Kent & Laurie Anne’s 2007 Update Letter
Uff da (we’re true Minnesotans now), we’ve never been this late in getting out an update letter before, but as they say, “better late than never, right?” However, as the months of the new year have started to pass, it’s been hard for us to find the motivation to finish writing about our previous year, but since we like to keep a copy as sort of a journal of our year, we decided to buck up and get it done anyway. Kent started our letter back in December, but life and busyness got in the way of finishing it. Our process for creating our update letter is always team-driven. First, we take a lot of photos (1,901 to be exact) then Laurie selects the photographs which best tell the story of our year. Kent then looks through all of the photographs she selects, and with words, fills in the details of the story that the photographs tell. The photos are my inspiration, the words are the memories that are resurrected by the photos.
From my perspective creating our letter is a yours (Laurie picks photos) mine (I write the story) and ours (Laurie edits my grammar and punctuation and reorders my paragraphs, deletes and rewords, and I do the final tweaking to the aesthetics and send it) process. There are always disagreements over formatting… Laurie is an economist (there should be as many photographs and as much text on a page as can possibly fit) and I’m the aesthetic (there should be a balance of white, text, and graphic space). You’ll need to be the judge of how we balance that conflict.
Enough about our letter writing process…let’s move on to the letter itself. First we’ll start with demographics. Laurie started a small home-based business cleaning homes in and around the Fergus Falls area this summer and works every Thursday along with some Wednesdays and some Fridays. We continue to love our home tucked in the woods of Otter Tail County, Minnesota, and there are no address nor phone number changes for us this year. I continue to work for Synstelien Community Services (SCS) as a Services Coordinator. SCS continues to grow to provide deeply needed residential support services to individuals with developmental, behavioral, and medical disabilities. There are hundreds of stories I’d love to share, but they are confidential stories. Suffice to say that, even though I’m finding it a huge challenge to keep up with my tasks and responsibilities as we grow, it is an honor to be part of a community of care that is used by God to bring healing and safety to the truly widowed and orphaned. One of my major professional joys of the new year has been a move to a new office. SCS had the opportunity to purchase a 19,000 sq. ft. church building and moved in, in January 2008 after obtaining a zoning variance from the city for a non-churchly use, and a thorough cleaning by Laurie and a co-worker’s daughter. For me, this means I’ve moved from rather cramped and busy quarters, to a private office with a door and a window. Very cool.
Our first photographs of the year show us setting up a photograph exhibit at Lake Region Hospital in Fergus Falls. They have a wonderfully trafficked area for exhibits, directly adjacent to their cafeteria. It was our most fiscally successful exhibit yet, with the selling of six photographs.
Our Shih-Tzu (“sheet zoo”) puppy, “Little Girl”, remains a large part of our life and brings much joy to our long wait to be parents. We can’t believe that we’ve lived so long without her. She’s an awesome traveler and loves to go where we go. As evidenced by the photograph to the right, we have invested in a bit of a ‘wardrobe’ for her, which she tolerates with occasional growls. When the temperatures drop below zero, we have to cover her feet so they don’t freeze to the snow-covered ground. We use small pieces of an old rag that we attach to her feet with rubber-bands and “layer” her coat over her sweater, so that she can continue her daily walks with Laurie no matter what the temperature dips to. In addition to a few store finds, Little Girl’s wardrobe is supplemented nicely by mom’s hand-knitted sweaters. However, there were a couple sweaters that mom made that were too big. We still try to use one of them, but have watched Little Girl run right out of it, leaving it in a heap behind her! Hilarious! The picture of me holding her, was taken during one of her exuberant greeting times. I’m nearly attacked as I come home from work. Both Little Girl and Laurie meet me at the door and Little Girl leaps from Laurie’s arms to mine.
Early in the year we had started to attend First Baptist Church in Fergus Falls because of a Sunday School study they were doing on C.S. Lewis’ book, “The Great Divorce”. I love everything by C.S. Lewis, so naturally, I was drawn. By the end of the class (mom made it to the last few studies), I decided that it would be a good thing for Laurie and I to become members. The odd thing about me making that decision is that neither of us had been “formal” members of any church, since becoming believers. We had always felt that becoming a “member” of any one particular church would send the message that we belonged to some, but not to others, and we knew that the scripture clearly states that as followers of Jesus, we belong to all others who follow Him as well. In the year since we became members, we’ve enjoyed being a part of a small group, volunteered with Christmas caroling, provided special music, and have begun to get to know many good people. We’ve been so blessed by this church “family” and look forward to more involvement as the years go by.
