Family From New Zealand Visits

We had an unexpected treat this week when one of my relatives dropped in to visit while travelling from Kentucky to Minnesota to visit other relatives.

Arnold Parr lives in Akaroa, New Zealand which is not far from Christchurch. He was born in Canada but traveled to the south pacific many years ago to teach. He is just retired from his position of Senior Lecturer at the School of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch.

Arnold is deeply into genealogy and has traveled all around the U. S. and internationally to research our family tree. His database includes over 3,000 family members........totally impressive. Arnold comes to the U. S. to visit family and do research almost every year. He has a son with family and many other relatives spread across Canada and the Midwest.

As for our exact relationship, Arnold's Great-Great Grandmother is my Great Grandmother. All our family on this branch is from Finland and immigrated to the U. S. (Minnesota) and Canada. It was taxing our brains too much to decide what the proper name for our relationship was, so we just agreed to be cousins.

We hope to see Arnold when we cruise to New Zealand in November this year and then again whenever he is passing though the Midwest.

A Nice Photo of Sigrid

Sigrid volunteers for a number of things at John Knox Village. She, along with Edel DeMaria, runs the Ice Cream Shop at the Care Center on Sundays from 1 to 4 PM.

As a Hospice volunteer she maintains vases of fresh flowers in each Hospice patients room. This involves picking up the old vases, cleaning them, picking up donated flowers from Hy-Vee, arranging the flowers in the vases, and delivering them to the Care Center. She does this every week. There can be from 30 to 70 vases each week.

The photo below is from the Village Hospice Magazine and shows Sigrid visiting with one of her patients. She assists them in any way she can by doing light house cleaning, fixing meals, running errands, and just about anything else short of medical related things. She helps the families after the death of her patient if needed (not a normal Hospice duty). She has had three patients over the last couple of years, but currently doesn't have a patient.

It isn't a job many people want to do because of the emotional downsides. Sigrid has a great attitude about what she does. She knows that her efforts are enormously appreciated and makes one of life's most unavoidable and dreaded events a little more bearable. I totally respect and admire her for her efforts.

Retirement Goal Update - 2010

At my retirement in 2006, I set a couple of goals for our travels. The first was to visit all 50 states and the second was to visit 6 of the world's continents. It is time for an update.


On the domestic side, we have been to 37 of the states. All that remains is the upper Midwest and the northeastern states. One good driving trip, which may happen next year, could pretty much finish this goal. Of course, we wouldn't be able to see everything, but we could check the states off the list of unvisited places. I expect that after the driving trip, we would make more focused trips back to places like New York City or Boston and could fly rather than drive. Sigrid and I have been in some of these states individually for business or just getting from one place to another, but our goal involves being there together for the purpose of sightseeing.


On the international front, we have been to three continents so far. If I count the Australia/New Zealand cruise that we have booked and will be leaving for in a few weeks, we will be at four before the end of the year. This would include 22 different countries.

We will never see all the countries of the world and don't really want to due to the risks and costs. We do love the peaceful countries, their cultures, and arts.

South America and Peru (Machu Pichu) are high on the list as is the Mediterranean. Africa would be a great cruise as well.

Hopefully our health will continue and the economy will slowly get better so we can afford to complete our goals.

Outstandingly Good

I am finally getting really good using our new grill. I still prefer the taste of hickory briquet's to gas fired flames, but you can't beat the convenience.

Labor Day weekend Fillet Mignon's.........a rare treat. Even on a gas grill, they were fantastic. They looked just like the Ruth's Chris Steakhouse pictures. Are you hungry yet?

Costco Photo Contest

Sigrid entered a Costco photo contest today. The 1st Place prize was a million dollars...........or maybe it was just a large print of the winning picture on canvas ready for framing.

The photo was taken in October 2008 at Blue Spring which is near Eminence, Missouri. The spring water forms a shallow stream and the stream bed has lots of very green plants under the surface. The water flows fairly swiftly which caused the blur in the photo along with the natural ripples in the water. Sigrid ended up with an abstract looking photo with Monet-like qualities.

It will be weeks before we hear from Costco. We will not be holding our breath while we wait.

German Doors & Windows

We just got done wallpapering our breakfast area today and now we are looking for three photos to frame to finish off a bare wall. We will frame them in black with white or off-white matting. Here are the candidates. Anyone have three favorites?

Australia/New Zealand Cruise

A few posts back we talked about what the next big adventure would be. We had settled on the Mediterranean but then backed out due to the unrest in Greece and other factors. As we hinted, Australia and New Zealand were on our minds as well. Now it is a done deal.

Later this year we will be taking a 28 day cruise on Holland America. The map below shows all the ports of call on the trip. We are pretty excited about going.

The trip will be especially interesting for several reasons. We will be going through some extremes in climate from the tropical islands of Fiji to the snow capped mountains of New Zealand. Temperatures will range from 85 degrees down to the 40's at some points so we have to have clothes for every situation. A 28 day cruise will be a treat. Our previous longest cruise was 14 days in Northern Europe. The final and most interesting thing will be that this will be the second place we have been in the South Pacific this year where my father served during World War II. The first was Saddle Road in Hawaii in January. He helped build the road as an army engineer. The second will be Vanuatu where he was stationed in preparation for the invasion of the Philippine Islands. Pretty neat to be able to do this.

More later.