Journal

A week ago an unknown woman drove up our driveway; it turned out she was researching her family history and I was part of it. A neighbor about a mile down the road from us told Ingrid that we lived on the property where her great, great, great aunt (my great, great, grandmother) had lived. Pat got Ingrid, the new relative, a glass of wine and we spent a couple of hours talking about our ancestors who had lived in Round Prairie. She left to go see the local Round Prairie cemetery and then on to Missouri for some more family research. She called yesterday afternoon to let me know that she had found the gravesite of my great, great, great grandparents right there in Round Prairie cemetery. I went up to look at it and then Ingrid came back to our house and had sauerbraten with us and our friend Bill who is visiting. She is an interesting person and I knew she was a relative of mine because she used to be a costume designer for the Seattle opera company! She started on her way back to Denver after supper.

We made a quick trip last weekend to Iowa City to have supper with a childhood friend of Pat's from his days at the Academy of Mary Immaculate. Sandra signed Pat's copy of her book - Pat is protrayed in the book as Denny - and they did some reminiscing about their junior high school days and catching up on what they have done in the past 40 years. It was an interesting evening.

Jonathan and Gram slept in the old house last night and per Jonathan this morning, "It was great". We lit the kerosene lantern and saw what it would have been like a hundred years ago - it was amazingly dark! Other than a 3:00 am trip to the bathroom, we slept well and woke up to birds singing and sunlight.

Jonathan and Kayleigh are great fun to have around - we've only made one day trip so far to a natural history museum in Lawrence. Jonathan enjoyed the dinosaur skeletons, the bugs and the snakes and the reverberation of the big old building; Kayleigh enjoyed running. Cousin Helen was here for lunch one day and Jonathan ate with the grown-ups and was a perfect gentleman. Yesterday, Jonathan and Gram made dill bread with fresh dill from the garden; all, including Jonathan had a freshly baked piece.

Kayleigh is an intrepid, little imp with personality plus. She squeaks with delight when she is allowed to crawl up the stairs. After a hesitant start in the swimming pool, she walked around in it even though she was shivering. And she looks so cute in her yellow swim cover-up.