Throughout the end of 2006, my mom’s husband, Ed Brown, was in and out of the hospital with recurrent bouts of pneumonia as things kept getting tougher for him to shake. He was back in the hospital by early February 2007 and my mother, Audrey Brown, was informed by the doctors that they did not anticipate he’d recover. He died on the 15th of February and Laurie and I traveled to Jacksonville, Arkansas, for his funeral and to be with my mom. Funerals are very sad events, but they are also opportunities to get together with family members we’ve not seen in a very long time. We were glad to reconnect with Ed’s daughters and grandson, Kent’s cousin, and make the acquaintance of many of Mom and Ed’s new friends in the Jacksonville/Little Rock Air Force Base area and one who flew all the way from California to be there for mom.
Laurie and I drove home the evening after the funeral taking along a truck load of stuff that I had loaded after organizing mom’s garage. Mom had informed us that she wanted to sell her home in Arkansas and move up to the Fergus Falls area to live near us. We were glad to hear this, as we knew it would be a good thing to have her live nearby. Amazingly, mom had an offer on her home from a retired Air Force couple, before we completed our two-day drive home. I initially thought that it was too good to be true, but it simply turned out to be both good and true.
As soon as we were home, we hooked up with our favorite people at Otter Tail Real Estate and began a search for a home for mom. She wanted a two bedroom condo somewhere in town so that she’d not have to drive very far to get around nor maintain a yard. While waiting for the closing date of April 27 on the sale of her home, mom busied herself with packing and trying to sell a few things at a garage sale back in Arkansas.
In the meantime, Laurie began sewing crib bumpers and ruffles for our nursery in anticipation of our adoption from China in early 2008 and planning a 50th Anniversary Celebration for her parents in Nebraska, while I compared trailer and moving truck rentals. I settled on renting a trailer to tow down to Arkansas to fill with mom’s belongings and pull back to Minnesota with our truck. When the time came for us to drive down to Arkansas, I called to confirm the pick up times for the trailer I’d reserved at Ultimate Rental, and was informed that the trailer had been sold! Frustrated but faced with a time crunch, we ‘punted’ and rented an 8 1/2 x 20 foot trailer out of Fargo, ND, which turned our 1,100 mile drive southeast into an additional 60 miles, starting with a detour to the northwest.
After loading for a day and a half with the help of one of mom’s friends (Thank you, April), we eventually fit everything in the trailer. We were pretty worn out as we closed the hatch on the trailer and prayed that we weren’t too heavy. On the way back to MN, we drove through a nasty hail storm combined with a tornado warning in Missouri that nearly took out our windshields, but found that was nothing compared with driving through Kansas City. Overall, I averaged about 9 or 10 miles per gallon in my truck, but mom and Laurie made up for it by averaging about 40 miles per gallon in her car by “drafting” behind me so closely that I rarely saw them.
After a total of about 40 driving hours in five days with a short break to load the trailer in Arkansas, we parked the trailer at a storage unit that we had pre-rented in Fergus Falls and drove Mom’s car to our home. After church the next morning, we were blessed by the help of five guys from a co-worker’s church family (Thank you, Steve) who came by and emptied the trailer into the storage unit in less than an hour. A Dairy Queen treat for all the helpers was on mom.
Mom made an offer on one of the condos our friends at Otter Tail Real Estate (thank you, Mark and Cindy) showed her and set a closing date in late May. There was a need for some renovation of the condo in the area of paint, drywall repair (thank you, Ed), and carpet renewal including a serious spring cleaning, in order to rid the cigarette smell from all the rooms, so mom stayed with us until her condo was ready to move into.
While mom’s condo was being repainted and re-carpeted, we drove down to Chappell, Nebraska, to join five of Laurie’s eight brothers and sisters (and a few aunts and uncles) from 3 different states, in throwing their dad and mom (Vince and Shirley Peterson) a surprise 50th anniversary party over Memorial Day weekend. On Saturday we had lunch and supper in their honor in a local church basement and played some games and visited in a local park. Later that evening, Laurie’s siblings sang songs from their childhood in their parent’s home. On Sunday we joined them at their small church, where we nearly filled half of the pews. Afterward, we posed for family pictures.
June 1 was to be mom’s first night in her condo and we were all pretty tired from our day of moving furniture, when mom ‘took a winger’ which is rock climber talk for ‘fell’ on the sidewalk while bringing one of the last loads in. I got to practice my American Red Cross Instructor First Aid Skills and then assisted the ER doc in putting in a few stitches in mom’s upper chin. What a way for mom to spend her first night in her new home, never a dull moment!
