Happy Birthday to Izzbee!

The scrapblog editor is an hour or so late in wishing little cousin Izzbee a Happy 5th Birthday! It was Tuesday, Sept. 29. In a candid phone interview with young E. from her lovely home in Centerville, the scrapblog editor learned that her preferences are for "two or maybe three birthday parties," preferably "with elephants." A couple of snapshots: Izzbee swam with big brother Zachary Miller. Izzbee savors some delicious prune juice whilst sitting on the kitchen counter.

Another friend leaves the Star Tribune

The Minneapolis Star Tribune, employer of cousins Pam and Chris, continues to go through tough times. We're used to it by now, but there's little to soften the blow when good friends made over the years leave, except that we're glad they've found better, more secure jobs. One such departure came this past week, when reporter Terry Collins bid us farewell to head for a new gig with the Associated Press in San Francisco. Journalists -- and even some politicians and others he's written about -- flocked to his goodbye standup at work. Here are some photos with people you may recognize:

We gave Terry some gag gifts, including Rice-A-Roni -- you know, "the San Francisco treat."

Cousin Chris schmoozed with Terry near the cake table.

The scrapblog editor made another of her dear work friends, Minneapolis news team leader Suzanne Ziegler, promise not to leave!

A big news day

Today was a day of momentous news, what with the financial crisis and bank-bailout discussion intensifying and the presidential candidates debating. But here on the home front, the big news came from the scrapblog editor's favorite son, Noah, who got hired as a reporter for the Minnesota Daily, one of the best college newspapers in the US of A. His newspaper-employee mom and uncle had nothing to do with it, and in fact were a bit surprised when Noah announced he was going for an interview there. