Pauline (Wenino) Engebretson

Today we had the memorial service in Fargo for my Grandma. She passed away on May 23 at age 92. Our entire family flew up for a few days for the service and to see other family members and friends.

I don't think a life can or should be summed up in a blog post, so I won't even try. However, I will say that my grandma was a wonderful person and significantly touched many lives, including my own. I always loved spending time with her, whether it be visiting in the summer or later on in life when she would come to Colorado for the holidays. The fact that we shared the same birthday and that her husband died when I was young meant that we were able to share more moments and times then probably otherwise would have happened.

The beautiful thing about death for those that believe is that it's not the end. In her latter stages of life she said that she was ready to go home and meet her savior, Jesus. I know I will see her again at some point in the future. So, thanks for all the great memories and the times we were able to spend together Grandma.  I will see you again.

Special and big thanks to my Mom (and Dad) who helped make everything happen, including preparing the below pictures. There was a slide show on a loop in the service hall before the it started. I loved looking at the pictures, including the ones below that are my favorites of the group. Some of them I had never seen before and some of them I hadn't seen in a long time. They say pictures are worth a thousand words, and these are no exception.

Jonathan's 8th Birthday

Jonathan had his 8th birthday party at Dart Warz today. He and several of his friends (neighbors and classmates and siblings) went head to head at this indoor arena of Nerf dart gun awesomeness. I, of course, joined in on the fun since it was free for me to play and I had the best gun possible. This was his first real birthday party (1st grade) since last year Kindergarten was only half day.

All of the kids had a lot of fun. I made sure Jonathan's team won more than lost, and he scored some pretty cool gifts and some cash. Watching him and Julia play was quite entertaining and it definitely aligned with their personalities. Jonathan usually got out every game, since his style was all guns blazing. Julia was usually one of the last ones out, but that's because she was usually hiding behind cover and not mixing it up as much.

The party was a huge success since we had booked a private group versus playing with whoever was there at the time. I enjoyed lighting up a few kids (sometimes accidentally in the face) with my semiautomatic just to keep things even, sometimes switching teams as required. Pizza and cake was served afterwards with presents to top off the fun filled morning.

Summer Is Here

Olympic Training Center tour with Grandpa and Grandma; a new 15 foot trampoline that arrived the same day school was let out for summer; playing with packaging materials; free ears and massive slices of pizza at Great Wolf Lodge (playing MagiQuest).

Last Day of School

Last day of school! Check out Jonathan in the window behind Julia's picture and how much he's grown this year. I guess those growth hormone shots are working! After the last bell of the year rang we snapped two final pictures with their awesome teachers, Angela Miller and Misty Mendenhall.

Smarty Pants Dance

Julia scored in the 91st percentile in math and the 96th percentile in reading nationally for students in her same grade. Wowzers! Come on college scholarships...

Julia's Leader Presentation

At the end of the school year each fourth grader had to do a report on a famous leader in this country's history. Julia chose Clara Barton, the founder of the Red Cross.  Not only did she have to dress up like her, but she had to research and prepare an oral report for anyone who attended the school presentation. When we arrived at the school all the children were lined up against the walls all over, just waiting for someone to come up and ask them to talk about their leader. Stacey and I went to the event and listened to Julia's presentation. It was very good.

There were lot of other options to choose from as you can tell from the below class picture. See if you can guess who some of the other characters were just by their costumes.

Jonathan's Procedure

We had one more procedure done today on Jonathan. His tube site didn't fully heal on its own so we had to schedule a brief visit to the OR to get it closed up permanently. I was able to escort him to the OR until he went under anesthesia, which is why I look like some odd combination of doctor, exterminator, and cafeteria worker.

Everything went fine and he was able to go home a few hours later. Jonathan missed three days of school and it took about a week for him to be totally pain free.  I know from my own experience that any cuts through the stomach muscles is painful. You don't realize how much you use your core muscles for every movement until something like this happens.

Hopefully this will be the last thing he has to do for a very long time.

Fourth Grade Concert Picture

A Few More Spokane Pictures

The weather on Monday was a little wet, but that didn't stop us from taking a quick morning walk and stopping by Stacey's Alma Mater. I forgot to mention that after the race yesterday we also drive up Mount Spokane Road!

Bloomsday 2018

Stacey and I decided to fly up to Spokane for my 40th birthday for a weekend away and to run Bloomsday (a 12K)!  It was on a whim, but it sure was a fun and unconventional way to celebrate. The kids stayed here with Grandma since we were only gone about two and a half days. This was also the 15th anniversary of doing Bloomsday together when we first started dating.

We hadn't trained for the race. But between my cycling, workouts, and being at a lower elevation, we were able to jog it together without much problem. The weather was perfect the morning of the race (as you can probably tell from the pictures). The rest of Spokane was very pretty as the name of the race suggests. Everything was in bloom and green in addition to the nice weather we had.

We were able to stay at Stacey's parents house since they were in Seattle this weekend. Since this was also an anniversary trip of sorts, we had lunch after the race at Applebees by my old apartment. Without the kids in tow we had tons of time and felt like we crammed in about a month's worth of activities into this weekend. Stacey saw Shannon after lunch and then later that day we walked around a park for a few minutes...before going out for sushi and seeing a late movie that night down at Riverfront Park Theaters!

We had a really good time together and are considering doing this race again next year.