish. Centered in the opening will be a large floor to ceiling window which will be identical to one of the windows of the large conference room. This office will be directly across from the new large conference room and the open window will allow all to see outdoors. My new office will be just to the right and across the hallway from Jim's office (far right side of this photo).

This photo shows the doorways to the mailroom and a former storage room. As of this week, they have been removed to become part of the new large conference room. I will have to take more photos to update this.

Workers doing demolition work inside the future large conference room.  More updates to follow.

The morning after the sleep-over

Felix slept well last night and then we had a good breakfast together. After watching a bit of Peter Rabbit, we took off for Eden Prairie. The first stop was at Pet Smart, where we looked at the fish, birds, dogs, hamsters, and cats up for adoption. Felix took a liking to the hamsters and wanted to see them a second time before leaving. 

Next stop was the Eden Prairie Mall to the kids' playground. Even though there were a bunch of kids there, there was still plenty for Felix to do. I was proud of the way he watched out for the little ones.

King of the hill!

Getting ready to blast off!

How could one resist buying a treat from this ice cream man?

Then it was off to Cub Foods to pick out a "sweet." Felix chose a raised donut with vanilla icing and sprinkles. This was the best of three attempts to get him to smile. I should have been taking photos of the shoppers walking by and smiling at us. 

I enjoyed having Felix for the overnight and I'm sure we'll be doing it again.