Answer my cell phone???

I painfully learned a lesson today. You’ve heard people say, ‘What’s the use of having a cell phone if you never answer it?’ Ever since we’ve had a cell phone, my kids have asked me that question. I usually just sort of laugh it off, giving one excuse or another. Or I ignore the call or text, thinking that I will just call back or text back later. I just always assume that there is no real problem, and that they just want to tell me something they saw, or want. I never think that there is something wrong!

Well, last night Kira text me that she wanted to tell me about her trip to Sedona when she got off work at 9:30. I was really tired and I was already in bed and it was 9:30 my time, which meant I would need to stay awake another hour and then listen to her story. I told her I would be asleep by then (which I was) and that I would have my phone glued to me the next day. She said she would call me the next day.

I had some errands to run, and I had my phone turned on high. No call. I finished the errands, came home, changed and started working outside with my phone on high. No call. Now, on every other day, she would have already called me. I took a break from yard work to have some lunch and while eating I gave her a call. No answer, so I left a message. I finished lunch and went outside to continue working. I kept checking my phone to make sure I didn’t miss her call or text, and nothing! I called her again and left another message. I sent her a text. After several hours of this, I told Ethan about it and he tried calling. Nothing! Now I’m starting to get really nervous. If she rarely called or text, I would have thought she just didn’t feel like calling, or forgot all about it, but she calls and texts several times a day. This was just not like her. I finally quit working for the day and took a bath, trying her phone again. I even left a message on Facebook. Nothing. It was now time to leave for bells with David. I told him what was going on and that I was scared something bad had happened, and my next plan was to start calling Arizona hospitals. I was thinking all sorts of horrible things and near tears. We hung up and I was trying to get dried off and dressed when my phone rang. I thought it was David with some news…it was not.

It was Kira! Finally calling because she saw my text. My text that I had left hours ago. She had been out with a friend at a movie and had her phone turned to silent. Geez! I was angry and mad and relieved all at once. She was out having a good time and not dead, or kidnapped or in a hospital, admitted as a Jane Doe.

I told David that she had been out with a friend, and had her phone on silent and you know what he said????? ‘You have to let her go sometime’. MEN are such dolts!!! THAT was not why I was upset…I was upset because I was afraid she hurt or in trouble or worse yet, dead!

Lesson learned? Keep my phone near me, turned up loud enough that I can hear it when it’s sitting in my purse. Answer when they call, and return the texts. I can’t assume that a call or text may be unimportant, or routine when it could be something much, much, more! Thank God this time it was just a ‘New friend’.

1500 miles...

David and I spent over two hours on Skype talking to Andy and Kira tonight, and Ethan joined us for a while at the end. We got to do a three-way conference call. It was pretty cool. The unfortunate thing about this is that the conference calling isn't free. I'm not sure yet if we all have to pay for it, or if just one account is needed. I guess I'll have to check this out.
I google mapped the driving directions from Andy's apartment to the Phoenix Zoo and the miles they quoted me was 1570 miles. That is one heck of a long ways apart, but through the miracle of technology, we were all able to see one another. We were even able to take a screen snapshot, and I just may have to use it as our Christmas cards. Both kids took us on a tour of their apartments by walking their laptops around with the webcam capturing their everyday lives.
I really thought I was taking their absence quite well, considering that this is the first that Andy has lived away from home, and Kira and I did tons of things together when she was home. I realized that wasn't true two weeks ago at choir practice. We were singing a Christmas song, 'Gloria in Excelsis Deo' and I got to that line and couldn't sing anymore. I was immediately transported to one of the pews in the front of Parkway UCC, on Christmas Eve, standing with Andy to my right and Kira to my left and we were singing that song, and the lower part of my mouth started to quiver and I got tears in my eyes. Geez, I'm not certain that I will be able to sing any of the Christmas Carols. Thank God I don't have to sing 'O Holy Night', because even though I sang it as a solo several times, the duet that Kira and I sang was very, very special, not to mention, really, really fun to do. This will be a year of change for the Christmas Eve service. We have a new minister, and taking out 'O Holy Night' and maybe the pageant will be something totally different, which I think needs to happen. We'll come up with something quite special and beautiful and meaningful to give people peace and comfort. I'm looking forward to hopefully being able to brainstorm some ideas for a superb service.
Andy's plane arrives Christmas Eve morning and of course I will be at work. I won't get to see him until he walks into church that evening, unless of course, he stops by the hospital to say hi on his way home from the airport.
We plan on Skyping Kira Christmas Eve, if I had an iPhone, I could Skype the church service too, maybe Andy could!!

