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We have news.... from Erinn Letts on Vimeo.

Baby Bennett

Baby Bennett came to visit today!
Bennett is the youngest child of my cousin Brock and his wife, Tracy.

Bennett is getting so big now. He can roll over! We haven't seen him in a really long time, but the boys are still in love with him. Owen loves to touch babies' heads.

Evan just loves to hold babies.

New Babies at the Como Zoo

We went to the zoo today to see the baby tamarins. They were so cute and tiny, but they stayed way up high so the boys couldn't really see them.
There were lots of baby animals to see today. This is Jaya. I think she is one now. I just missed the picture with her sitting in that green St. Patty's Day hat.

All of the orangutans were hanging out right by the window. This one just loved Ava and wanted to share his orange with her. Those little heads there are Loic on the left, then Owen, Ava, and the little red hood is Evan. It must have been something to be that close to an ape that size.

Then we went to see the baby giraffe who is two now, I think. Quite a bit taller than my 2 year old, who is pretty tall himself.

We were going to check out the flower show, but it was closed today. We popped in a little side room that had tons of pictures of polar bears. Owen is very into the Arctic and the Antarctic. These photographs were taken when a group of researchers were tagging and tracking polar bears. There was a lot of information, but these 3 and 4 year olds were really interested.

Evan was more interested in the room where you pretend to be a zookeeper and feed the animals.

He loved it so much, he had to give the zebra a kiss. He doesn't even kiss his family! He just leans in and lets you kiss him. Little stinker.

THANKS FOR JOINING US LISA, LOIC, AVA, & RUBY!!!
And thanks for the photos!

Pyros in the Family

Sunday was a beautiful day with highs in the upper 50's. We decided to take a trip down to Southern Minnesota to visit Great Grandma Verna and The St. Peter Lettses. The kids had a blast riding bikes and playing with sidewalk chalk. They shed their jackets and sloshed through the damp grass.

The older generation, however, quickly bored of such games and decided that it was a good day for a "burn." Jim and Tom love to set fire to a "prairie," which, in this case, is really Tom's swamp. It's not just prairie burns either, they also love campfires & bonfires, too.

This does not look good. I am well across a field when I took this picture of Tom with Tom-look-a-like-protege AKA Evan. They are not as close to that fire as it looks, but more than close enough.

But the "burn" was not enough. They had to make it BIGGER. See Tom throwing a gigantic branch onto the fire? See Ellie and Owen trying to snap branches off trees to add to the obsessiveness of the fire? Yep. We have pyros in the family.

P.S. This is why I smelled like smoke at book club tonight.

Oprah

Jim's best friend, Greg, works for the Oprah Show. Since August, he and I have been trying to arrange a trip to the show for my family and me. We were set to go in November, but the show got canceled, which was OK because my Grandma was having some side effects from her chemo treatments. We arranged this trip around a two week break in her chemo and everything looked like it was going to work out smoothly. However, traveling with my mother never seems to be as easy as we'd like it to be. Or maybe it's just
traveling with me.

Wednesday morning I made the trek to Osseo, where we loaded into my aunt's van and headed to Sun Prairie, where we met my mom and continued our way to Chicago. There we hit traffic and tolls galore. The last six miles took us about an hour, but we made it to our hotel before dark. It was cold and we were tired, so we headed down to the hotel restaurant for dinner. Pine, at the Crown Plaza Metro, has a really amazing 40's style menu. My mom ordered a butternut squash risotto and my grandma and aunt followed suit. My cousin Kris started off with an amazing asparagus salad covered in a lemon sauce and fresh Parmesan cheese and I had the meatloaf. I know! But I never get to have meat at home! It was delicious and the mashed potatoes were so creamy!

The next morning, we were to be at the studio at 7 a.m.. The studio was four blocks from our hotel, but we were going to take a cab because it's cold and because four city blocks is too far for my grandmother to walk. So, in order to leave by 6:45, which I felt was more than early enough, my family decided to get up at 5:30. If I had been with the Letts clan, we would have gotten up at 6:15, but then if I had been with the Letts clan, we would have been late. So, since we were suppose to get up at 5:30, my grandma woke us all up at 5:00. I guess we don't want to be late for getting up. As most of you know, I am NOT a morning person. We don't get rolling around here until well after 8 or 9, sometimes 10.

So, we're on our way to the show. We left our cell phones behind because the directions said they weren't allowed. We make it there in record time and were about the 8th group in line. At this point, I was so grateful we got up at 5:00. We get inside, check out coats and make our way to the reservation desk. I give the clerk my ID. She confers with the girl next to her, they look something up on the computer and then she turns to me and says, "There seems to be some kind of mistake." Of course there is! Of course, because I have no cell phone and no way of calling to correct a mistake. Even though just about every person in line has a cell phone, I followed the dang rules. It seems, they said, that they have us on for the afternoon show. My first thought at this point was, "Do you mean I got up at 5 a.m. for nothing!" but I did not say that. What I said instead was that we all had a 7 or 8 hour drive to make after the show, and it would be very difficult for us to attend a show that late. (At this point, I thought the afternoon show started at 3, when actually that was when it would be over.) She told us that we could be on stand by for this show, but that we could for sure see the next show, which lightened out mood. Suddenly we had a chance to see two shows.

