Some closure

Well, as most of you know, the kids and I are back in our NJ home. We spent a long day of traveling on Wednesday...a little plane to O'Hare, a plane (and terminal) change, and then a bigger plane to Newark. We were delayed an hour out of Fargo, and we only had 90 minutes at O'Hare between flights before the delay, but fortunately our connecting flight was delayed too. Sometimes delays are a good thing!

We had a nice homecoming. Karen picked us up at the airport, and when we got home Bob, Linda and Cassidy were there with a "Welcome Home" sign, balloons, pizza, Lois' chocolate chip cookies and Madeleine cookies from Starbucks. The best part for the kids was having their own rooms again...especially for Billy. He piled all his long-lost stuffed animals (the ones that didn't make the Fargo cut) on his bed and didn't grant anyone else admittance to his room! For me the strangest part was coming home to a kitchen that seemed much larger than I remembered. I don't remember our kitchen sink being so big.

Now we're awaiting Matt's return and then life will get back to normal, whatever that means. The good news is that he was able to work out a telecommuting deal, so once he's home he'll be working from home, and he'll travel to Fargo one week a month. We're happy with the way things worked out. The kids started back at day care today for the full day...they are like celebrities there. My "retirement" officially ends today too, although I still have about 3 weeks left until my exam.

I've enjoyed keeping everyone posted via this blog, and now that my Fargo adventure has ended, I'm thinking of setting up another one just to keep family and friends updated. Once I set that up I'll let you know where to find it.

A belated tour of Fargo

Now that we're about to leave, I thought it would be a good time to show you our perspective of Fargo.

There are a couple of important things that can't be captured adequately on film. One thing is the constant wind. On a warm day, it feels great, but I can imagine that in the winter it would not be as welcome. Another thing is the friendliness and hospitality of almost everyone I've met. It's such a treat to go into a store or restaurant and get good service. Even strangers on the street - just today, a woman walking past me just started talking about how nice the weather is today.

A few pictures from downtown...the whole downtown area can easily be walked in under an hour. The major landmarks are the Fargo theater, which shows independent movies, the old train depot which serves as city park offices, and the Plains Art Museum. Trains are everywhere in Fargo...it's good to know the streets that go under the tracks so you don't get stuck waiting for a train to go by!

This mural is on the outside of the kids' daycare. They love this mural. They find something new on it almost every day.

A random shot of the countryside outside of Fargo...very flat!

This is a shot of the view from my spot in the library. I don't have any other pictures of the NDSU campus...it's very nice though...lots of trees and historic buildings that remind me of Michigan State.

This last picture I took for Bob...it's the Sons of Norway lodge, or, as I like to think of it, "Paca Club West."

On another note, we're all ready to get back home. We've definitely had fun here, but home is home. We're spending our last weekend in Fargo just relaxing...we'll probably start packing too. We still don't know when Matt's coming back. He's still trying to negotiate a telecommuting arrangement...hopefully we'll know soon.

Little Troublemaker

I promised I would put this on the blog...

Last Friday I was dropping the kids off at day care. It was raining outside, and we were just hanging up our raincoats when suddenly the fire alarm went off! It took me about a second to realize that this wasn't a planned fire drill. I turned around to find Maddy, and there she was, standing on the shoe cubby, hand on the fire alarm. My first instinct was to pull the fire alarm handle back up, hoping it would turn off the alarm, but it wouldn't budge. Their teacher came running out, and I said, "Don't worry, it's not a fire, my daughter did that." But she didn't say anything to me and instead rounded up all the kids and took them outside...in the rain, with no coats on! I looked down the hallway and saw all the other classrooms evacuating. The day care director was running by and I told her the same thing, but she was just trying to turn off the alarms. After about 5 minutes, the alarms were finally off, and the kids started coming back in. Everyone was soaked. The older kids thought it was pretty exciting, but the babies in the cribs (yes, they wheeled the cribs out there) just looked perplexed. There was 1 baby just lying there looking around, face soaked...I felt so bad! The director wasn't too pleased, but the kids' teacher said, "Don't worry, this isn't the first time it's happened...or the second, or the third!" (I don't think Maddy was the culprit the other times.) After our talk I'm sure she won't do it again!

Well, we'll be gone in a couple weeks -- the director will probably be glad to see us go!

Fall is coming...

The good thing about being in Fargo this time of year is that we'll get to have a really long fall...the trees are already starting to turn colors here, and by the time we get home, the trees in NJ should be turning too!

