First day of school. Bereket starts 3rd grade today. Eshetu, with great joy in himself, starts kindergarten. They will have to brave the rain over recess, etc., but they will have a great day. We'll celebrate with a movie on our new (to us!) couch after a supper of sub sandwiches.

I turned 35 on Sunday, another sure sign that it is fall and time is rolling on. One has to pause in such moments to reflect on the past. So after weeks of meaning to do this, I am finally committing myself to reflecting on our wonderful trip to the mountains in our motor home, which was already a month ago. I'll try to reflect on each day of the trip separately. Today, we begin with the first day of our trip.

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Thursday, August 5: our vacation started a day earlier than we had planned. My last living grandmother died after a slow-steady decline. Ella A. Olson was to be buried on August 6 in Stephen, Minnesota. So, we packed up the motor home a day early. The kids and I worked hard in the morning to get everything loaded up. We had to pack dress clothes in addition to vacation clothes. Audrey worked at Northern Pines until 11am. We left for East Grand Forks shortly before 1pm. We got to my parents' house around 4:45, ate a quick supper and then drove to Stephen in their van. Everyone else was already there for the visitation and prayer service. We arrive shortly before 6. The normal route was under construction, so we took what felt like a much longer way. But we arrived with plenty of time to greet family not seen in a while -- as well as my siblings and parents. After the visitation, I rehearsed with the organist to sing "The Lord's Prayer," and after retunring home and tucking the kids in (very late!!), I went to my brother's house to practice with my sister-in-law a bluegrass arrangement of Amazing grace to be sung the next day as well.
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And that's the news from Browerville.

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