21 already…

October 5, 2010 my baby boy turned 21!! David and I drove Ethan to The Cafeteria in Uptown to meet some of his friends and have a birthday celebration. It’s just a little strange to drink with your children, but really not as strange as I once would have thought. I had a Long Island Iced Tea and the Taco Special, David had his usual beer and hmmm, I can’t remember what he ate (neither can he), Ethan had beers and tsk, I can’t remember what he had either. I only remember that Jaimie had the Mac & Cheese. His friends included, Mandy, Kenny, Dawn, Eric, Steveo, Justin, Jaimie, David, me and of course, Ethan. They had a good time going from bar to bar, no one got in trouble and they are all still alive!! Here are a few pictures of the big night!

Crabby face…

Another picture of Little Bit…he has such a nasty look, but he really is pretty sweet, when he wants to be, when Andy is home, and he’s been fed, and he’s being held nicely, and not being irritated, or having his nails cut, or medicine put on his kitty acne, etc.

Just kidding…he realy is a nice cat!

Please don’t be afraid to leave me a message and/or your name. I know there a at least a few people stopping by to look at my posts and I’d really like to know who and also say Hi and Thank you for taking the time!

Teen life stuff…

Remember when you moved away from home for the first time? What did you pack to take with you? Just the things you thought were important, right? How about all the stuff you collected while growing up? The dolls, drawings, crafts, scout badges, projects, hot wheels, stuffed animals, cards, high school letters and awards. I’ll bet you left them home for Mom to deal with, because you really didn’t want to take all that old junk with you to your new place. I’ll also bet Mom saved it all for you, in boxes, or plastic bins just in case you wanted to look through it when you had kids of your own. Actually, I’ll bet she just couldn’t part with any of it and thought that you wouldn’t be able to either. I know this is what my Mom did, and I am really happy she hung on to it all because it has been a lot of fun to look through the boxes and report cards and art work and things that I thought were so, so, important at one time.

So, I have packed plastic bins with Kira and Andy’s stuff. Kira, being a girl, has WAY more stuff than Andy will ever, ever, ever have. They wanted to keep all their college books and papers which makes perfect sense also anything that they just didn’t know what to do with, only they knew they didn’t want to toss it and they wouldn’t be able to take it along. High school is a big part of what makes a person who they are and a lot of that had to be saved. I had already planned on keeping things from their childhood, because that just sparks so many memories when you look through it, especially with your own children. I was kind of hoping that they would take all this other stuff though, but really, is there ever enough room in an apartment? Just so they know that as soon as they sign the purchase agreement on their first home, I’m carrying these bins to the truck, driving on over and delivering their ‘life’ to them. 

Now all I need to do is clean, sort and rearrange my own stuff so I can fit in their stuff. At least I’ll get to that gross kind of cleaning that always gets put off until a cold winter day. Someday I’ll have a clean house. hahahahahahaha

 

Oh, I almost forgot…many, many, extra cords and such!

Little Bit…

Poor Kira, we save the yucky jobs for her! Just kidding, we can actually do them ourselves, it just takes 10 times longer.

Seriously, whenever Kira is around, we ask her to cut the cats nails. She is young and still has close-up vision so she is able to see the nail, get the clippers around it and clip before they pull their paw away. It’s quite amusing when David and I tackle their nails, he holds the cat, I take OFF my glassed, get real close to their paw and slowly get the nail in the clipper. By this time, they start squirming and it’s only the first nail, we have nine more to go. I’m making this sound much worse than it is, but it really does go so, so, so much smoother when she does it.

Still, Little Bit doesn’t seem to be enjoying himself…(Andy, where are you?! Little Bit stays still way better when you hold him!)

Just look at that face, if looks could kill…I think someone would be in for it!

Cell phones…

 

Having Kira come for a visit after nearly three months in Arizona didn’t seem a bit strange. I was getting nervous about her visiting, thinking the house was a pit and I hadn’t gotten things done that I should have in three months time, the usual thing that I go through whenever anybody comes over, (I’m just weird like that). But really, it felt like she had never been gone. The only thing that I can attribute this to is…the Cell Phone! It’s so nice to be able to text or talk anytime I want. I absolutely LOVE texting, because I can text a comment like ‘Eric…OMG!’ and more than likely she will know what I’m talking about. My older sisters don’t text, one doesn’t even have a cell phone, but if she did, she wouldn’t text either. They think it’s too impersonal, a person should call and talk, not text. Well, neither of them have children, and they just don’t get it.

