I didn't get back to my parent's house in Minnesota until after dinner time Saturday night as I
decided to clean our house in Omaha before I left so I didn't have to
return to a dirty house after vacation. Ryan left Friday night for a
Bachelor party in Wisconsin, so Saturday I had the house to
myself. I turned up the music and gave the house a thorough cleaning. After the house was almost all clean, I tossed all of our dirty clothes in laundry baskets {why do laundry at home when your parent's have two washers and dryers!} and packed up the car to hit the road back home.
I love being able to go back home to Minnesota. Home is certainly where the heart is. It is a long drive from Omaha back to my parent's house. It takes anywhere between five to five and a half hours of driving through cornfields {yawn}. I get excited every time I reach this...
I love Minnesota and can not wait to make back after residency is over. When I got home, Sophie was tuckered out on the couch and didn't wake up until I was nearly in her face but she was excited when she finally woke up and saw me. {She is going deaf in her old age, poor thing...}. It was good to see her and my parents! I started some laundry as soon as I got home, got a couple loads finished, ate dinner and then drove up to Kelsey's in the cities as our flight for California was leaving early in the morning.
After I got back from California, Kelsey and I crashed at her place that night as we got back late. Thursday was a full day. I drove down to Owatonna, stopped by the clinic to say hi to everyone {I miss working in Owatonna :( and it was good to see everyone} and then stopped by our house to pull weeds and witness that out of the seven hydrangeas I planted when we bought our house {in the super hot summer heat} 3 looked good, 3 had seen better days and one was completely dead! I wasn't exactly thrilled about this. No new landscaping there until we move back as I'm pretty sure some dandelion spray made the one hydrangea bite the dust. There's definitely a different level of pride in landscaping when you own versus rent a place, that is for sure.
After taking care of the landscaping, I was finally able to drive back to my parent's house. I got to my parent's work just before quitting time and hung out there with my parent's while they were closing up the shop. Shortly before we were going to be leaving, the sky opened up and it down poured!
It was raining so hard that the rain was spilling over the gutters and the water was even coming out of the seems in the downspout. The yard at work turned into a big lake. So much water. Who knew this was the beginning of endless, endless days of rain which turned into flooding in many areas {including Hillary's basement :( more to come later}.
After leaving work, my mom and I stopped by the nursing home to say hello to my grandma and grandpa. Grandma was sleeping and not really interactive when we stopped in and Grandpa was eating dinner in the cafeteria. We stopped by and said hello to Grandpa before heading home.
It rained again on Thursday {not surprised}. As the sun was setting, the whole sky turned orange. It looked so weird. I wish I would have been able to get a picture of it but the orange color never registered with my camera.
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| Sophie was excited to be outside and this confirmed she is going deaf because thunder makes her so scared. It was rumbling outside and she was running around without a care in the world. |
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| Cora just eating away. |
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| Steam rising up from the valley after the rain. |
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| It is so pretty. I love my parent's house! |
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| Here is a little bit of the orange I was talking about but it still doesn't capture it completely. |
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| Mr. Oliver. |
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| The sunset was pretty {from what we could see of it}. |
Friday morning, I slept in and it felt so good. What else are vacations for, right?! I thought that my grandparent's room at the nursing home was looking pretty bare and not very homey so I stopped by their old apartment and brought some pictures to the nursing home in an attempt to make the room more cozy. The maintenance man has to hang pictures on the walls at the nursing home, so I ended up talking to the maintenance man while I was there but the pictures didn't get hung until after I left.
When I got to the nursing home, I was so excited to see that they actually had Grandma up and in a chair. I closed the door to their room after I got there {the hallway is so loud} and within minutes, one of the aids was popping in to check on Grandma. They were running a pretty tight ship. Grandpa was at lunch and since Grandma was up in the chair, the door needed to be open while she was by herself in case she were to fall. Grandpa left the Twins game on for Grandma to listen to while he was at lunch. This kind of makes me chuckle as often times when the Twins were playing, Grandma would go in the other room and watch different shows on TV. I asked Grandma if she was sick of listening to Twins games {the game that was on was actually a replay from the prior evening} and she shook her head no. Grandpa came back from lunch, ate a few snacks from his snack drawer ;) and then he took a nap. I gave Grandma a back rub which she seemed to enjoy and then she took a nap too. So I left and when home and took a nap :)
Friday evening, I went to Henderson with mom and dad and met up with Kirstin and Dave for dinner. Kristin cut her hair and donated it a while back so it was different to see her with shorter hair. Dinner was delicious and after dinner we took the back roads home. There are some really pretty areas out on the prairie. I dream of building my own house out in the country some day!
Saturday was a day for shopping {but not until after I slept in}. We spent a large chunk of the day in Mankato. On the way home, we picked up Chinese takeout and scarfed if down when we got home. After dinner, I pulled out my sewing machine and got busy working on a curtain for Grandma and Grandpa's room {just another attempt to make their room seem less sterile}. The curtain was quick and easy to make and then I got started on a lap blanket for Grandma. Mom popped some popcorn for Grandpa before we drove into visit them. Grandpa had already popped some popcorn earlier in the day, so he put the popcorn in his snack drawer for later. We put up the curtain which looked great. The maintenance man had been by their room to hang the pictures I brought up and let me tell you, the curtain and the pictures do help make their room feel more homey. There are still some other walls that need decorating so we'll have to bring more pictures from their apartment. Mom and I were their until Grandpa's bedtime {which is considerably earlier than it was when they lived at their apartment}.
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| You know you live in rural Minnesota when... |
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| ...you follow big tractors down the road. |
Sunday morning {after sleeping in} I woke up and got to finishing the lap blanket for Grandma. It turned out cute. Dad went into work to attempt to finish mowing the lawn before it started to rain again. I packed up all my stuff and then drove into the nursing home before I officially hit to road back to Omaha.
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| Grandma's new lap blanket. |
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| Smudgey is always under foot. |
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| Storm is moving in. |
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| My mom's hydrangea looks leaps and bounds better than mine. |
My uncle Mark and aunt Jo were in at Grandma and Grandpa's when we got there. We got Grandma up and in her chair and all sat around visiting for quite some time. It was nice to see Mark and Jo. That's one of the things I miss most about living out of state is seeing family on a more regular basis. I started my drive back to Omaha in the early afternoon and not long after I got on the road, it was raining. The clouds looked really cool and I couldn't help but take a picture.
{After the Wisconsin bachelor party, Ryan spent a few days at his family cabin until it stormed and then got really cold, then worked at his parent's for a few days and spent the weekend in the cities at one of our college friend's 30th birthday party.}
After I got home, I realized that the cats really missed Ryan and me.
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| Zoey crashed on Ryan's suitcase. |
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| Cooper quickly joined her. |
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| I think they is their way of asking us not to leave again. |
It was so nice to be back home. I can't wait to go back again - I miss Minnesota.
~Ashley
