2009-05 Mariah Goes to Prom

Eagan High School held their Junior-Senior prom over Memorial Day Weekend. Mariah attended the prom with Mitch Sandman.

Mariah and Mitch were part of a group of 13 couples who were going together as a group. They met in downtown St. Paul for photos, both of the couples and the large group shot. From there they walked over to the Great Hall of the First Trust Center where the grand march was held. Each couple came down a 2 story escalator and then were announced and presented to the audience.

After the grand march, the couples took a limousine ride to dinner at Ciao Bello restaurant in Bloomington.   Then it was off to the prom dance, back at First Trust Center. Once the dance was over, they headed over to one of Mariah's friend's house for the after party.

Late the next morning, many of them met at Schultz Lake beach for some relaxation, sleep and sunburns.

2009-05 Mother's Day and the Race For the Cure

We all spent Mother's Day morning doing the Race for the Cure at the Mall of America. Mariah and Hailey got up early and joined in on the 5K race before joining the rest of the members of Marsha's Milers on the 5K walk. It was estimated that over 50,000 people took part in the various races during the morning.

Hailey and Mariah finished the run together in under 30 minutes, even though they were a ways back from the start and didn't even get to the starting line for a couple of minutes after the clock started

Just to get to the starting line for the walk took over 30 minutes due to the huge crowd of walkers, although we were in no hurry to finish. While on the walk we ran into various people we knew, including some former neighbors who now live in the Detroit area, but come back every year for Mother's Day. We stopped and listened to a drum line who had set up along side the route and were playing some peppy music to keep everyone moving along.

After the walk, everyone came over to our house for Mother's Day lunch. We also got to see newborn baby Leo for the first time as Heidi and Julie brought him over. Leo got to celebrate his birthday with the other relatives with May birthdays--Lois, John, and Jenny.

2009-04 Kara on the golf team

Kara decided that she wanted to try out for the Eagan High School golf team this year. After a series of practice rounds and tryouts, Kara made the JV team. They played most their matches at Parkview, but she also got to play at Emerald Greens and at Apple Valley golf course

She played very consistently during the season, usually shooting in the low 50's. She finished the season with her best round of 48 in the final match of the year. The matches consisted both dual team and multi team events. During dual team events, two members of each team played in a foursome, while at multi team events, there would be just one member of each team. She met and played against a lot of older girls from the other schools.

She will be playing in several Junior PGA tournaments this summer in places like St. Peter, Rochester, and Red Wing.

2009-3-26 to 2009-3-28 Spring Break in Duluth

During Spring break, Kara, Hailey and LeAnn headed to Duluth for a few days. It was just the three of us, as Mariah was enjoying her break down in the Alabama Gulf Shores with some of her friends and Ray was traveling to the Philippines, Taiwan and China for work.

We left on Thursday morning and made a couple of stops along the way. In North Branch there is an outlet mall, so we decided to go into a few stores. We got on the road again and then it was time for lunch, so we stopped at Tobies in Hinkley. They are famous for the delicious caramel rolls, of course, we bought some for later.

The Radisson was our final destination which we found with the help of Ray’s GPS. I can’t go anywhere without it now…what did we do before all of the convenient electronics. Kara and Hailey were impressed by the “sleep number” beds that were in the rooms. They used the remote to get the bed to feel just right.

Hailey and LeAnn went down to the pool and we were the only people swimming and using the hot tub and sauna.

That evening we headed down to Canal Park to find a restaurant for dinner. We had discussed going to Grandma’s, but unfortunately they had a band playing and it was very loud. We wandered down the street to Green Mill for pizza. As we were getting seated, I noticed a familiar face…a Mom that I know from Eagan.

The next day, we headed to the Great Lakes Aquarium and spent a few hours walking around and looking all the exhibits. We watched the river otter feeding and another show where the staff introduced and talked about the green-winged Macaw. We also went through the seahorse exhibit and learned that the female deposits the eggs into the male's small pouch and the male fertilizes the eggs internally. He carries the eggs until they are ready to hatch, then releases fully formed, miniature seahorses into the water. Seahorses are among the only animal species on Earth which the male bears the unborn young.

