2012- Week 42

1.  I started to go to yoga regularly in Elkader.  LOVE the teacher, Natalia (an attorney from Dubuque who drives to Elkader every day to work for the county).  First session seemed hard, but I am picking it back up again pretty easily.  Classmates are all very nice.  Natalia is also very knowledgeable about moons and takes the class out on excursions like kayaking to locations to do yoga, etc.

Kathleen at Strategic Planning meeting, making use of her 3M stock.

2. Lots of Farm to School work.  Strategic Planning, Harvest of the Month, and Harvest Challenge in Viroqua, much more.  It was a jam packed week.  The Harvest Challenge was very fun.  I got to hang out with Ella, Kathleen's daughter, who although only 11, has become a good friend and I ran into Katya, who I hadn't seen since birthing group.

Paul was a great husband and was sober chauffeur with the RV for the party.

3. Made it to a half an hour or so of Paula's birthday party.  The girl's were already having a good time when I got to the bar and after about 1/2 hour of laughs and deciding to hit up another bar, Paula was done for the night.

4.  We were able to enter our pumpkins into a contest after all.  St. Joe's Harvest Fest were taking submissions.  We took first in about each category.  My favorite prize is a $25 gift certificate to Drew's.

5.  We went to Michelle's birthday party in Manchester which doubled as an OHP meeting.  We thought we were getting there early, but our invitation had the wrong time and we got there right when the food was being put away (not that they didn't get it back out).  Lots of great conversation, Link slept most of the time, but woke up when Michelle got the cotton candy machine going.

Cold Rainy weather, but some beautiful scenes.

6.  I haven't gotten couchsurfing.com requests over a year but got two for this weekend.  Another cyclist on the Adventure Cycle route and a Danish Algerian woman who wanted to eat at Schera's.  Due to bad weather both ended up canceling.

7.  We took Agnes to the Norway Lutheran Meatball Dinner.  We totally prepared her not to expect much, but we all were blown away.  Great meal and she gave an A+ to everything from the meatballs to the rice pudding, except the mashed potatoes (which were instant).  Afterwards we went to the cemetery attached and she read tombstones to us.

Robin and Agnes' WWI bunker cake

8. Agnes had a hard week.  Her friend, the German Foreign Exchange student decided to move out of her host family's home and find a new one.  Which was doubly hard because she had a host sister the same age.  Robin, the host sister, came to make a cake for history class with Agnes during the whole ordeal. 

9.  Trish and Richard borrowed our second car for a few days so we went on Wednesday for dinner at their place.  Sam made "epic guacamole" and we had a good time catching up.

Bordeaux Pizza Special

10.  Link and I went to Manchester to visit Treasure Alley and a few of the stores that my own shop had been compared to to get some ideas.  We also ate at Bordeaux Pizza which I had seen several times, but never thought of trying until I got the recommendation from someone who I met in San Francisco (of all places).  It was mighty tasty.