Pam and I went over to Mom and Dad’s for lunch, and stayed until 7 p.m. We spent several hours playing Rook–me and Dad against Mom and Pam.

Rook, for the unenlightened, is the “Christian” card game. The one we could all play with clear consciences at Huntington University back in the olden days. I remember playing into the early morning hours with Steve Barber, Brad Carpenter, Ray Faber, and other classmates.

As a young married couple in Huntington, Mom and Dad often played Rook with other young marrieds–Marvin and Grace Ann Price, Jim and Joyce Howald, Bob and Fran Myers, Bob and Agnes Baker, and others. Today, they reminisced about some of those games and who usually partnered with who. I realize that one of those “who”s shoulda been a “whom,” but this is Christmas, so be charitable.

We play to 500 points, and the maximum you can win in a hand is 180 points. Dad and I burst out of the gates with two 180-point hands. Got up to 470 points, and then let up, going set a few times. But we still prevailed, winning the first game.

But in the second game, Dad and I managed to lose a game to 500 points by 800 points. How is that possible? Mom and Pam ended with 635 points, while Dad and I were more than 200 in the hole.

Then Mom and Pam won game 3. And game 4. But Dad and I salvaged game 5, to end the night a respectable 2-3. Still losers, but at least it wasn’t 1-4. That would have been humiliating, as opposed to merely embarrassing.

Last night, we had our staff Christmas party. We started with light snacks at the home of Phil and Darlene Burkett, and then headed to The New Huntington, the renovated theatre in beautiful downtown Huntington, Ind., which has been turned into a supper club.

The meal was good. The program was great. Three very talented singers doing Christmas-themed songs, interspersed with hilarious background info about the songs by one of the founders.

One song was Gary Allen’s “Let’s be Naughty (and Save Santa the Trip).” One of the two guys, Kyle, a nice-looking young guy with a beautiful high voice, sang this one. And for part of the song, he was on his knees in front of my wife, serenading her with these words:

Such a long sleigh ride from the North Pole
And he’s already got so many places to go
We’ve got each other, don’t need another gift
Let’s be naughty and save Santa the trip

Well Santa’s face would turn red if he could only see
What we’ll be unwrapping underneath our Christmas tree
Well this year all I’m asking for is one little wish
Let’s be naughty and save Santa the trip

He couldn’t have picked a better person. Pam, as those of you who know her are aware, is a very outgoing, free-wheeling kind of person…NOT. I was sitting behind Pam, but would love to have seen her horrified face. At least she didn’t have to get out of her seat.

Anyway, it made the evening quite memorable. And now Pam has challenged me to serenade her with, “Let’s be naughty and save Santa the trip.” Hmmm.

Jordi was sitting in the front yard, looking up the street. Two young kids, maybe 6th grade, came down the walk with three dogs on leashes–a small poodle, and two even smaller dogs. The yappy kind.

Then the two kids spotted Jordi at the same time. They quickly came to a stop.

I heard the girl say, “I thought that was a big dog.”

Then they turned around their dogs and headed back the other way. Didn’t want to risk tangling with our 17 pound boy.

Jordi is SO intimidating. Meow.

Our vacation is now over–but what a great time Pam and I had!

We traveled 2900 miles in our Infiniti, trouble-free. Did a little backtracking, including the whole southern part of South Dakota and a little stretch in Minnesota, but didn’t mind. Left home September 9, returned home late Friday night, September 17.

We left home Wednesday, September 9, for Chicago, where I attended the MinistryCOM conference Thursday and Friday. But starting Saturday, it was all vacation. We headed to Minneapolis, and Sunday night found us in South Dakota. We spent three days in the Rapid City area–the Badlands. Gorgeous territory! We were there about 16 years ago, but it was a quick trip–saw Rushmore, Deadwood, and headed on. This time, we got to enjoy the beauty of the Black Hills.

We had sunshine and 70-80 degree weather the whole way. Perfect!

In Chicago, ate at a little deli with incredible 50’s decor. That was the good part. The food was terrible, and the only workers were two Arab-Americans who spoke to each other in arabic.

Visited Long Grove, a quaint section on the edge of the Chicago metropolis with shops in old houses. Pam was there many years ago with her Dad, Chuck.

That’s about it for Chicago. On Saturday morning, we headed for Minneapolis, and spent most of the day heading there.

Visited the Mall of the Americas Saturday night, September 12. We had about four hours before closing, and trekked the place and ate (at the original Rainforest Cafe) in about three hours. It’s truly enormous. And the recession doesn’t seem to have hit that mall. It was busy busy busy.