On Saturday, we checked out of our hotel and made our way to Glensheen, The Historic Congdon Estate. We went on a 2-hour tour of the carriage house and the home with 39 rooms where Chester and Clara raised seven children. The house had many features built in the home that most people didn’t have, such as electricity and the vacuum system. We will have to tour the mansion in the summer just to see the beautifully manicured grounds, gardens and lake view terrace.

We made it back home and were greeted by Mariah as she had gotten home a couple hours before us.

2009-3-26 to 2009-3-28

During Spring break, Kara, Hailey and LeAnn headed to Duluth for a few days. It was just the three of us, as Mariah was enjoying her break down in the Alabama Gulf Shores with some of her friends and Ray was traveling to the Philippines, Taiwan and China for work.

We left on Thursday morning and made a couple of stops along the way. In North Branch there is an outlet mall, so we decided to go into a few stores. We got on the road again and then it was time for lunch, so we stopped at Tobies in Hinkley. They are famous for the delicious caramel rolls, of course, we bought some for later.

The Radisson was our final destination which we found with the help of Ray’s GPS. I can’t go anywhere without it now…what did we do before all of the convenient electronics. Kara and Hailey were impressed by the “sleep number” beds that they had in the rooms. Here they are with the remote in their hand trying to get the bed to feel just right.

Hailey and LeAnn went down to the pool and we were the only people swimming and using the hot tub and sauna.

That evening we headed down to Canal Park to find a restaurant for dinner. We had discussed going to Grandma’s, but unfortunately they had a band playing and it was very loud. We wandered down the street to Green Mill for pizza. As we were getting seated, I noticed a familiar face…a Mom that I know from Eagan.

The next day, we headed to the Great Lakes Aquarium and spent a few hours walking around and looking all the exhibits. We watched the river otter feeding and another show where the staff introduced and talked about the green-winged Macaw.

On Saturday, we checked out of our hotel and made our way to Glensheen, The Historic Congdon Estate. We went on a 2-hour tour of the carriage house and the home with 39 rooms where Chester and Clara raised seven children. The house had many features built in the home that most people didn’t have, such as electricity and the vacuum system. We will have to tour the mansion again just to see the beautifully manicured grounds, gardens and lake view terrace.

We made it back home and were greeted by Mariah as she had gotten home a couple hours before us.

2009-03 Hailey's First Swim Meet

Hailey has joined the school swim team this year. Although she has always loved to swim, she has never swam competitively.

In her first meet, she swam in the 50m freestyle and then the first leg of the 200m freestyle relay. She was hoping to do the breaststroke, but not this time. The coaches will change up the lineup in each meet, so hopefully she will get an opportunity.

The swim team is both boys and girls, although they only swim against kids of the same gender. There are a total of about 45 kids on the team, with about 12 of these on the diving team.

You can watch Hailey swim in the video below, she is in lane 5, second from the top.

2009-02 New Adventures in Asia--Shanghai

After arriving late afternoon, I walked from the hotel to the subway station to take the subway down to the Oriental Pearl Tower. As I got close, I looked across the street to see a reminder of my hometown--a Best Buy store in Shanghai. Luckily it was written in both English and Chinese so I knew what it said. I wandered through the local shopping center and had a bite to eat before heading back.

As I got off the subway to go back to the hotel, it exited to a fashion market, a large series of stands selling all sorts of clothing and gear at inexpensive prices--if you are good at barganing as they start their prices about 3 to 4 times higher than the final price. I did end up getting a Twins and Vikings jersey while I was there. Being an indoor market, it is a different experience than the previous outdoor market that we had gone to.

Around the hotel was nice shopping and eating area with various local restaruants and many food choices including Itialian, American, and Irish. There was also a lot of statues scattered throughout the area.

On the way to the airport, we decided to take the Maglev high speed train. It goes about 20 miles in just 8 minutes. It is a convenient way to get to the airport without any traffic worries. The maglev station is only about 5 minutes from the hotel.

2009-02 New Adventures in Asia--Manila

I arrived in Manila on Saturday afternoon, so I decided to do a couple of special sightseeing trips while I was here. The first was to the American Cemetery in Manila. This is the largest American cemetery outside of the US, with about 17,000 US and Filipino servicemen buried here. The grounds are immaculate. It is a circular shaped area with all the grave sites radiating out from the central memorial. The memorial is an open courtyard with a small enclosed alter on one end and then the names of the soldiers carved into a series of vertical stone tablets that form the ring around the courtyard.

