A few weeks ago, I was telling a story to a group of friends. It was after a church service and we were stationed to one side of a buffet table trying unsuccessfully to discourage kids from shoving handfuls of cookies into their pockets. Since my friends know that most of my stories incorporate off […]
I’m sorry, did you say you CANNOT accommodate my horde of marauding baboons?
We had a family friend who would bring her little dog with her everywhere. “Flurry” would sit quietly in her purse until she arrived at her destination, and then run around like a maniac. I never heard of said friend ever warning anyone that she was coming with her dog. Flurry wasn’t a problem, although […]
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A 3-Day family vacation launched from Base Camp Baker
Every spring break, it seems a number of my children’s friends look forward to exotic vacations. Although the thought of making exciting plans for the break is always alluring, the realities of work schedules and finances precludes this possibility for our family almost every year. Fortunately, in our region there are a number of opportunities […]
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I’ll take the size 7 Woolly Bully, please
I guess it was kind of silly to be a part of the team, but it was the only sport where (a) I could earn a letter just for participating, which I thought was important even though I didn’t have a jacket to wear it on and (b) I didn’t have to try out to make the team – a measure of how desperate they were for runners.
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Hair Band Handicap
Commenting on this cute musician was something that I thought would illicit comments from friends my age who had either swooned over long-haired hooligans or been swooned over because of the length of their locks. After a couple of beers, this seemed like a fun conversation starter.
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Merry Manic Markleys: 2011
Online Greetings Replaced with Oldschool Solution (Unless, of course, you are reading this online: this blog entry represents the electronic version of our traditional holiday update, sent out earlier this week) With focus groups and web analytics revealing a less than positive response to their 2010 online holiday greeting, the Markleys announced this week they […]
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Holiday Traditions: Ho, Ho, Hwaugh
I won’t say who started this, but a certain person in my family (alright, it’s my mom) got a bug one year to establish a new tradition. It might have had something to do with my grandmother moving to Boise and our having had kids – four generations for whom new holiday memories must be […]
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Visiting Skull Island
[From Beth] Today, Juhani and Helena introduced us to their friends Tarja and Kaarlo, who brought us to their island off the coast of Vaasa. The Island is shaped like a skull, and called Nalkasaari (Starvation Island) after a local legend of a group of women who were left there to die. The creepy factor […]
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Art Shows and Archipelagos
[From Beth] Vaasa is known as an arts community, and this week hosted its Evening of the Arts, which seemed a little like Boise’s defunct Curb Cup except all the bands were spread out enough so one could listen to them individually. Of course they were also singing in Finnish. The crowds were lively and […]
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Eating our way through Finland
[From Beth] On Tuesday, we toured around Oulu on foot and stopped at a Finnish buffet for lunch. While we’re in the company of both Colin and Saara, the next meal is never far from our thoughts. Fortunately, the Finns enjoy no fewer than five meals a day, lunch is typically the biggest. On this […]