A Day in My Life

I am writing to you on Labor Day 2009. Despite summer winding down for the year, the weather has been terrific recently. Today it has been sunny and in the mid-seventies, and it looks to be more of the same nice weather coming up this week. These last few days have really felt summery, which has been fantastic. But alas, we find ourselves quickly approaching fall. Put away your white clothes and get ready for the weather to start changing.

A few weeks ago, Bethany’s sister Erika, her husband Eric, and their little daughter Liv came up for a few days. We all went to Spicer, MN for the weekend to meet up with the rest of the Bethany’s family at a small resort. Well, it was advertised as a resort at least. It wasn’t all that much to look at. The small house had three tiny bedrooms with one tiny bathroom and a tiny kitchen, and needed some new furniture and a good cleaning. It was fine for the weekend, though. We spent a lot of time outdoors and on the lake. The kids especially spent a lot of time on the water. They went between the paddle boats, canoe, and kayaks all afternoon. It was pretty comical how much switching they did between the three boats. It seemed like they didn’t spend more than five minutes at a time on a single boat. We were there from Friday evening to just after lunch on Sunday.

Before we left for Spicer on Friday, Eric had an interview for a neurologist position at a clinic in Golden Valley. He said it went really well which it pretty exciting. Bethany and I think it would be really fun to have them move back to Minnesota. After visiting an old friend in the area, they came back to our house for the night. Eric had to leave the next day as he had another interview for a job in Boston. Erika and Liv stayed with us until Thursday. It was great fun having them with us for a few days. Liv has really started to make a lot of fun noises recently. While they were here, I took a short video of Liv in her fun noise making stage. Take a listen and just try not to smile. There’s no way you can do it.

Isn’t that just about the cutest thing you have ever seen? Erika and cute little Liv stayed with us until Thursday. We had a great time with the both of them.

As I mentioned before, we decided to get a dog recently. More specifically, we decided to get a little basset hound puppy. Well, last Thursday, that day arrived. I took a half-day on Thursday so that we could head down to pick up our new little puppy. We got down to Sleepy Eye, MN around 2:00 and met our new little friend. Copland was laying outside by the stairs when we arrived, just taking a nap. We were able to meet his parents and his other little dog friends. He sure had a lot of animal friends there on the farm. After about a half hour, we took him away from all the friends he had known for the first eight weeks of his life and took him in the long car ride back to Oakdale. He didn’t really like the car ride at first. However, after about 15 minutes, he didn’t really care anymore as he had fallen asleep. That does seem to be his favorite activity. Take a look at this good looking guy:

Who knew that I would one day own a dog?

This is his favorite position to be in.

That little guy has a fun future in front of him and we have a lot of excitement to look forward to as well!

For those of you who were at Bethany and my wedding, you may have noticed that at that time, Bethany’s sister Rachel was currently pregnant. What you didn’t know, and frankly, neither did we at that time, was that Bethany’s other sister was also pregnant at the time. She ended up telling everyone that she was pregnant the very next day after our gift opening. Talk about adding more happiness onto excitement! She proceeded to tell us that she was due on May 15th, this coming Friday.

Well, Bethany and I were sitting at home last night just about ready to start heading to bed when the phone rang. She looked and me and said, “I bet you it is Erika and she had the baby.” I’m not kidding, she said that! She answered the phone with a “Hello Erika” and we knew there was going to be some good news. She told us that at 6:05, May 11, little Liv Isabel Klawiter was born!

Isn’t she so cute? Erika said that when she starts to cry, she has a little pouty lower lip. If you’re interested in the baby stats, she was 8 lbs 9 oz, 21 inches long. We are planning on heading down to St. Louis to visit everyone this coming June. Now we have one more reason to make it a high priority to get down there this summer. Before I was married, there were no little ones in my family. Now I am an uncle to two nieces and four nephews. Wow, what a change! I do have to say that all those little guys are a lot of fun and they have a lot of energy! Have you ever tried to keep up with a five year-old, you can’t do it. Now there is going to be one more little kid to try to keep up with, and I can’t wait to try.