Holidays

Well, I’m once again down in the twin cities. Alison and I just arrived here last night to spend some holiday time with her side of the family, as we spent the last week in the Minot/Westhope/Mohall/Bismarck, ND areas with mine (lots of driving). We had a great time seeing lots of family there that we don’t get to spend enough time with. It was our biggest Christmas Day crowd for quite some time- 19 people in the house up at Westhope. It was a little sad, being grandma Jensen’s last Christmas, because of her cancer, but it was a great Christmas nonetheless as we got everyone together. Mohall was great too; we introduced our other grandma (grandma Rhoads) to Alison, and to Jamie, my brother Adam’s wife, and even though she suffers from pretty bad memory loss (she’s in an Alzheimer’s home), she seemed to put together that we were all family and she did a lot of smiling. Good to see. Minot was packed, as we all stayed at my Aunt Avis’s (thanks Avis!). Mom and dad are in the process of moving, and haven’t found a new house yet, so it was great to have Avis’s hospitality to house all of us.
I managed to squeeze in a singlespeed ride throughout Minot one morning, and was amazed at how small everything seemed in the town I grew up in. My elementary school is just tiny compared to how it looked when I was half my current height. I was a good ride, but man, I’ve got to fix that failing drivetrain on my 1x1- that’s on the menu for this week now that I’m near bike shops that deal in singlespeeds. I’m hoping to stop by One on One Bike Studio in Minneapolis this week. I’m sure there will be tons more vacation fun this week before returning to students next week. More later…