Anni

I had a real treat when my oldest granddaughter, Anni, came to see me for four days. On July 25th I picked her up at the airport. This is the first time she had flown as an "unaccompanied minor." I was really proud of her! After she got off the plane, she told me a flight attendant moved her up to First Class!

We were busy while she was here. The first evening we went to the Mall of America for dinner and for a bit of shopping. I had warned her I may have to sit down to rest once in awhile, and she was fine with that.

Anni enjoying pizza at Tucci Benucch

Anni loves my cat, Nels, and so she enjoyed holding him and playing with him.

On her second day with me, I drove her and Rellie, my twin cities granddaughter, to Austin (MN) to see their grandpa and to tour the SPAM Museum and to eat lunch. The girls had fun inside the museum with the "canning six cans of Spam" competition. Here you see them wearing a lab coat and hard hat like I wore for the ten years I worked at Hormel's.

Anni is a bit over 20 Spam cans tall.

Rellie is 18 Spam cans tall

 


On Thursday Anni and I went to Como Zoo in St. Paul. I took her into the conservatory and showed her the spot where her mom and dad were married. I'm not sure she was impressed. She really did like the rain forest where we saw colorful birds flying around and got up close to a sleuth. We wandered around the zoo and got to see the new baby giraffe standing close to her mother.

It was a very warm day (89 degrees) and many of the animals were lying in the shade. We cooled off with an icy drink—sort of like a slush. Anni liked the banana flavor so much I bought her a second one.

Every day while Anni was here we went swimming. One day Rellie joined us. I'm hoping this is the beginning of Anni and my other grandchildren coming to spend some time with me.

Rellie and Annie eating supper