Attended church Sunday morning, September 13, at Berean Baptist in Minneapolis.  Brent Birdsall, a friend from Huntington, joined the staff two years ago. Quite an impressive church. With an attendance of 2000, Brent said they are still only the 55th largest church in Minneapolis. We took Brent to lunch (Sandie was in Seattle with a daughter) and spent several enjoyable hours with him, mostly there at Ruby Tuesdays.

Minneapolis is the home of the NFL Vikings, the first team I fell in love with as a kid. That was back in the Fran Tarkenton/Alan Page/Chuck Foreman days. I rooted loyally for them for many years, but they continually let me down. I’ve since switched loyalties to the Colts. Nevertheless, some remnants of Viking fanhood remain. I bought a Vikings T-shirt and cap. But I didn’t get one of the Brett Favre T-shirts and jerseys that adorned shop windows throughout the city.

After leaving Brent, we pressed on to Sioux Falls, SD. Didn’t intend to get that far, but went for it. Found a Holiday Inn Express, and found a very poor late-night meal at a Perkins.

We were really impressed with Sioux Falls. We could live there. Spacious, modern, clean, easy to get around. The interstate goes down the middle, and practically everything can be found off of the 4-5 exits. Sioux Falls has one of the nicest malls I’ve ever seen.
 

First thing Monday morning, September 14, we went to the Sioux Falls zoo. The AAA book said it was a gem. And it was. A very nice zoo for a city of 125,000. Not as nice as Fort Wayne’s zoo, but worth seeing.

Outside the zoo entrance was an old piano. I took a seat and played while Pam snapped some pictures.

The original plan was to spent Monday night in Mitchell, SD, and head to Rapid City on Tuesday. But after leaving Sioux Falls around 2:30, we decided to make it to Rapid City that night. We skipped the Corn Palace in Mitchell. We skipped Wall Drug. Stopped at both of them during our visit in the early 1990s. Figured on stopping at Wall Drug on our way home, since we would be backtracking.

Arrived around 9 pm in Rapid City. The Hampton and Holiday Inn Express were full, but Comfort Inn had a place for us.

Found a gourmet pizza place called Boston’s for a late-night meal. Turns out that at that time of night, you can get a personal pizza for $2.99. That’s what we did–2 personal pepperoni pizzas, 2 drinks. Fantastic pizza! And couldn’t beat the price.

That’s enough for this post.

In front of Mom and Dad’s house.

Mom, Dad, and Pam.

Pam and I have been having a lot of fun doing garage sales with my parents. We did three last year (Memorial Day weekend, August, and early October. Then we did three this year: Memorial Day weekend, August, and Labor Day. The latter two were just three weeks apart. And yet, we still took in over $600 at each. Memorial Day this year brought in over $1000.

We hold the garage sale at my parents’ place. They’re located in a real nice addition, and a number of neighbors also hold garage sales. We sell items from my parents, Pam and me, my niece Paula and her husband, and my brother Stu and his wife, Joyce. Sometimes we have things from Terry and Carol Easterday, friends of my parents who live in South Bend. Today, we sold items for Pam’s sister, Jodie. It’s a trick keeping track of what is sold. Pam excels in that role.

This weekend, the two neighbors to the north of Mom and Dad held garage sales, plus two others along the same street.

Mom’s cookies are always a big hit. This weekend, she made peanut butter cookies and sugar cookies. They all sold out before noon today, at 25 cents per cookies (in packages of 2 and 6). All of her homemade noodles sold out yesterday. She’s been doing cookies for several years now at garage sales, and they pull in lots of repeat customers. Today, about a half hour after we closed and had the garage door down, a girl rang the doorbell asking if we had any cookies left.

I’ve been selling off my diecast car collection for the last six garage sales. Don’t have a lot of cars left. I’ve also sold a bunch of knives. I had gotten 1000 promotional ink pens from ebay for $46 (a nickel each), and have been selling them for 10 cents each or 12 for $1. I started selling them at last October’s garage sale. Today, the last of them were purchased.

Pam has been selling her Beanie Baby collection. One lady yesterday bought 90 beanies, which she’ll take to Guatemala on a mission trip for kids down there.

Mom runs a highly-organized garage sale. All the clothes have been washed, marked for size, and arranged neatly on rods in the garage. People tell us it’s the best-organized garage sale they’ve ever seen.

So the 2009 season is over. The next garage sale will be Memorial Day weekend 2010. You can bet people will be back for cookies.