This weekend, for the first time, we took the kids to the cemetaries where their great grandparents are buried and put flowers on the graves, as a Memorial Day tribute. First we went to Rhinelander (Bill hitched a ride with us, to pick up a car for his new job), and Mom took us over to the cemetary in Woodruff, where Grandma and Grandpa Bayer and Uncle Kenny are buried. We also drove by their old house and around Bayer Lake, where Mom pointed out landmarks of family and friends from her childhood.

We stayed overnight and left Sunday morning. On the way back we stopped at Ladysmith, and found Grandma and Grandpa Bragg's graves, as Dad said, under a bluebird box he set up and monitors. (We peeked, and there was a nest full of baby bluebirds inside).

From Ladysmith we went to Cornell. We had lunch with Jon's parents and then went out to the Cornell cemetary, where all four of Jon's grandparents are buried. That cemetary is very interesting to walk through; it isn't grand or full of beautiful shade trees like the Ladysmith cemetary... it's an open field, basically, by a relatively busy road leading into town. But almost every single grave is still actively tended to by relatives still living in Cornell. There are very few graves that don't have flowers or other tributes for the deceased. Many of them have solar-powered night lights, pinwheels, or wind chimes. Jon knew lots of people in the cemetary... particularly sad were the graves of young people who died in car accidents or killed themselves-- some of them peers of Jon or their children.

We also stopped by Benjamin David Hurlburt's grave... this was Jon's son who died the year before David Benjamin (now 16) was born.

We came home to Eau Claire Sunday afternoon, with good intentions of doing lots of yard work. Instead we lounged around the house and took our canoe out onto Half Moon Lake. We paddled past the Eau Claire Rod & Gun Park, the unromantically-named place where Jon and I were married. Along the way we saw lots of wildlife, including a turtle, a white squirrel, an otter, geese, ducks, and a racoon. Then we let the kids play at Carson Park, and stopped by the Dairy Queen I worked at when I was about Bill's age.

One happy footnote on the computer problem of previous posts: Dell called Jon back to see if the computer problem had been resolved. When he told them that we had finally taken it in to a shop, they said they would reimburse us for the money we spent. Yea!

Computer Wizards Save the Day

Well, you don't have to read about my computer woes any longer! The fix-it guys at Computer Wizards worked out the bugs, so the Bragg-Hurlburt household is back on-line. It cost $75, but for that they also replaced a fan that wasn't working properly, so I consider the price fair. I have no doubt it saved us hours more of frustration.

Monday night we had our end-of-year picnic for Boy Scouts, and last night we had our last Girl Scout event. I must say it's a relief to see things wind down for the end of the school year... now we'll have a couple of weeks with no extracurriculars before swimming lessons and soccer begin mid-June (we'll have to do some visiting of grandparents during this time!). Both kids are going to have a little bit of the summer camp experience, with me and Emma staying overnight together at Camp Nawakwa June 21-22, and Michael doing a Boy Scout day camp the week before. If I can talk Jon into doing overnight Boy Scout camp in July with Michael, his group is doing a 2-night, 3-day stay at Camp Phillips.

The last week of June Michael has theatre camp. That's just a day thing, of course, but it's something Michael was interested in and I'm encouraging, because I'd like to see him develop his ability to work in a group and speak in front of others. Plus it's a creative thing, and he tends to be all factual and scientific-- a worrisome trait, wouldn't you say, Don?

Actually, in July Michael will be taking a science program through the university, while Emma signed up for "Horse Lovers" (also through the university, this program involves some actual horseback riding). Both kids will have thematic English and Math summer classes as well.
In August Emma has gymnastics and Mikey will be in a running club...

That may sound like lots of stuff, but it actually ends up being only a few hours a day, with nothing on Friday or the weekend. So we will still have time to camp and visit family this summer. Also, because we live in the city, and because so many of the neighborhood kids roam aimlessly, looking for things to do, I think it's important to have some structure and help Mikey and Emma explore the world outside our neighborhood. There's too many loose pitbulls and cars and sketchy characters living around us for me to feel comfortable letting them have the freedom and space to roam that we used to enjoy when we played outside in Rhinelander.

Tonight's the last night of my stained glass class. I can't wait to see a finished piece hanging up in my kitchen window. I've dropped some hints to Jon that I plan to buy a few items for home, so I can continue making stained glass. The biggest purchase will be a glass polisher, which starts at about $70. That's not too bad... and I do need to do some things for myself every once and awhile, or I get CRANKY.

STILL no internet at our house!

Between the two of us, Jon and I spent another five hours this weekend talking to AT&T and Dell technical support (both company's American calls are now directed to India). With their help we made lots of adjustments to our settings and even opened up our computer and moved a modem card over to another slot. That helped us get on the internet, but we only had access to "generic" web pages. We couldn't get onto any page that had security built in to it, requiring a password.

That pointed to our security software. We had old Norton software on our computer, but had not renewed it after our last contract expired. But instead of just not working anymore, it apparently corrupted our files. I uninstalled it this weekend, but after I did that we lost whatever little progress we had made, and weren't able to get on any internet pages. Someone from Dell told us that the old software had probably corrupted our other files, and that we should seek technical help from Norton. But the disk we had didn't have any contact information, and by then my ear hurt from holding a phone against it for hours on end.

So today, during lunch hour, I took our computer in to a repair shop. Cross your fingers!!

Sorry I've Been Off the Radar...

It's been awhile since I updated this blog or responded to my home email, but we've been having "technical difficulties" with our dial-up internet service at home. It hasn't been working for weeks, and Jon and I have spent several hours of phone conversation with AT&T's technical helpers in India, but the problem remains unresolved. I'm ready to change internet providers; it shouldn't be this hard to have internet service!!

The other problem has been that last week I deleted the short-cuts I had on my work computer to get to everybody's blog sites. I actually resigned my job last week so thought I'd better start removing all the personal items I had saved on my work computer. But now I've been persuaded to stay (I got a raise and the hours I wanted for next year!), so am regretting that I no longer have links to the family blog sites.

SO! If everyone could please re-send me links to their blogs, I'll be back in business. Send it to bragghurl@yahoo.com, and I'll be able to read it from my work computer.

Anyway, John, about August 18th! All the above is why I hadn't responded before now. Plan on us being there! I can't say for sure whether Jon will make it, but I know he wants to go to a Brewer game and he should be able to have that weekend off (it's our anniversary weekend!). The kids and I will be able to make it for sure. Please let Jim know (does he have an email address?) and have him send us the details as far as when we should arrive, what expenses might be involved, etc. I'd love to meet some Houzners!