I have a feeling letting her get on the plane tonight to fly back to Arizona is going to be harder than I’m anticipating, although it went a whole lot smoother getting both her and Andy to their new places than I had thought too, I’m gonna keep my fingers crossed nevertheless.

A conversation I had via text with Andy today, was about school loans, transferring money and ended up with changing my depends when I’m OLD…think about it. hahahahaah

So it is now 3:40 on Friday, September 3, 2010, Kira is having coffee with a friend, I am typing, David and Ethan are getting electrical stuff for the basement. I have No Name steaks thawing for dinner that I have to have ready by 5:30 at the very latest. We need to leave for the airport by 6:00 and her plane leaves at 8:40. It will be quite a few months before I see her again, and I’m not sure when I’ll  see Andy. Thanksgiving and Christmas should really suck this year, but they are only as far away as a phone call, or in my case, a  text!

Sunday evening Skype...

Andy called the other night wondering what was up with Ethan. I had posted a comment to Ethan's post about not ever wanting to come back here (home). Andy got a little concerned that maybe Ethan had just up and left, but I assured him that it was just me not leaving well enough alone. Sometimes I just don't feel like keeping my thoughts to myself, I do think about what I'm going to say before I say it, and sometimes I just let it out. This was one of those times. Anyway, we got around to talking about Skype and he told me we should set up a Skype date with Grandma and Barb on Sunday or Monday. I thought this was so cool of Andy to suggest it and I jumped at the chance to get us all together to chat.

I worked today and I told them I would make something for dessert. When I got home, I realized that the house was just too much of a pit to let them see, so I hurried and vacuumed, cleaned the bathroom, washed, dried and put away the dishes and straightened up. Mom had left me a message that she would bring a pie that she made, so I didn't have to worry about making anything. Yeah!

I set up the time with Andy of 7 p.m. Cincinnati time which was 6 p.m. our time. We had to try several times to get a hold of him on line, and I ended up giving him a call and telling him to turn on his computer. Once he did, we were connected in no time. We talked for over an hour, which is just amazing. He's doing really well, loving cooking for Boca and they are very happy he's with them, even going so far as to actually 'tell' him. Not all places of business bother to tell you when you are doing a great job. He doesn't get to see Lauren very often as she works days and he works evenings, she's asleep when he gets home and he's asleep when she leaves for work. It won't always be like that, but for now they just have to put up with it.

Mom and Barb were pretty amazed to be able to talk with him face to face. The connection wasn't the greatest, but it really doesn't matter when you don't get to see a person for months at a time.

I'm quite proud of him and what he's accomplishing. I think he will go far in life.

Mitsubishi...

Foreign cars run rampant in our household (with our kids at least). We sold Kira's Galant a few weeks ago to a man that was buying it for his daughter to tool around in. Whew...I thought that car would be a permanent fixture on our driveway. Then just today, we sold Andy's Spyder to a man buying it for his daughter that doesn't even have her license yet. I would not have gotten a sporty little rag top for a brand new driver. One accident and she'll
be dead. Maybe she'll be a good driver...cough! The parents on the other hand were driving very safe cars, he a newer, big, pickup and she a newer SUV, hmmm, they probably could have afforded to pay a few hundred more. Oh well, it is sold, it is out of our driveway, we won't have to pay insurance on it and Andy had a little more in his account, well on Monday he will.

Truck...

We saw two 1951 trucks this weekend. One of them was a 1951 Chevy 1/2 ton totally reconditioned truck. All new, beautiful smooth, unmarred green paint, wood boards in the bed, so nice. Only a mere $18,500.
The second one we saw was a 1951 Ford 1/2 ton, all rusted, no floor in the cab, doors didn't close all the way. Apparently had a new engine though...it didn't look 'new' to me, maybe new to a 1951 truck, but not new to 2010. It did run though, and it had a title and license, and it was only $2500. I will need to take Ethan along with me when I get around to seriously looking for a truck.

