Laynie Rose Olson

I am enjoying my breakfast of fresh Mahogany-blend Caribou coffee, and a bowl of quinoa, and am ready to do some blogging.

Yesterday, Erin and I headed up to Eden Valley, MN, population 866, for the baptism of my 9-month-old niece Laynie Rose Olson. The service being in Eden Valley comes from a tradition of my brother-in-law Chris's family - most of them grew up in the Paynesville area, and many still live there. (sister) Erin and Chris were married there, and first niece Keagann was also baptized there (during the Christmas Eve service where she was screaming the entire time - this one turned out a little better :) Erin and I left at 7:30am - I wanted to make sure we were there by 11, as it is a 168-mile drive and part of it is not freeway. As it turned out, we were there by 10:15, much earlier than everyone else, so we zipped over to Paynesville (10 miles west) to hunt down some coffee. Thanks to google maps and my geek phone, we found the James Street Coffee Company in downtown Paynesville where we got 2 chai tea lattes - but don't try to use a credit card there unless you are purchasing more than $10 (fortunately I had a little cash with me!)

Everyone was there when we got back to the church, and we said hi to everyone, and (sister) Erin, mom, and I went over the music we were going to play - one of our old standby flute-saxophone duets "People Need The Lord", as well as two hymns that mom played on the piano and I made up some saxophone stuff. (boyfriend) Erin had the job of keeping Laynie occupied while we were getting ready for the service, and they got along great as long as Laynie could see mom from where she was :)

The service finally started - probably about 15 people there total family and friends. Laynie was her usual content and quiet self, and there was no crying or fussing through the whole thing. We took some pictures, and then headed downstairs for potluck lunch and....yes....BINGO! They had a regular potluck/bingo game there on certain Saturdays, so we all joined in. This was NOT just casual bingo either - everyone had to have at least two cards, and they called out the numbers fast. Erin and I were trying to help Keagann keep track of hers, and she finally just lost interest, but she did manage to win more prizes than both of us combined. I ended up winning a bag of microwave popcorn and a bottle of hand sanitizer (good combination?) and Erin won a bottle of conditioner, which seemed appropriate.





After all the food and fun, we went back to the Hedeen farm, where Chris's grandparents live. This was an adventure in itself, because they had just gotten a foot of wet heavy snow the night before, and the roads to the farm were as "minimum maintenance" as you get, so I felt like we were off-roading. We got there and played with the kids and sat and talked for awhile. When 6:00 rolled around, we decided we should probably get going since Erin had to be up to work in the morning. We did stop in Plymouth on the way back to eat at "Old Chicago" since that is one of my favorite places (I wish Rochester would get one!) and Erin had never been there. I also insisted on stopping at a car wash in Buffalo as the car was just coated in mud from the "offroading" to the farm. Otherwise a pretty uneventful trip home, the roads were all clear and it was not windy.

Other News

Friday night friends Bill, Eric, Jay, and Ryan all came over to watch Season 4, Episode 2 of Battlestar Galactica, which didn't disappoint - I won't go into detail so as not to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, but it's definitely looking interesting.

The election isn't "happening" fast enough now - whoever decided it was a good idea to space out the primaries so much is wrong. So I'm losing interest...and gaining interest in other things, including catching up on "Security Now" podcasts (more on that another day) and reading "Death Star" - which is great - and I noticed there are some other interesting-looking Star Wars books coming out now too. I was very disappointed when they did the "New Jedi Order" series because I thought the story took some bad turns.

Also looking forward to the second Batman movie this summer - even more interesting (and sad) because it will be the last new thing we ever see from Heath Ledger.

And I'm into 2 1/2 months now without a haircut :)