Family Story

We spent spring break with my mom, who was on her 3rd of 4 rounds of chemotherapy. She taught Mane to customize clipboards:

 

 

And then Mane read stories to Grandma when she was tired at night...

 

We went for a walk (run?) at the nearby county park while Grandma took a nap in the afternoon...

 

And observed all the signs of early spring here in MN...

 

We had a little science lesson about Fens...

 

And we spent hours and hours talking about family history with Grandma. We dragged out the binders Grandma has full of information on hers and Grandpa's families. We started those binders back when I was in 4th grade! We looked at old birth, marriage & baptism certificates, letters from WWII, newspaper clippings, and photos. And we took Mane to visit the cemetery where Grandma's parents are buried, along with 2 of Grandma's siblings, an aunt & uncle, and my cousin's husband. We took photos of the gravestones to add to our family history binder.

 

I have a feeling that Mane will remember this spring break for a very long time. She flew kites with Mango, got a remote controlled helicopter delivered to Grandma & Grandpa's P.O. Box in their little town, ran around outside A LOT, listened to stories, camped out in the living room, did craft projects, invented new games, crocheted, went to bed early, got up early... I'm glad we have the freedom and flexibility to take off and spend a week with Grandma!

Life Lessons

The last few months have brought us:

Visits to the library that made us feel like we were in the Griffindor Common Room...

 

Two visits to the History Center for the 1968 Exhibit (one on our own & one with Mango and the grandparents, who felt that there should be chairs for them to sit in and be part of the display also)...

 

A trip to the Minneapolis Institute of Art with friends to celebrate The Year of the Dragon...

An afternoon at the FIRST Robotics Competition...

...And a whole lot of experience working with people and businesses! Mane has accompanied me to my place of employment, where I was the temporary manager while the owners were out of town for a month. She learned to greet people, make polite conversation, attend to small requests, and anticipate the needs of both the employees and the customers. She was a great help, and this was a fantastic opportunity for her to learn what the management of a small business looks like. She was right there with me while I was answering calls, scheduling appointments, ordering supplies, cleaning, organizing, and problem-solving!

Mane has also launched her own small business designing and building custom computers for people. She and Mango have built her website over the last several months, and last night they delivered her first computer to her first customer! It took them about 2 weeks to work with their client, set the budget, research the component options, order the parts, and build the computer.  Mane explained the various internal components of a computer to me yesterday. Mango supervised the building of the computer, but she did all the work herself.