Gone…

Ethan and Dawn left about 3 hours ago to make the 12 hour drive to Cincinnati to visit with Andy and Lauren.

Now, Ethan is gone ALL the time, so it shouldn’t feel strange at all that he isn’t here, but it is strange. It’s strange because I KNOW he isn’t here. I know he’s in a car driving, and they will be driving, all night long until they get to the 4th and Plum apartment.

Lauren will probably already have left for work, and Andy would normally be sleeping, but I bet he’ll be sleeping with one eye and one ear open, waiting for Ethan and Dawn to arrive.

I wish I was going, I miss him.

Fine Dining…

Andy just sent a Facebook post…Just cooked a truffled halibut en pappiote for OWNER or the food network. Said it was the best halibut he’s ever had.

Yes!! I said he’s a fabulous cook, and mother’s ALWAYS know best!!

I expect to see him in a Food magazine someday as a featured Chef of some fancy, fine restaurant. He will be well known in some capacity.

Good job Andy Baby!

He’s just a little bit happy…go figure.

Boxes…

Last night I decided I just better get started on packing up all of Kira’s stuff. While Kira and I were driving to Arizona, David packed up all of Andy’s leftovers and took them downstairs and then he and Ethan brought all of Kira’s things upstairs. Andy’s room was filled with plastic boxes and assorted containers. I used up a whole roll of packing tape and stuffed 10 medium U-haul boxes with stuff, just stuff. Stuff that she really could do without, but it isn’t my stuff, so I’m not partial to it. Anyway, I told David that I packed it all up, so he gets to take them downstairs and out to the truck and over to the post office or some such place. There are at least another 10 boxes worth of stuff left to pack.

Kira is partial to plastic containers, (wonder where she got that from?!?) and I’d like to find a box that they would fit in. Some of the containers are the under-the-bed ones and others are almost square, but not quite, so putting them in a medium box by themselves doesn’t work and I’m having a hard time finding smaller soft things to pack around them. Such a problem I have, tsk! I think a smart idea might be to look at box sizes on line. Hmmm, I think I will do that now.

Job…

Andy got a job!! Yes! He will be working as a cook at Boca in Cincinnati. He went in and talked to them, worked for free for two days (loved every minute of it) and the person in charge asked him what he thought of the place and would he like a job. Duh!!

I’m very happy for him. I think this is just what he needs, to work at a high end restaurant making the kinds of foods he’s interested in and not having to worry about the management side of it. Go in, cook, go home.

Minnesota won’t be quite so strong in his mind now.

Phoenix Zoo…

Kira is all settled in Scottsdale. She really likes her job and can’t wait to learn more and get to start handling the animals more. The people she works with are great and nice and crazy just like her. She likes her roomie and her cats. Shayna gets her to do things she doesn’t normally do and makes her talk if she’s holed up in her room too much. Arizona is great, although it would be nice to have some clouds and a little less heat. All in all she is happy, which ultimately makes my life much, much better.

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Doing well…

Andy had a day of (staging?!) at Boca in Cincinnati, an upscale restaurant featuring fine dining. They told him they have had Chefs stage before and they were not very bright. Andy got asked to come back another day. Of course, he’s brilliant!! He’s really hoping they give him a job. They said it would be a full 40 hr. week…hahahahaha! That is EXACTLY what he wants, cooking at a fabulous restaurant for 40 hrs a week. Totally unlike what he had been doing, which was scheduling, ordering, overseeing and working 14 hr days. This would be a walk in the park and he would be doing what he loves, which is COOKING. I’ve got my fingers crossed.

Stopover in Chicago…

We had a 3 1/2 hour stop in Chicago, and of course it was raining. We attempted to put our stuff in a locker, but it only took exact bills which of course we did not have. So we decided to eat lunch, and ended up sharing a table with some really interesting people from Mississippi. After lunch, it stopped raining, so we went outside and sat on a wall, watching people go by. A woman came by and started talking to us, because she saw my HomeGoods bag. I ended up telling her all about moving Andy and then going home to start the drive to Arizona. She thought we were crazy to drive our truck all that way and risk having it break down. She suggested we mail all of Kira’s stuff instead. We hadn’t thought of that!! Duh!

We caught our train home and called Kira about our decision…it wasn’t pretty. She had to go through all her boxes and decide what she needed and how much would fit in her car, along with trying to see though all the tears that were falling down her face. But she pulled through! David was soooooo relieved he didn’t have to drive nearly 2000 miles that there were tears in his eyes. It was a great weight off our shoulders.