For nearly two months, Laurie went into “Energizer Bunny Mode” and did a major cleaning and organizational job with all of mom’s stuff that we had transported and placed in storage. She used Mom’s nice, big garage as a staging area and went through a major downsizing effort since mom had moved from a three bedroom house to a two bedroom condo. When she completed mom’s organizational task, she decided to start her own business cleaning houses in the area to help pay off our adoption loan. In just six months, she has taken on eight clients.
This summer, we decided that we wanted to experience, along with our nearly two-year-old Shih-Tzu, ‘Little Girl’, a litter of puppies. We scheduled some ‘play-dates’ with the owner of a registered male Shih-Tzu named, ‘Chance,’ in early June and exactly 61 days after that…Little Girl gave birth to five puppies. She became quite ponderous toward the end of her pregnancy, but she never missed a jump up onto the couch…just a couple of close calls.
On August 9, as I was getting ready for work, Little Girl exhibited some rather odd behaviors…and I think that her water broke. Thinking that it could still be many hours before things progressed, I went ahead and drove to work. Laurie called soon after I got to work and said that the puppies were coming…so I headed right back home…and enjoyed a really cool morning helping Laurie and Little Girl deliver a total of five puppies. Laurie encouraged Little Girl, suctioned the puppies noses and dried them off. I was the official photographer, umbilical cutter, puppy weigher, and recorder. What a wonderful experience!
From my point-of-view, puppies just keep getting more and more fun, but the work increased as well. I’m accustomed to a couple of quiet hours of alone time before work and struggled with giving up some of that time as my introversive tendencies were stretched to the limit with five, very energetic, hungry puppies to care for. We took more pictures and video clips (over 1000) than anybody but Laurie and I should be subjected to, but every time we turned around, those little creatures and their mom were doing something that pegged the needle on the cute-o-meter. They were total clowns and constantly made us laugh. We would carry them out to go potty in a plastic laundry basket and all the way down the stairs, they would excitedly try to get out of the basket until Laurie taught them “down” and that they had to “sit” before she would take them out of the basket. If you lifted the pups near your face, they would literally attack you with furious licking!
Being first time dog breeders, we read everything we found on the ‘net about birthing Shih-Tzus and found plans to make a whelping (birthing) box. By the time we were finished, our box was well enough engineered to park a bus on it, but ended up being a bit short-sided, as these little creatures were determined to get out and explore their world. So, as they grew, I had to add extensions to the sides to keep them in. We also covered their box with some foam insulation to keep their heat in overnight. One morning I found it flopped into the whelping box with three little creatures trying (vainly) to escape their box by walking up the slick ramp…yet another video moment.
As always, sadness and blessing arrive together. At 3 weeks of age, Laurie started to notice that one of the pups (#3, later named, Murphy, by his new owner) turned up with hind leg deformities, which made it nearly impossible for him to walk, so instead, he drug his hind legs around. As we updated our friends about his needs, our friend and broker at Otter Tail Real Estate, Cindy Thernell, stepped forward to take him into her home. We were so relieved and so blessed. She named him after “Murphy’s Law” that states, “anything that can go wrong will,” because she wanted to “beat” that law by caring for Murphy and seeing to it that he walked as normally as possible. God’s corollary is that, “all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.” We had prayed for puppy #3, and God had a plan for him. He is enjoying his life with Cindy and her other animals, who makes sure he exercises his legs and gets the vet care that he needs. He sure had a determined nature…just what he needed to thrive.
The Shih-Tzu market waned and three of the pups hung around longer than we thought they would. We became more attached than we intended, to the last three, naming pup#1, “Little Kitty”, pup #4, “Little Bear”, and pup #5, “Little Britches”. They each remain deeply connected to our hearts and thankfully, we hear about and/or receive photos from 4 of the 5 owners. It continues to amaze us how deeply we still feel about them, as we peruse through their photos and videos.
In mid-September we drove down to the cities for a 50th anniversary get-together for Laurie’s dad’s twin brother, Vernon and his wife, Carol. We had a great time dancing to old tunes played and sung by some of Laurie’s family members and dancing with Laurie’s mom and dad who made the trip from Nebraska.
On a beautiful fall day in early October, we were visited by Laurie’s oldest sister and brother-in-law (Karen and Harvey) and their two youngest daughters and grandson. We picnicked in nearby, Maplewood State Park, climbed a tree, and enjoyed a long hike in the woods. Later that month, Karen’s oldest daughter, Jolene, gave birth to her third child, Rachel Leigh, so Kent and I drove down to their Starbuck home to meet and hold our newest grand niece. In December, Laurie’s sister, Trish Van Riper, adopted a baby boy from a neo-natal unit in Washington state, which makes us the proud Aunt and Uncle to 27 nieces and nephews and 7 great nephews and nieces.
