Ohio!

It is time to do some catching up on my posts about the States. We have still be faithfully learning (though I did take a one week break as we were traveling so much we were hardly home) but I just didn't take the time to report. Around a month ago we studies about Ohio. It was a fun State to study and we enjoyed trying some of their foods.

Ohio is the "Buckeye state" with the Buckeye as its state tree. The kids were familiar with Buckeyes because it is a tree/nut that my Dad really likes (I guess when he was young and growing up in Iowa they had them their and he enjoyed collecting the shiny buckeyes) and this past fall he happened to discover a tree near the church building and he took the kids over to it and they collected a bunch of buckeyes. They aren't that useful but are pretty and shiny. We were trying to dream up a neat craft for them and meanwhile made the mistake of storing them in a plastic bag where many of them molded. We do still have a few of them around here though.

We made some "Buckeyes" during Ohio week. They are a yummy peanut butter candy that are pictured above along with a real buckeye.

Some of the other State symbols are:

• Flower: Scarlet Carnation
• Insect: Lady Bug
• Animal: White tailed deer
• Bird: Cardinal
• Beverage: Tomato Juice (I guess they make the most, I planned on having some as I really like it but I never did.)
• Wildflower: Large White Trillium. This is one of my favorite flowers. We had them growing all over at our last house and I fell in love. We only have one at this house and I know just where it is and I keep track of it each year. It happens to be blooming right now.

Famous People:

7 presidents came form Ohio (Second only in number to Virginia, I believe). They were: James A. Garfield, Ulysses S. Grant, Warren G. Harding, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley and William H. Taft.
Some others of interest were the Wright Brothers (They did go to North Carolina to test out their first airplanes), Zane Grey ( I have enjoyed some of his books, quite a long time ago) and Eddie Rickenbacker ~aviator (I read his biography last year and really enjoyed it.)

Ohio has a lot of neat history including being a vital part of the underground railroad. To see some historical photos go here.

One of the foods we tried was the Maid-Rite sandwich which I understand is a big thing in parts of Ohio.

My cousin Shelly who lived in Ohio for a while told me that Cincinnati Chili was a local specialty (though she said that she didn't really care for it and I have to say that we rather agree with her.). I decided we better try it so the above is the result. With this Chili you can have a 2 way, 3 way, 4 way or 5 way depending on what you have with the Chili.

If any of you have more information to share with us about Ohio we would still love to learn more. This week we are studying about Illinois.

June 3rd, 2008
HAPPY 6th BIRTHDAY, Christopher Hunter!!!!

Grammer loves you soooooooooo much!!!

I am so proud of you when you said "I would be honoured to share my family birthday party with Jackson"!!! You are a very special young man.

Hope you have fun bowling with all your school buddies tomorrow at YOUR birthday party... Hugs and love forever, Grammer.

Found this in one of my 'save' files...good stuff!!
Hope you can read it... let me know!

Helen and I at the ball park...happy time.
what a great Sunday! spent the afternoon..and evening...at two baseball games. Both of Helen's grandsons had games...two different parks...so we were on the go! Both boys are excellent pitchers and such nice young men.
Believe me, I slept like a baby with all that fresh air! Wonderful!!
Back to knitting the buffalo wool sweater for Christopher's 6th birthday tomorrow...don't think I'll make it but I'm trying...
Wishing you all a great week.

MN Republican Convention

This past Thursday through Saturday we spent going and coming from Rochester, MN and attending the Republican Convention. This was Ken's second time to go to State Convention and my first. I thought I would share my experiences here. We were blessed to have family that were willing to watch the kids and the kids were very excited about it too. So it was just Ken and I in Rochester.

The Convention started on Thursday night with a Rally. We needed supper before we went and we needed to find something that was quick and we found a PizzaZ restaurant in the skyway so we decided to try it out. They have very interesting pizza and they were quite good. I love trying new things (like artichoke hearts on pizza) so I was quite impressed, Ken not quite so much.
At the Rally we heard quite a number of speakers, Many of the people running for congress in MN, the State Party Chairman ~Ron Carey, Senator Norm Coleman and Senator Tom Coborn from Oklahoma. I enjoyed listening to all of it but I especially enjoyed hearing Senator Tom Coborn. He gave some real food for thought and seems like a real thoughtful conservative who is very trustworthy.