About 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, Kira and I and a loaded down car took off for Arizona. We made it to Witchita Kansas and stayed there the first night. A storm was coming in the morning from the west, exactly where we wanted to go, so we ended up making a little detour and went south instead, right through the Bible Belt! Driving though the ‘Bible Belt’ was a little frightening and uncomfortable, ‘Jesus Saves’ signs all over the place, the largest cross in North America, southern accents. We stopped at a KFC for lunch and while listening to the southern accents, I felt like I should cover up my tattoos. Strange! We stopped for the night in Albequerque, New Mexico.

Once out of New Mexico, as we were driving into Arizona, we noticed one of the mountain peaks had snow on it. I knew that it had snowed not too terribly long before that, but I didn’t expect to see any. We drove down the Oak Creek Canyon again…breathtaking and stomach dropping going around those curves in the road. Sedona was gorgeous! On and on we drove, I kept waiting for the flat desert to appear. We started to see cactus here and there, and all of a sudden, we went over a hill and saguaro cactus all over the mountains, growing just like trees. WOW! I was not expecting that.

Shayna was texting Kira to see how much farther we had to go, as we were supposed to be at the Apartment office by 6:00 p.m. We got there just a few minutes late. Shayna said Hi, then went to Kira and said, ‘I don’t know…do we hug?’ so they did and it’s working out just great. It turns out the manager used to be manager of an apartment on 63rd and Boone here in MN. Small world!

They got all checked in, and we started moving stuff, what little they actually had. They still don’t have very much, but Kira’s waiting until she gets paid so she knows what she’s got to work with. She did get a full size mattress and a desk/wall unit  and two chairs from IKEA, and a small kitchen table from Gramma Goettsch. We went for a visit to Jean and Carl’s trailer and had a visit with Gramma too. I told Kira that Jean will talk your ear off, and she now agrees with me.

18+ hours…

Wednesday June 3, 2010, 9:45 p.m. David, Andy, Lauren and I started out on a road adventure. David drove the U-haul that was towing a car trailer for Andy’s leased car and I talked enough for several people to make sure he stayed awake, (taking my Ritalin every 4 hours sort of helped too). Andy and Lauren took turns driving her car…following us the entire way. We started out going the suggested 55 mph, but after a gas stop, Andy pleaded for us to up the speed, as nothing was happening with the car trailer and it was excruciating to drive that slow behind us, so we did, and it was just fine. We ran into quite a bit of road construction, but fortunately nothing that held us back for long.

We made the usual pit stops for gas, caffeine and getting rid of the caffeine. It started to get tiring a little before dawn, but once the sky started to lighten up, we all perked up. We stopped for breakfast at Perkin’s (NOT a good Perkin’s) but the food wasn’t anything to write home about and the coffee was exceptionally horrible. We did get to rest though, and I found out Lauren has curly hair and freckles. The things you learn on a road trip!!

Once in Ohio, we stopped at a Target and unwrapped/unloaded Andy’s car from the trailer, then they took off to get to their apartment in time to sign the lease and get the keys.  David and I then ran into a little trouble…we were using a GPS and it kept telling us to ‘Turn right, turn right’ so we turned right. At nearly the same time, Andy called wondering where we were, so I told him we were close. He said, “Whatever you do, don’t get on 75 North” and I said, “we just did”. What a mistake that was, bumper to bumper traffic and we had to cross 5 lanes of traffic in a U-haul, still pulling a trailer (without car now) in a short distance. David did a superb job, only having problems with one semi driver and a bus driver, who really didn’t give two hoots if we needed to cross the lanes or not.

We finally got to the apartment only to find the parking meter they covered for us, was on a corner that we couldn’t quite get to, so we had to circle a few blocks and come at it from a different angle. In the end, we parked right in front of the building.

We were all just about done in by this time and we still had to unload the U-haul, yuk! We started in, box after box after box. Sofa, bed, dresser, etc. etc. Andy got the sofa together right away, then he and David took the U-haul back, while Lauren unpacked the kitchen and I cleaned and put together the bathroom. The guys took forever and Lauren and I were starving, so she called them and told them to pick up a pizza, quickly, not one that needed to bake for an hour. Little Ceasar’s to the rescue. It tasted wonderful.

