The Christmas letter from my viewpoint 2022

   It's that time of year again to look back and try to put down a reasonable facsimile of Pete and Jan's year in a blog format. I keep smaller and smaller records of what we have been up to during the year, so this epistle gets shorter every year. I will be laying out a month by month listing of weather and events in our lives, primarily from my viewpoint as the author. Someday Jan should be doing this as she has a blow-by-blow account of everything that has happened to us and our families a day at a time for years. So, now that I have that off of my chest, I will start off with the first month of the year. 

   January

    This month starts and finishes pretty much like all of the rest of the January's I have been through in the upper Midwest- cold and snowy. In between Jan and I made do with some basketball games, trips to New Ulm, Mankato and Rochester for assorted reasons. Rach got her Mercedes "truck". My brother Paul ended up in Rochester with covid that was touch and go for quite a while, but he did make a miraculous recovery that time. See my previous blog about him and his struggle with ALS.

   February

   February was busy, judging from my notes, with doctor visits, basketball for Sam and Gus, moving snow etc. etc.. Jan and I did celebrate our 51st on Valentine's Day, also birthdays for Annika who turned 16, Eli and Steve (Scuba), so it's a pretty busy month. Things like these tend to keep my mind off the cold and snow that need to be dealt with, and the lack of warm enough weather that keeps me from riding at all. Due to that fact a lot of the maintenance gets accomplished this time of year. Paul remains in Rochester, so Jan and I are checking the mail and the home for them.

   March 

   Kind of unique this month but all our girls' birthdays were on Tuesdays this month, with Leah turning 16, Lindsey a little more and Genevieve some more too. Typically, after complaining about the weather, I see that I had some bikes out for short runs toward the middle of the month. We had thunderstorms with snow and plain thunderstorms and snow, taxes, another stress test for me and dog sitting for the Theobalds while they took a spring break trip. Other than that, just another month off the old calendar.

   April

   April started off with bad news for our neighbor Leona, she got the news that her son Steve had passed away on her 95th birthday. Jan and I attended his funeral at Saint Olaf in rural Odin later in the month. St. Olaf is another local church that I have never visited along with Waverly, both nearby to Ormsby. Other than that, the rest of the month was cold alternating with winds and some rain and riding weather. The Theobald boys Sam and Gus are starting the soccer season already, with a game in Rochester at 30 degrees, burr. Aaron had his confirmation exam on the 24th and Gen ran a marathon in Cincinatti on the 29th. After the marathon she flew to Nashville to meet with Rachel, who was flying in from DC, which pretty much wraps this month up.

   May

   May is the big month for the boys in the family, with Paul on the 4th, Phil and Joe on the 19th and me on the 25th. Rachel and Gen spent the first few days of May in Nashville being tourists. After the 30-degree soccer game the end of April, Jan and I were back in Rochester on the 4th in sunny 65-degree weather. After some routine medical visits, I headed back to Wall for a couple of nights, so that I could ride into the airshow at Ellsworth and back and have a shorter ride home the following morning. A word of advice, if you should attend an airshow that has an F-22 demonstration, bring earplugs, it's extremely loud! Jan and I were back to Mayo for another follow up with my team there, things are still looking okay so far. I ran the Mustang up to Duluth to see Sam play in a soccer game and a short visit with Paul at the Solvay House in Duluth. Little did I know that would be the last time I would ever see him in this life. Our life went on pretty much like what passes for normal here, mowing the lawn, riding, maintenance on vehicles, and waiting for the frequent rain to let up. Aaron graduated from St. Paul's school here in town on the 26th, it hardly seems possible that he's gone through 9 years of schooling there starting with kindergarten. Jan worked with that class for several years as a teacher's assistant helping with subjects, so she got to know that gang pretty well over the years.

   June

    Number one grandson Joe graduated from high school and is furthering his education at NOVA, plus Gus is moving on to Lourdes, plus Eli finished his last year of electrician training.   I started the month putting tires on the BMW GS and Jan and I went to Sherburn to see the new Top Gun movie, it was pretty good. I recall that we saw the first version of it in Rapid City and my mom was along, so it's been a while back. Of note, I hit a buzzard while riding near Waseca, not fun. A note, if you are riding on the upwind side of a road and approach buzzards or for that matter any large birds be careful, they will always take off into the wind, regardless of what hazard is coming down the road. Luckily, I managed to duck and I only lost my turn signal arm and cracked a trim piece, could have been a lot worse. I attended a funeral of a guy that had hit a flying turkey and been fatally injured by the strike in the head. Soccer game visits, more medical checkups and of course riding, including a spin on some local gravel roads with our granddaughter Leah on our bikes. Jan and I met Rachel who was in Minnesota for a business trip in Bloomington. We drove to Rochester and met Eli and Gen, and attended a soccer game among other things.