Many people were at the memorial on this afternoon, including a church group of adults and children. Many individuals and couples were also wondering around, both at the memorial and through the grave sites. The grave sites were also laid out in a circular pattern and were visible from the memorial, which was at the highest point on the grounds.

I stopped for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, and found it interesting that on a Saturday evening at 7:30 PM, there were tables galore. The band did not start until 9:30, which is when the crowds do become larger. Oh how nice it would be to go out on a Saturday evening and have no wait to sit down and eat in the US.

On Sunday, I went with his co-worker Greg and two of his friends Aaron and Ghenty to visit Corregidor Island, site of a famous series of WWII battles. We arrived at the pier about 9:30 expecting a 10:00 departure, but the actual departure time was 11:00, so we had plenty of waiting time. The boat was fully enclosed and had assigned seating with coach bus style seats. They played some historical videos while we were navigating across Manila Bay. The ride took about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Corregidor was a strategic island during the war because it sits in the middle of the mouth of Manila Bay and could be used to protect the bay from attach. The US forces first started building on Corregidor in the 1910’s and made the island self-sustaining with water, electricity, housing, a movie theatre and YMCA. Many thousand men and some of their families were stationed on the island, even prior to the war.

After arriving we had lunch before boarding some open air buses for the tour. We would stop at various places and then have 10-15 minutes to explore each place. Our first stop was at the Pacific War Memorial. This is one of only two US WWII war memorials, the other being Pearl Harbor. It has a round alter under a football shaped dome, and the sun shines directly on the alter on May 6th, the anniversary date of the taking of Corregidor by US forces from the Japanese. As you keep walking through the memorial, you come to a large orange, metal sculpture that represents an eternal flame. The views from up here are towards Manila from the highest points on the island. From there, we started to work out way down the island. This was also the site of the parade grounds and the first landing zone for the US paratroopers when they came to recapture the island.

We then stopped at the mile long barracks (closer to 1/3 a mile, but still impressive). Over 5,000 men called this home at one time. It included a swimming pool (which is still visible) and bowling alley. Many of the buildings here are in some state of collapse, but we were still allowed to explore in the ruins. The buildings are all concrete, including walls and floors.. Nothing has roofs on it any more. You can see evidence of shrapnel and shell hits on all the buildings. Some have just craters, and others have actual holes blown through.

Our next stop was the island lighthouse. There are actually 2 lighthouses now, a modern taller one along with a smaller one, originally put in place by the Spaniards, although it has been rebuilt since its original placement. We were allowed to climb to the top of the original lighthouse, taking 52 steps to get there.

As we went further down the hill, we stopped and saw many of the large mortar guns used to protect the entrance to the bay. These had large diameters for shells up to about 10 inches. A pair of disappearing guns looked out towards the ocean. The unique thing about these guns was that they would rise up to fire and then settle back down below the wall upon firing their shells, making them difficult to spot from the water. They also had to switch out barrels after a series of shells as they barrels would overheat loose accuracy. The barrels were riffled to put spin on the shells to improve accuracy.

As we made it back down to sea level, we stopped at the pier that MacArthur left from to go to Australia to guide the war effort. It was from Australia that he made his famous quote “I shall return” in reference to the Philippines. A large statue has been commissioned in his honor at the docks. He led the troops and lived on Corregidor for much of the war. He was ordered off by the president to prevent his possible capture, which would give a big moral boost to the Japanese.

The last stop was the Malinta tunnel, a tunnel that was bored through the island for the purpose of storing munitions and supplies, and providing a protected and safe bomb shelter and working area. The tunnel has multiple side tunnels that go off at angles from the main tunnel. Two sets of train tracks run through the tunnel to aid in loading supplies. The tunnel is about 30 feet wide. The tour of the tunnel included a sound and light show with both video presentations and sculptures with audio narration in the lateral tunnels to give the history of Corregedor Island and the battles that occurred.

We then boarded the boat for the trip back to Manila. There were a lot of tired people on the boat, and many slept on the way home. Once we landed, we went out to eat a restaurant called Handlebars--as in motorcycle handlebars. One of the main features was there grilled meat special, that includes a cut of steak, or pork, or other types of meat, grilled out on the patio to your liking. It comes with a baked potato and fixings, cole slaw and beans. A real American picnic meal.