They sent us to a bench inside the front hallway, where we sat and stood while all the people behind us went through. Finally, about 45 minutes later, Greg found us. We told him about the mix up. He went up to talk to the clerk and about 2 minutes later, we were entering the show. At this point, when we got to the audience holding room, it was standing room only. A staff there kicked a couple of guys out of their seats for my aunt and grandmother, which was good. But, when it was time for us to enter the studio, we were at the end of the group. We were directed to a row where only 2 of the 5 seats had a view of the stage.

When the staff wasn't looking, we all scurried up to the *back row of a more central section.

I was still really happy because I had wanted to see this show. We read in the news before we left that the show was going to be about the issue of domestic violence in response to the alleged beating of 21 year old singer Rihanna, but her boyfriend, 19 year old singer Chris Brown. I have been selling Mary Kay now for two years and giving all my profits to the Tubman Family Alliance which fights domestic violence on many levels. I was so pleased to see the front section of the studio was filled with kids invited from 3 local high schools. They also had three other high school groups from around the country joining the show via skype and Tyra Banks was there as somewhat of a co-host.

If you saw the episode, you might guess that the show did not live up to my expectations. Here are all these kids and the only help offered was a quick phone number and a website. It seemed the whole episode was devoted to letting victims know they are not alone, instead of letting them know how they can start to change their situation; make a plan, find resources, get support and counseling.

After the show, Tyra & Oprah stayed on stage and talked to the audience for a little bit. I so wanted to raise my hand and tell them about Tubman Family Alliance or to ask them why they didn't have any counselors or experts on the show. They asked for audience members who were very passionate about this topic to come back stage for further discussion. They also wanted moms of boys. I wanted to grab my cousin by the hand and run back there, BUT we thought we had tickets to the next show and we had about 30 minutes to check out of our hotel if we were to make it to that show.

Also, after the show, Greg was suppose to come find us and we were suppose to have our picture taken by the studio photographer. I asked the staff for help, but nobody seemed to know. Then as we were going out, I found the guy that had messed up our tickets. He then told me that not only were we not getting the picture, but since we got into this show, we were taken off the list for the next show. When I finally got back to the hotel and got a hold of Greg, it turned out that that very guy also told Greg we didn't get in and we went for breakfast. Çe la vie. Greg had been looking for us in the afternoon audience. He felt so bad, he met us by the Harpo Studio sign on our way out of town to take our picture and he gave my grandma a beautiful beaded bracelet from the Oprah Store.

We went across the street to buy some trinkets at the Oprah Store and walked over to Wishbone for lunch. We then walked back to our hotel, which we shouldn't have done. It was only three more blocks, but too far for Grandma. Of course check out did not go smoothly either. We got charged for 5 adults in each room instead of 5 adults total. After we thought we had it all figured out, my aunt still ended up being charged for the room three times. I have yet to check my statement.

The ride back was bliss. I laid in the back and read my book club book, Reading Lolita in Tehran. We stopped off at Wendy's and Kris had her first, ever, Frosty. Ooh. I could live off those things. In Sun Prairie, we stopped at a cute little craft store. I was giddy. I never get to go in such places. I left with two bags full of Easter decor. Then we dropped Mom off at Cindy and Brian's. I was so happy to see them, even though it was brief. Their daughter Shannon was the flower girl in my wedding. She was 6 then and is in eighth grade now!

All in all, I still had fun. It was nice to get a break from the monotony of winter in Minnesota, to see some different landscape, to catch a glimpse of Hollywood, and to spend some quality time with my family.

THANKS GREG!

*Thanks, Matt. A friend of mine from high school TiVoed the show, slowed it down, found us, zoomed in, took this picture, added the arrow and posted it for me on Facebook. After all that happened, I am SO grateful.

A Day of Birthdays

We had two very special birthday parties to attend this morning, but Owen had a horribly high fever. So, Evan and I made our way to Henry's 3rd Birthday/Dinosaur Party and Owen Y.'s 4th Birthday/Pirate Party, while Owen laid on the couch watching the Gopher lose with Grandpa and Dad.

As soon as we walked into Henry's house, Evan was handed a bag and told he was on a scavenger hunt to find as many dinosaurs as he could. He really got into it and long after the hunt was over, he was still finding hidden dinos.





Both parties had really cool cakes. The Yeagers actually made three cakes, but this ship shaped one was, well, ship shape!

At Owen Y.'s party, the kids did a treasure hunt similar to the one at our Owen's party. The "treasure" was a piñata.

Each kid got to swing at the chest three times.
(My camera is in the shop and my back-up camera does not record sound and only makes 15 second videos.)
Have you seen the movie Parenthood? You know, with Steve Martin? It's one of my favorites. I think this is the first birthday party I've been to where the kids actually open the piñata by beating it with a stick and now I know why. Troy, I will now call you Gill forever more.
(watch trailer to the end to see my point)

Movie Videos & Movie Scenes at MOVIECLIPS.com

What can I even say about this? This is Evan. He's such a ham.

Happy Birthday
Henry & Owen!!!

Celebrating with Friends

I really wanted to do a Pirate Party for Owen with his friends, but this year I was just not up for it. Apparently, some of the friends were a little upset by this, so today Owen Y. and Alex came over and we had an impromptu party. Jackie brought juice boxes and Dawn brought a loaf of banana bread with her which we made it into a cake.

These boys were running around like madmen, but you see again, the power of a read-a-loud. It's a force they just got resist.

Thank you Dawn and Jackie for making it a very special day for Owen.