Photo © Virginia McCorkell
Honoring those who have served.

Photo © Larry McCorkell
High Falls, near Silver Bay, Minnesota.

Update -- waterfall in falling rain
by Ginny Dake McCorkell
Blaine, MN

Larry was up to the North Shore of Lake Superior with a friend, Dave Gelle. They had hopes of hiking in the woods but as it turned out it rained buckets the whole time. When it was time to come home the sun came out!

Photo © Virginia McCorkell
Linden leaves emerging.

Photo © Kristi Indermark
Our new house.

Update -- new home for the Indermarks
by Kristi Larson Indermark
Litchfield Park, AZ

Since Camryn was born in August, there are suddenly not enough hours in the day. I used to think I was busy before I had kids. Then I thought I was busy when we just had Rylie. After Brooklynn arrived, I thought, "What's one more? I can't possibly be any busier!" Little did I know that keeping three little girls entertained and happy is similar in scope to a space shuttle launch. If I miss the window of opportunity, I go back to my planning bunker and wait for the weather to clear.

Camryn's a pretty happy baby, except when I'm keeping her out of the things she's not supposed to be in. She figures, since she can crawl, anything she can get to is fair game. I have a hard time arguing with her, so I just keep moving things higher. Her latest trick is climbing stairs. Typically, the rest of us only climb stairs when we have to. When she climbs them, the look on her face tells me she could just as well have an American flag to post at the summit.

Of course, it wasn't just the addition of a smiley little girl that made things busier. Rylie started Kindergarten last September, at Robert Asp Elementary in north Moorhead. She goes to school every day for afternoons. I think the biggest thing she's learned is never to trust Dad. When she asked for help with "The cat is red," and I told her it said "The cat smells like peanut butter," I got the look (see above: failed space shuttle launch).

The extracurricular activities seem to be the big time consumers. Rylie wanted to try dance class this year, too, so we started her in "Just For Kix" last fall. Class is once a week, Tuesdays after school, and she's had a handful of recitals. The recitals are fun to watch, with dancers of all ages participating. As I watch the classes of 15 girls dance, I can't help but wonder what kind of mind control devices the teachers use to make all these little girls cooperate and dance together.

Since we're hoping to spend some time at the lake this summer, swimming lessons seemed like a good idea, too. MSU-Moorhead has a program, so we entered both Rylie and Brooklynn. Rylie has advanced from Level 1 to Level 2 Beginner to Level 2 Advanced, and is a complete natural in the water.

Brooklynn has advanced from the Preschool level to Level 1, but was a far bumpier road. She's always been afraid of pools, usually just sitting on the steps, and completely freaking out if I try to take her in any further. So at the first lesson, she spent the entire time screaming and crying. As much as I wanted to go help, I kept my distance to let the teacher do her magic. At the second lesson, she spent the first 20 minutes screaming and crying, before settling down for the last 10 minutes. At the third lesson, she didn't scream, but looked like a rigid little 3 foot long 2 by 4 in the water. By the last three lessons of that first session, she was splashing the teacher and generally having fun. Now she swims around the pool with a floatation noodle tied around her middle, chasing after toys that the teacher tosses. Since Brooklynn will be starting preschool this fall at the YMCA, where they spend time in the pool, we're pretty happy that she's progressed to that point.

Rylie had a male teacher for her last session, but when she prepared to leave home for the second lesson by putting on eye shadow and lipstick, I didn't put 2 and 2 together until she did the same thing for the third lesson. The shade of red her face turned when I asked if she was putting on makeup for her boyfriend confirmed my suspicions. Please pray for my sanity in the next 15 years.

We have a neighbor who works for the Moorhead school district, and last November, she volunteered Jolene to participate in a task force to look into Moorhead offering full day kindergarten classes. Since it didn't fit very well with her work schedule, and since I was really interested in doing it, I took her place. We met once a week through February, working with a couple of other parents, the principals of the elementary schools, some Kindergarten teachers, a school board member, and the superintendant. Eventually, we made a recommendation to the school board that, while it would be nice to have such an option available, it's nearly impossible to do so without state funding, if we want to make it available to families of all income levels.

Since I like being involved and can't say no, I agreed to become a member of our church council when nominated by a fellow chancel choir member. I've been doing that now for a few months. We only meet once a month, so it's not a huge time committment. The weeks that I have that, though, it still adds to the general busy feeling. I'm on the finance committee, and it's been pretty interesting to see just what it takes to run a church.

After taking three months off from work after Camryn arrived, Jolene's back at Meritcare. She's currently working a .8 schedule, which means she averages 32 hours a week. Since she works 12 hour night shifts, that means she works a three-week rotating shift of 3 nights (Sun, Mon, Tues), 3 nights, 2 nights (Sun, Mon). We've talked about her staying home with the kids instead of working, but she wants to keep her skills up as a Respiratory Therapist, so that just won't work. She's going to cut back to a .6 schedule starting sometime this summer, which means she'll just work two 12-hour shifts every week (Sun, Mon). We're very much looking forward to that, as it'll give us an extra evening every week for family time. Plus, a 2 on 3 defense works much better than my 1 on 3 defense I have to use those nights that she works.

Work for me has been much of the same. We're working on software for making John Deere engines become "Interim Tier 4 compliant," which (simplisticly) means drastic reductions in the stuff coming out the exhaust pipe. We're using a faster, more complex microprocessor than we've used in the past, so it's been a fun learning experience. I briefly entertained a move to project management this winter, but decided that I still enjoy the technical aspect of my job too much to make a switch right now.

At home, we're still debating whether or not our house still works for our family. We love our location, since it's close to work (especially considering today's gas prices) and it's a quiet neighborhood. But we'd really like a better layout, and not the split-level type house. We're currently in the middle of a couple of projects, including laying ceramic tile in the laundry room, and changing our deck to put part of it down at ground level. Even if we end up selling, we figure these will be nice selling points, and they're pretty inexpensive updates. We'll see what the future holds!

This summer should provide more opportunities for updates. Jolene and I are taking a trip to New York with Weston and Shawn, where we'll attend a Twins game at Yankee Stadium. It's a combination 10 year anniversary trip and excuse to see Yankee Stadium before it's demolished.

That's about all I've got for now. I'll try to keep more up to date, to avoid the marathon updates! The picture I've included is a few months old, but they all pretty much look the same. :-)

Wyatt

Beaver and I went to Sauk Rapids to attend Penny Miller and John Peska's wedding reception. (Ardis Quick took more pictures and will send in a write-up about the wedding next week. --Ed.)

Photo © Donna Johnson
Wedding cake & photo of John & Penny on table at the reception.

Photo © Donna Johnson
Jeni holding Ava, Sami, Kurt holding Madi, at the wedding reception.

Photo © Donna Johnson
Kerstyn Schroeder & Becky Chap raking leaves.

Let's Play a Guessing Game: Whenever it is handy to do so, we will run a picture of someone of the subscribers or staff members of our e-magazine. Tell us who you think it is -- we will let you know who was the first to guess it right -- and the correct guess -- in the following week's Bulletin.

(Send us some to run; we will line them up in our staging area to take their turn. LeRoy Dake supplied last week's mystery picture.

Answers to last week's mystery pictures (click here to review them):

Editors' Note: Correct guesses appear in bold face type and incorrect guesses in normal type ... generally in the order we receive them, so the first guess received is on top.