A NEW MONTH

A new month means it's time to change the calendar, or in my house, the calendars.  For many years I had calendars hanging on a family room wall starting from the year we were married, 1966.  When the number reached forty, the wall was full!  So I've downsized now to a smaller wall of picture calendars of our grandchildren.  Today I turned the pages on these nine.

September

October

Next it was time to change my little teddy bear's sweater and the rest of the calendars scattered throughout the house.

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

Now that job is done for another month!  I like that I don't have to put a picture calendar away at the end of the year, just move it to my wall of calendars.  The grandchildren enjoy looking at them when they come to visit.  And if Grandma has forgotten to change them, that will be taken care of by Abbey or whoever spots the wrong month.

It was special to have overnight company to bring in this new month.  Howard's cousins, Adrian and Joyce from Camrose and Joyce's cousin, Hazel, stopped by on Sunday afternoon on their way home from Hostfest in Minot.  They had their camper so had their own beds along. On Sunday evening we spent a few hours looking at pictures on the computer.  The Mac is handy for that.  I just moved it to the coffee table in the living-room and we watched in comfort.  Adrian and Joyce were on a  Rostad tour of Scandinavia this past June and had visited many of the same areas that Howard and I saw on our Brekke tour of Norway in 2005.  They started their tour in Copenhagen and that's where Sandra and I ended our trip to Norway this past summer.  I didn't think to take pictures when they were here but since I still have the pictures from their camera on my computer I'll take the liberty of adding a couple of those here.

The Norsk Stave church in Minot and statue of
the father of modern skiing from Telemark, Norway

Their camping spot at Hostfest

I just had a Facetime visit with Laurel.  Ashley was anxious to model her new dress for Grandma.  Auntie Danita couldn't resist this princess dress for her only niece who loves to be a pretend princess.  It had Ashley's name on it!

"Princess Ashley"

It's kind of a good feeling to have a new month, sort of a fresh start when the page is turned.  I'm looking forward to going to Frontier this weekend to help my sister celebrate turning sixty.  If the cellar door was still available on the house where our Grandma and Grandpa Erickson lived, I'd go and jump up and down on it like I did when I learned that I had a baby sister.  She was born in Frontier hospital on a sunny Sunday afternoon.  Dad had taken us three kids out for a drive to see the first oil rig that was situated in that area.  I was ten at the time so for a few years that seemed like quite an age difference for sisters.  But as the years went by, those years between us have kind of vanished.  In fact, she was a grandma before I was and now we each have eight grandchildren.  She has the oldest and I have the youngest!

 We shared a very special trip to Norway this summer and have precious memories of our visit to the land where our mother's parents were born and raised.  We think of the grandparents there who said good-bye to their children and three grandchildren when Hans, Bertha, Morris, John and Camilla  left for North America in 1910-11.  The grandparents never saw those grandchildren again, nor the five who were born in the new land.  They didn't see their children again either as it was 1953 before our grandparents, Hans and Bertha Haaland, were able to return to Norway. They never talked to them again and pictures were few. Letters were the main way to keep in touch.  How different things are today.  I have been to Norway five times and we are able to visit "live" via Skype or Facetime.  I can see my new granddaughter, hear her cry and look forward to seeing her smile before long.  It's the next best thing to being there!  I talk to them often as calls are just three cents a minute thanks to a Sask Tel "bundle".  Letter writing is rare as I can talk for an hour for the price of a postage stamp to send an airmail letter to Norway. Or I can email or even send a text message that gets their right away.

Well, it's a Monday posting instead of Sunday but here I am, better late than never!  Enjoy these first October days as it sounds like colder weather is on its way with the "snow" word even heard in some forecasts.