3 weeks to go. Time has gone by so fast! I could get used to this life...quiet days of puttering around the hotel room, watching HGTV...I mean, studying at the library! Seriously, studying has been going well. I've been putting in some extra time evenings and weekends when I can, which is why I'm behind in updating the blog.

Before we came out here, I thought we would be spending our weekends taking little road trips. However, after the long ride out here, nobody has been too keen about getting back in the car for any length of time. Fortunately, there is a lot to do around Fargo with the kids.

A couple weekends ago was pretty rainy. We decided to spend the afternoon at the Hjemkomst (pronounced yum-kost) Center across the river in Moorhead, MN. The main attraction there is a full-scale replica of a Viking ship just like the ones that sailed across the Atlantic in the 1200's or so. It was built by a MN man who wanted to prove that the Viking design was seaworthy. He spent a decade or so building it himself, and after he died, his family finished it. They eventually sailed it through the Great Lakes starting at Lake Superior, through the St. Lawrence Seaway, down the Hudson River to NYC, then across the Atlantic Ocean to Norway! The ship was really cool. The most interesting part to me is that the crew's sleeping quarters were on the deck instead of below. I tried to get a good picture of this. Apparently the main food staple on the journey from NYC to Norway was Cream of Wheat! After a few months' voyage, that would get pretty old.

The best part of the day for the kids was going to the mall to the dinosaur playground. Right off the food court is a large playroom with huge dinosaurs for the kids to climb on, crawl through and slide down. After an hour they didn't want to leave, and they keep asking to go back! It was a good place for a rainy day.

This past weekend we went back to the zoo on Sat., and went on our first mini-road trip on Sun., to Buffalo River State Park. We chose the park because it is only about 20 miles away, and because they have a man-make swimming lake with a sandy beach (it was in the mid-70s that day and sunny). Well, apparently they drain the lake after Labor Day, because when we got there all we saw were the lifeguard stations and sand! Good thing we weren't planning on swimming. We did go for a hike along the Buffalo River, and we had fun trying to catch minnows in the shallow water. We also decided to extend our road trip and drive another 45 miles to a real lake, in Detroit Lakes, MN. The best part of that excursion was that the kids got a nap in the car! The lake was pretty, but pretty much surrounded by residential areas. The few restaurants we could find were dead, since it's the off-season. It was still a nice day for a drive. We capped off the day at one of our favorite area restaurants, the Thai Orchid. They have an awesome dessert, fried banana with coconut ice cream.

Time to hit the books again. I realized that I haven't posted many pictures of Fargo itself. I will try to do this next time!

96 degrees in Fargo?!

Yeah, Wed. was 96 degrees. It's supposed to be in the mid-60s this weekend. Welcome to the Midwest!

Everything's going well...Matt's job is keeping him busy, but he's always home by 5, which is nice. The kids are enjoying their "North Dakota day care" and their extra time with us. I've been studying every day, usually at the NDSU library. I've been working out more too, but today when I weighed myself I had gained a pound in the last 3 weeks. Better stop working out.

We decided that the kids and I would fly home in October in time for me to go back to work, and Matt will stay behind to get as much work done as he can before our vacation in Jamaica at the end of Oct. We still don't know if he'll be able to telecommute once his 3-month commitment is up. Hopefully we'll know soon. So, my return date is October 10th. Now that it's planned, it seems like I don't have much time left here. It's lighting the fire under me to get as much studying done as I can over the next 5 weeks.

We had a pretty low-key weekend. Matt was still recovering from his mystery illness. (He seems better now.) Last Sunday we took the kids to Yunker Farm Childrens' Museum. We had a lot of fun riding the train and the merry-go-round. Billy liked the train sets the best, while Maddy liked the giant bubble maker: you stand inside a circle and pull down on a rope, and as you pull down a giant bubble forms around you. I didn't get many pictures but I have some from our picnic lunch and from the merry-go-round.

Monday (Labor Day) we went to my coworker's sister's house in West Fargo for a cookout. It's a small world! Sherry and her husband Dave have 2 kids, Ben who is 3 and Timmy who is 4 mos. old. My coworker Karen was also there. Dave is a doctor and was on call that day, so Matt got grill duty. Karen made the exact same broccoli salad that Jean makes, so it seemed a little like we were home. The kids had fun playing together.

