VIDEOS: Four Friday Films

Once again the posting date and title don't match but my alliteration marches on nonetheless.

Tunnel Boy

Cow Bowling

Whack-a-Boy

A dramatic stair top ABC's

Two Tuesday Tidbits

I know it is not Tuesday but I liked the alliteration.

I finally figured out what Kellen kept asking me about from the changing table. I understood he was saying, “Which one is today, dada?” I didn’t understand what he was getting at. Turns out he wanted to know which of the clouds on his wall (pictured below) represented today on the forecast.

Looks like Wednesday is partly cloudy with a chance of planes.

And in the real world it's warmer than it has been...but still cold.

He likes to look at the animated weather clouds or sunshine and utter either, “Ooh…cloudy!” or “Ooh…sunny!”

Aidan had a funny moment today as well...a very male moment (I can admit it). He wanted to play and I told him I had to clean up the kitchen. He walked into the kitchen, saw there was a perfectly navigatable path to walk about in and completely ignored the teetering mounds of dishes and other items on the counters. “Looks o.k. to me” he said. I asked him if he thought the kitchen north of the floor looked good to him to which we responded, “Oh, I see.”

Perdóneme?

Kellen was not keeping quiet in church this morning so I ducked out with him. I decided we’d head to the church reading room to page through some books. There’s a speaker in there so I can listen to the goings on while keeping his chatter away from the sanctuary.

He loves reading books so I did consider that my trip to a room full of reading material would cause problems on future Sundays. Let’s hope our weekly Friday trip to the town library is enough to satisfy his appetite for new stories. He loves going over there so much that every time I tell him to put on his shoes he asks if we're going to the library.

The best moment of our short visit to the church library today came when a mother and her infant child came in and sat on the opposite side of the room. Shortly after their arrival Kellen grabbed a book, looked at it, clearly said “it’s in Spanish” and put it back.

Did he just say? Yes, he did.

There’s a DVD at the public library that teaches kids Spanish and we happened across it again on Friday. Perhaps the cover on the church book looked similar to the pictures on the DVD.

Muy gracioso…very funny!

Car Shop Conversations

It may sound strange but I really enjoy going to change the oil in the cars. They have a small waiting area and it allows me to sit with Aidan and Kellen and chat without the distractions they have all around them at home. If we’re home there are toys are cartoons to grab their attention and plenty of space to run off to. At the local Goodyear shop there’s a small couch, two folding chairs and infinite conversation possibilities.

We discussed blimps and how they differ from hot air balloons including what makes them go up and how they come down. Aidan observed two of the workers coming to grab drinks from the soda machine and then explained to me in great detail just how I could get a bottle of my own to come down the shoot. Upon seeing the blinking blue lights on the coffee machine Kellen insisted that we could play video games on it and wanted to hear his favorite song from Wii Music.

As was the case last time, there was another patron waiting for their vehicle trying to appear as if they we not listening in on our conversation. I just hope she wasn’t embarrassed when Aidan debated which restroom was for men and which was for women. He has no problems deciphering which is which but the doors were open and the identifying placards were not visible from where we sat. We chatted about motorcycles, helped Kellen showcase his ABCs and discussed the issues of the week like our school visit from the day before and who was coming to visit next.

Finally it was time to say goodbye to the car shop dog and head for home. It was more meaningful than our other errands and just as exciting as watching Aidan recoil from the glass as I turned the car wash hose on his window earlier in the day.

Kindergarten Here We Come!

We made our first school visit with Aidan last night and I was excited to hear him issue the following statement upon returning to our vehicle. “Dada…Mama…I want to go to school there.” It was good to hear his excitement as he was a bit hesitant to talk about school just a few months ago.


It was fun to walk around seeing the elementary school environment. I even stole some art project ideas from the walls in the hallways that were already used today to keep his young mind stimulated.

We started in the kindergarten classroom and worked our way up the grade levels. The progression in art, classroom tools and the size of the desks was interesting to see. Kellen found a class with a fish tank and is now ready to go to school himself.

I didn’t investigate the bathrooms but was discussing it with a friend earlier in the day. He has a young son and advised that things would be much smaller than I remembered. I immediately recalled a trip to my old grade school for a function I don’t recall. I stepped into the little boys room and was amazed at how scaled down the facilities were. Little things for little people..and big excitement from our little man.

Time to Potty Train?

I ran into the store to pick up two boxes of diapers for Kellen and the friendly cashier man told me my bill was $84. “For two boxes of diapers?!?!” I exclaimed in my two question mark-double exclamation point voice. He calmly told me they were about $40 a box and I handed him cash for the bill. I walked out to the truck and verified with Rachel that the man had not just pulled a fast one on me. Turns out diapers are just that expensive these days.

At our next stop as we walked through the aisle of cleaners I asked Rachel if it would be less expensive just to buy a bunch of Spot Shot and Stain Stick and let Kellen go commando. Not sure we’re ready to go Big Boy with Kellen just yet but the cost of diapering him may be motivation to start early.

On a side note…after sub-Arctic temperatures had kept people indoors for days the shopping aisles were jam packed with people whose bodies and brains were apparently still frozen. We have never had to navigate through so many dazed bodies attached to shopping carts. Grid lock…aisle 9!

The Deur Year End Review

To our dear friends and family,

We didn't have a chance to put together one of those fancy Christmas letters this year so I thought I'd share a few thoughts and pictures from 2008. Your continued well wishes are much appreciated and we wanted to give you a little peak into Minnesota living.

In March we packed up and left our work and friends in Chicago to move up to Minneapolis. We purchased this cozy little home in St. Michael and began settling in.

Rachel is a fine decorator and found this fabulous native clock to decorate our big family room around. It turns out being on time is important here but even more essential is making sure you're wearing the right outfit.

It was nice to know a few people in the area before moving in. Some of you have heard us speak of our friend Bob (he's kind of famous in these parts). He's a transplant from Chicago as well but fits in like he's always lived here. He showed us around the area and helped us feel right at home.

Rachel started working in her new corporate role shortly after the move. The roads here can be a little rough so we are very thankful for reliable transportation.


The neighbors are great and we've had an opportunity to meet a few of them. Their kids are all very cute.

Of course everybody's got that one neighbor that's a little hard to live with. It's not so much the people that we struggle with but their dog can be a nuisance. The kids are a little frightened by him so we try to keep them indoors when he's roaming in the yard.

Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes and everyone loves to spend time on the water. We didn't want to make any excessive purchases but couldn't help but take the plunge on a new boat so we could fit in.


Once summer arrived we were excitedly watching the Olympics and cheering for the USA like everyone else. We wanted to proudly hang the stars and stripes on the flag pole in our front yard but one of the local kids accidentally hit our flag pole while driving past the house.


This November while the country was buzzing with political elections our town elected a new mayor. He's an older guy who works a seasonal job so he can commit much of his year to running the town.

All in all things are good. We're adjusting to our new surroundings and hanging on to many of our past loyalties. As a sports fan I was hoping to find some friends in the area who liked to root for the same teams we do. Who knew there would be so many Bears and Cubs fans right here in Minnesota?

Warm wishes for your new year!