Perham, MN

We went to Perham, MN to visit Paul’s Grandma Olstad and his Uncle Butch and Aunt Cheryl. We had a wonderful visit with Grandma O. We are grateful the whole family got to see her again. She had a stroke four years ago and the doctors didn't think she would live very long. Paul flew down from Alaska to see her then, and here she is four years later looking great! She’s a wonderful lady who loves the Lord, we miss living near her.

Paul’s Aunt Cheryl is introducing Grandma O. to Sarah. She enjoyed meeting Sarah, Benjamin and David for the first time.

Paul’s cousin Matt & his wife Sarah and their three girls met us at Grandma O’s and then we all went out to Butch & Cheryl’s.

We stayed up late talking and the next day Matt & Sarah left to go back to Duluth, MN. After they left the day just kept getting nicer and nicer. Pretty soon the kids had their swimming suits on and were playing in the lake.

Quentin, Abigail & Deborah are playing Norwegian golf.

We started helping Butch put his dock in the water.

Lots of hands made it easy work.

Paul put on waders to secure the legs for the dock. In the picture below, he just found out there was a leak around the waist and it was cold!

It kept getting hotter and the kids talked us into launching the paddle boat.

Pretty soon Paul and the kids were daring each other to jump in. Paul told the kids he would jump in first if they would follow. He went and got his swimming suit on and strode swiftly down the dock, determined to dive in without thinking about how cold it was going to be.

He dove straight in as several of the kids were yelling, “Daddy, you forgot to take your shoes off!” It was a beautiful dive though, hardly any splash.

It was cold!

After he got out, he found out that Deborah and Quentin had beat him to it and had already jumped in. Not to be left out Abigail, Caleb, Joshua and Anna jumped in too. They all jumped out as fast as they got in because it was so cold.

We had a wonderful day and then we headed up to Grafton to see Paul’s sister Debbie and her family. By the time we got there we were all quite red from sunburn. It was gone by morning and I’m sure it was a good thing because we all need to start tanning our white Alaskan bodies before we get to the beach in North Carolina.