Last weekend

Had a really good weekend down in Decorah. Started off with leaving Roch and getting there around 4:30. Ben, Paul, AJ and I had plans for a guys night out. Dropped the kids off with Grandparents and we hit the road. We went to Gunder for the famous Gunderburger. One pound of hamburger with onions and cheese. They are awesome. Loaded with seasonings and yumminess. I finished mine second which is quite a feat considering my weight is about 5/8ths, 1/2 and 3/8ths of my fellow diners. We had a great time playing cards there and making jokes on each other. It was a really fun meal. Then we were off to the boat. Riverboat casino. I didn't bring much cash so I lost the $14 dollars and watched quite a bit after that. Slots are not the way to go to win money. Unless you're AJ and make out with $120 after 5 pulls. Anyway they played roulette a lot and both Ben and Paul were down a lot from when they started. Fortunately, Paul on his last $4 hit it big and came out plus $40 for the night. Ben put in about $160 and was down to about $40 when he hit big and left with around $200. Then off to a bar. AJ assures us that he knows where to go. Famous last words. We head off in random directions, hit curbs, stop in the middle of the road with traffic behind us and I think we ran a stop sign. We eventually found a nice spot and ordered some drinks and played some cards. We threw jacks and AJ and I partnered up. I was thinking that we'd be in for a hurting. Ben and Paul are very intelligent and good card players. Not that it mattered. AJ and I smacked them silly. It was just brutal. The worst beating in all our years of playing has there never been such a utter thrashing. We won 6 times and they one once on a fluke double nello call; the only call of that game. There was a karaoke machine and some hired singers for some live entertainment. It was OK. They let anybody cut in to sing and some people just shouldn't have. We closed up the bar and headed home. We got into Decorah around 3 to call it a night.

Elena and I went to Cho-Sun for lunch on Saturday and then we met up with everybody and ate supper at the Americana Grill in the old Jack and Jill store. We went to AJ's after that and played a little cards and had some ice cream.

We drove home Sunday afternoon and puttered around the house. We took the kids on a nice walk on the trail and in general had a good day.

Travis, Michelle, Forrest and Amara came over for supper on Wednesday. That was a good time. We had this taco casserole that was a huge hit. Amara especially liked it. She downed about 5 big squares of the stuff and asked for more every time. I think she at about 20 pounds ate as much as I did. We played Cranium and Travis and I beat the living snot out of the ladies.

Olivia the Climber is getting a bad habit of getting out of her room whenever she desires by going over the child safety gate we have in her doorway. She treats it as a minor obstacle on the way in and out. I think she enjoys the diversion to normal walking through a door to having to boost over it. The first time I knew she could do this was around midnight I was sleeping in bed and I felt a hard tug on my blankets. I knew that Elena was at work so it wasn't her. This was very discerning to me that my covers were being pulled at by a stranger. I sat up and saw that it was the little girl climbing up to join me. After a few moments, I picked her up and got her back downstairs where we discussed staying in her room for the rest of the night. Anyway, we need to figure out a way to keep her in her room with out tying her down.