This Christmas we finally relented and bought a “fake” tree. Mom came over to help us piece it together and we spent quite a few hours tweaking all of the branches just right in order to make the whole thing perfect. Then Laurie decorated it with some of our home-made and store bought ornaments. Have I mentioned how beautifully Laurie has decorated our entire home, not only at Christmas, but all year ‘round. Her decorating project this year was the hutch we inherited from my mom’s move. She spent hours at yard sales, antique shops, and the Salvation Army finding items to add to the hand made linens that my Grandma Keim/Finley made and the china sets from Laurie’s dad and from my Grandma Runge. It has truly turned into a piece of art in our basement.
We experienced a rather challenging staffing shortage just around the holidays at SCS, so I worked both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in a direct support capacity at one of our residences geared toward serving clients with mental illness. Laurie and my Mom were able to join me in celebrating by helping the clients at that residence host an open house for other clients who were home for Christmas and not with their families. We were very blessed by a Christmas of serving .
After selling all of our puppies by mid-November, Laurie and I realized that it had been a long time since we’d headed out of town, so we took a couple of days off around the New Year and drove to St. Cloud, MN. Though we shopped for Little Girl’s wardrobe, sledded, skied, and walked around the older part of town, the reason we chose St. Cloud was to pick up a new vacuum cleaner to replace the one that started on fire back in August. Laurie was vacuuming downstairs and first smelled then saw smoke coming from the vacuum. I was mowing at the time, when she pulled it out the front door onto the lawn, motioning for me to come over. I poked at a bulging plastic panel and it burst into flames. While still on the lawn mower, I drug it up the hill to where we keep the garden hose and put the fire out, but not before Laurie ran through the house and grabbed the camera for a few “proof” shots. A couple of months later, I’d wished that I’d just let the whole thing burn into a slag heap full of gravel as it took months and months for the vacuum store in St. Cloud to find and wait for the parts to arrive only to have Hoover finally decide to replace the whole thing with a newer model. We learned that Hoover (now owned by Maytag) can’t quite accomplish the basics of customer service, let alone safe vacuum cleaner design. They were fined by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission for concealing the problems they’d had with our model; problems that had even inflicted some injuries on some users. What a hassle!
One beguiling aspect of the trip to St. Cloud was a visit to an Apple Reseller that had the 24” iMac that I’d been salivating over since August. I’d been saving money for a transition back to Macs after a long, wasteful sidetrack through the world of Windows. Ish-ta (more Minnesotese). I’m back to my artistic and creative geek roots…that I should never have left. On February 19, 2008, I brought my new 24” iMac home. This wonderful machine simply booms and zooms and does stuff with photographs that I’d only been able to dream about while doing time in Windows Purgatory. Everything happens “right now” and I feel like I’m in control, rather than simply making suggestions. I’m still saving for a MacBook to use while photographing on the road and in our trailer.
Speaking of our trailer, the progress was slowed because of our puppy project this year and our bathroom still needs some work, but the bedroom and kitchen are pretty functional. We’re still roughing it as we haven’t installed much in the way of plumbing, but it’s hard to think of sleeping in an enclosed area with a bed, cabinets, air conditioning, heater, stove, and electric lights as being “rough”.
Adoption-wise we are in essentially the same place as we ended last year. Our ‘dossier’ remains in China awaiting the slow turning of bureaucratic wheels. China’s adoption ‘wait time’ has seen a significant increase in this past year. They are currently processing about 9 days worth of applications per month and have about thirteen months worth of applications to process before they get to ours, which means that we will be waiting until the middle of 2010 if they don’t speed that process up considerably. Due to the increased wait, China has changed their policy and agreed to allow couples to pursue another adoption while waiting for their Chinese adoption to be completed, provided the other child is placed at least one year prior to the child from China. This means that we’d need to initiate and complete a separate adoption prior to the middle of 2009 in order to have more than one child in our family. We began to look into domestic adoption and inquired with four different agencies including our county foster care system, only to find closed doors everywhere we turned. Basically, no Minnesota agency is willing to work with a couple who have a pending adoption with another agency, such as we do with China, including the county foster/adopt system. We are weary of trying and wearing of waiting, but have decided to wait for our daughter from China and not pursue anything else. Our emotional health simply can’t handle any more disappointments.
As I write this in late March, I’m looking forward to warmer days. This was a fairly ‘normal’ winter for Minnesota, but very cold with weeks of below zero temps. We picked up seven more inches of snow on Easter weekend, but it’ll melt and spring will come. Mostly I miss the color green by the month of March, but, it is still beautiful out there.
Enjoy the rest of your year…
Kent & Laurie Anne
krunge@gmail.com
