Monday, 21st November

I woke up early – 7.30am and headed upstairs to the kitchen. The boys had gone to school along with Lars and Jenny was soon to head off to take Sandra. School started at 8.15am.

I poached some eggs, took over from Jenny’s efforts. Grandma had brought some home made raspberry jam (called Jello in the states) and I spread it on some fresh bread.

I showered and knocked off some work for my engineering assignment before I called up the local soup kitchen. Hannah dropped me off at 10.30am and I spent the next coupld of hours cooking and preparing food for those that came in.

I cooked some bear meat, cooked a hearty soup with a number of ingredients, and then made French toast. I made around 70 or so of those! The seating area was full, there were probably around 90 people. It great fun working in the small kitchen with some down syndrome people who are always lots of fun.

We served all the food then we went out and ate some with those that were still hanging around. It was a mix of old homeless or people who were on the edge or those that just needed a feed.

I met a character who called himself a rabbi and another very interesting character who quoted the bible and when Carol (Hannah’s gradma) came in to say hi said she was a very beautiful women. Gerald was then praised for his looks. It was rather an interesting conversation that followed. It was good timing because Hannah came in to pick me up and she too got the spill from the stranger.

We left and came back to the house. It was all quite as the boys were at school. We lounged on the couch and spoke to Jenny. Shannon came over (Hannah’s friend from high school) just as Mica walked in the door from school. He caught the yellow school bus home!

We were watching the sound of music on tv and everyone else was just hanging about chatting. The older of the two dogs was snoring loudly on the carpet.

Once Mica had settled we rode on the motor bikes until it got dark. It was fun even though the bikes were so small! We tore (overstatement) up and down the road. It was fun hanging out with Hannah’s younger bro and we used the GoPros to take photos and videos. I was barely able to ride the smaller of the two bikes… my knees hitting the handle bars.

We had a chicken casserole for dinner. Jenny made a side salad of jelly, celery, cranberries, pecans, sour cream. It was actually really tasty and I ate a few platefuls!

We chatted after dinner telling stories and reminiscing on events. Lars told me how he used a cars radiator and a fan to heat his apartment back at uni because the gas was expensive, but the water was free.

I headed off to bed early. I showered to remove the smell of the motor bikes and Hannah showed me some photo albums from when she and the family were younger. Jenny is really creative and in all her spare time she created these wondering albums for each child with different themed pages.

Hannah left the door open, and I left the door to the closet where the hot water and gas heating systems are. It comes on periodically throughout the night and I didn’t sleep that well. The next night I would make sure I closed all doors and made the room pitch black.