Friday morning we went to a Breakfast "with" Senator Coleman and his wife and staff. To be honest I didn't see the Senator at breakfast but I guess he did make it. I had been told to invite friends so I asked Winn and Betsy if they would care to join us so they were able to come as well. The breakfast was good: Pancakes, french toast sticks, sausage and lots of yummy fruit.

Breakfast was finished a while before the convention was to start, Ken had a meeting to go to but I was free so Winn and Betsy offered to show me around a little at the Mayo Clinic. Above I am standing in front of some neat blown glass sculptures which I guess is near the Cancer clinic.
We also went in the Plummer building, one of the oldest buildings. It was very ornate and fun to look at. Above are Winn and Betsy in the Plummer building.
This is a replica of the Plummer building made out of legos.

At the Convention I and many others that were alternates had to go sit in the balcony until it was figured out whether we would be seated or not. I had fun visiting with some of the other alternates and spotting people down below. It took quite a while to get everybody sitting down, being quiet and getting organized.
I did get seated. All of our county's seats were filled which is good. Two years ago when Ken went before many of the Delegates didn't make it and so I think they had less than half of the voting power they could have had. At these sort of events it always amazes me how long it takes to get seemingly simple things done. Passing a rule or whatever takes a lot of discussion (the discussion is interesting and I don't mind it except when people just start repeating what others have already said.) and usually people start getting noisy and have to be quieted and then we have to vote on it.

One of the major issues at the convention was electing delegates and alternates to go to national convention (which will be in St. Paul). Many people wanted to go and had "applied" for that honor. The possible delegates had to have a meeting (before the convention) with the endorsing committee and some were chosen to be endorsed and some were not. (I am not quite sure why they made the choices they did.) Anyway the rules of the convention (to my understanding) said that the possibles had to be endorsed in order to by able to be able to be voted for. There were many that wanted to go that were not endorsed (it seemed particularly supporters of Ron Paul) and they I guess did not know about the rule and so along with the rest of us passed the rules but then when they found out that they could not be voted for they spent the next two days trying to fight that rule in every way they could. It ended up being a bit of a disrespectful mess. Our newspaper when reporting on it said that this convention looked more like a democratic convention than a normal Republican convention and I don't think they said that as a complement.

Over all I found the Convention interesting, it was a great learning experience for me. Also I was impressed with some of the stories I heard about how leaders have used the power they have to help people. I have ideas of how I can be a better, more informed and useful delegate next time. Also I enjoyed getting ideas for how to better share my ideas and convictions with others.

Here is a picture of most of our group. (a few were not here when we took the picture.) This is a fun group of people and it was fun to be able to spend time with them.

On Saturday we had the privilege of listening to Karl Rove speak. He was an interesting and inspiring speaker.

On Friday evening I skipped out on the convention for a while to go visit Betsy and Winn at their new farm. It was fun to spend time with them and see all the projects they are working on. It felt good to just unwind after a day of chaos.

On Saturday after it was over Ken and I went out for lunch at "Famous Dave's". We had heard of the restaurant but never tried it before. It was good but I sure was ready for non-greasy, good for you food when I got home.

Here is my handsome companion.

When we went to pick up Mara and Aaron from my sister's house they seemed happy to see us but not in any hurry to go home. I guess all had gone well for them staying there. Aaron had tried to avoid staying clean while there, rejecting Uncle Travis' recommendation of a shower but when Aunt Anna thought a bath was in order I guess he asked her "You don't wash guests hair do you?!" to which she responded yes she did. Both kids slept quite a bit on the way home. I think they were quite worn out.

This past weekend was a time of storms. On Friday we had a sudden thunderstorm in Rochester which included marble size hail (which dented our car). Then when traveling home on Saturday as we were going out of the Cities we hit another storm which also had hail. But at the end there was a beautiful rainbow. My picture doesn't do it justice. I was able to see the whole arch and it was very vivid. Later on we went through another storm with more hail and then we saw a double rainbow. It is so awesome to see the amazing things that God can do! Also I love seeing a rainbow and remembering why He made one in the first place.

When we picked up Jonathan and Megan at Mom and Dad's they were excited to see us but they had also had a wonderful time. Mom said the only time Megan had fussed was when they went to our house to pick something up (on Thursday afternoon) and Megan had thought they were taking her home already.

We are all glad to be back though and I am looking forward to just staying home for a while!