Matt and I went out on our date last night! We went to an Italian restaurant downtown that was really good, then we watched the Simpson's movie (there were only 2 other people in the theater!) The kids were fine with Steph, our babysitter. We're planning on going to the White Stripes concert in a few weeks so hopefully Steph can come over again!

That's all for now...except for a couple pictures of the kids playing in their duvet covers (or kangaroo pouches, as they call them.) Oh, and the kids say "Norf Bakota" instead of "North Dakota", which Matt and I have started doing :-)

Fun in Fargo

I think Montana is known as "Big Sky Country", but that could easily apply to North Dakota. With the flat terrain and few trees, the sky is the dominant feature of the landscape. It makes sunny days seem sunnier and stormy days more threatening.

We had great weather last weekend. Across the highway from our hotel is the Red River Zoo, which is a perfect size for young kids. When you drive past the zoo, you can see the camels from the highway! The kids and I spent Saturday morning there. They enjoyed the farm animals the best, especially the cow with the really long tongue and the pigmy goats. We saw 4-day-old twin goats that were so cute. The best part for Billy and Maddy was an old-fashioned merry-go-round -- we rode it twice. The first time Billy sat on the "couch" (one of the benches on the merry-go-round), but the second time he decided to "race" his sister on one of the horses.

Sunday we drove to one of the local parks near the river and rode our bikes along the river bike path to downtown Fargo. We would cross over these little bridges into Minnesota and back again. There was an arts and crafts festival in town so we went to that -- it was a lot like the St. Johns Mint Festival in Michigan. We probably rode close to 15 miles, which is a lot for us. (Fortunately, most of it was flat). We also saw a floodstage marker which measured how high the Red River has been when it flooded. The worst was 10 years ago, when it was 40 feet above floodstage and topped the dike, flooding downtown.

Some observations about Fargo:

• There aren't a lot of burger fast food places (I've seen 2 McDonalds and 1 Wendy's), but there are several different taco chains, including Taco Bell.




• The Starbucks here all have drive thrus (good) but no Madeleine cookies (bad!) Apparently the cookies are a regional thing. It's too bad, because they are the kids' favorite.




• The grocery stores here treat Italian food as ethnic cuisine. Pasta, sauce, etc. are in a small section in the "ethnic foods" aisle between Mexican and Asian food. In NJ stores it's a lot easier to find.
  

Hmm...all food related.

Things I miss from home:

• Family (of course)!




• Bagels




• Good Italian food (although we have found good Thai and Greek restaurants)




• TiVo!




• Our house and backyard. Our kitchen is going to seem so spacious when we get back!




• Dates. Matt and I were supposed to have our first ND date tonight, but Matt woke up with a fever this morning, so we'll have to reschedule. One of the girls from daycare was going to babysit. Maybe next week.
  

It's supposed to be nice weather this weekend too...we're hoping to get to one of the state parks in MN to do some biking and lake-swimming.

Talk to you soon!

Settling In

We've been here a week and a half now, and we're starting to get into a routine. Matt and I were talking last night about how funny it is that, in spite of the change in geography and living arrangements, our lives haven't changed that much: get up, go to work, come home, eat, play with the kids, put the kids to bed, watch TV, and go to bed.

In my case I'm living my dream of being a professional student...or at least, acting like one. (I know, I should dream bigger!) This week I've been going to the library at North Dakota State University to study after I take the kids to day care. With my backpack and ripped jeans on I feel just like I did when I was a college student 16+ years ago, but I can tell by some of the looks I get that I must not look the same as I did back then. I was in the student union bookstore at lunchtime the other day buying extra note cards and I asked the cashier if there was a restaurant in the union. She gave me a funny look and said, "No, there's a food court." Of course -- students don't eat at restaurants!

The kids really seem to be enjoying their North Dakota day care. Every time I pick them up Billy and Maddy are playing together. It's also been good for Billy to get the same lunch as everyone else...it has forced him to try new things, most of which he doesn't like but at least he's trying them.

Billy celebrated his 4th birthday last Friday. He enjoyed getting all the packages in the mail! We decided to keep the celebration low-key...just ate at "home" and spent some time in the indoor pool. The kids love swimming with their life jackets! They would stay in the pool for hours if we let them.






Today's the first nice day we've had in several days. It rained most of last weekend so we mostly stayed in, but this weekend is supposed to be nice so I'm sure we'll be able to find something to do.

Time to go to the Fargo post office and pick up the mail...they're already getting to know me over there.