They set the bed up and we got to sleep on it…pure heaven! I had been up for 42 hours by then and I hardly felt human, my head felt stuffed with cotton. I didn’t have my usual 3 pillows and I was a little concerned that I would get a headache. Sure enough, I got a roaring headache, the kind I get that are so bad, I need David to give me a neck rub and take 2 Advil. Thank goodness it worked.

David and I made a Starbuck’s run in the morning, then left them to put things away while we walked around the city. We finally ended up sitting on a bench in front of their apartment so I could draw a name picture. Later on we switched places and they went to eat while we lounged inside. They ended up going to Target and we went out to eat. On our way out, we noticed that the apartment keys were both gone, so if we left, we had no way of locking the door, or getting back in. Well, there is a fire escape door in the loft, that only one other apartment has access to. We felt pretty safe in locking the front door and leaving by fire escape. We ate a yummy salad and listened to a band at Fountain Park. It was getting a little boring, so I suggested we people watch and try to guess if the couples we saw were on a first date, dating awhile, or old hats at it. That turned out to be great fun! I had them walk to where we were sitting so we could see where they fit on our dating scale. They looked like they had been together about 20 years. ha! ha!

We hung out awhile, got some ice cream cones and headed back to the apartment, because our train (Amtrak) was scheduled to leave about 1:15 a.m. We packed up and they drove us to the station, which is a whole 4 minutes away. We hung around awhile, not wanting to leave, and not wanting to postpone the inevitable. Finally Andy made the first move for hugs and after making the rounds a couple of times, they left the station and we hunkered down to wait, and wait we did, because the train ended up being an hour late.

I’ve taken the Amtrak before and thought it was fine, but this train was not what I was expecting. I would expect the lights to be turned down way low on a trip that was during the night. Nope, they were left on, (I really hope is was just an overlook). Then 2 little kids decided they had slept long enough and at 5:30 a.m. when I had just fallen asleep, they were chatting away in the usual little kid LOUD talk. They continued to talk loudly for the next 5 hours. Did Mother do anything???? Hell no, she just said, “Don’t make me come over there.” I was thinking, yeah, what are you going to do in a train full of people?

Anyway, close to Chicago, it started pouring buckets.  

Ceiling grid…

 

Ethan had a little accident at work today. If I heard correctly, the second floor in the storeroom is made of a metal grid system. Ethan was on the ground floor and a co-worker was on the second floor, walking backwards while pulling a heavy load. He happened to step on just the spot in the grid that was not welded together properly. As he stepped, it fell down and on top of Ethan, hitting him in the upper bicep, leaving 4 distinct marks, cutting his knuckles, one almost to the bone and also cutting him under the chin. He had 4 stitches in his chin and 4 stitches on the hand/knuckle of his little finger. The Doctor said he was really lucky today because if the grid would have hit him an inch lower, it would have cut through his neck. Yikes! That would NOT have been good. He’s been really lucky 3 times now. I wonder if his luck has run out for head wounds now or if he’ll be like a cat and have 9 chances. Geez, I shouldn’t joke about this but honestly, I have to…I could have lost my youngest child today.

Thank you, Ethan’s Guardian Angel, for a job well done.

Phoenix…

 

Yeah!!!! Kira got the job at the Phoenix Zoo. I’m so excited for her. It’s 32 hrs. a week and pays better than some and not as well as some. But it’s a JOB in a ZOO!!! Yes, Yes, Yes!!!

OMG this is going to be very hard. My insides are jumping for joy and dripping tears.

This really shouldn’t be a huge deal, because she’s been gone before. Four years at college and two internships in different states. We talk on the phone all the time and I know I would be welcome staying with her when I visit. But it’s just not the same as being able to see her face to face and give her a hug.

I guess Skype will have to do for awhile.

We just aren’t certain how or when she is getting out there. David and I are driving Andy and Lauren out to Cincinnati June 4 – June 8 and then we are flying out to Arizona at the end of the month for a wedding. Somehow in the midst of this we need to get her all packed, drive out there, find an apartment and get settled. Maybe her new friend will be able to drive out there with her. That would be pretty cool, they could have some time together, and he could get her settled and see where she’s living. If they are still friends after all those wonderful emotions are shown, then hey, he’s almost done with school. Arizona is a nice place to live, there’s no law that says he has to stay in Minnesota. hmmmm!!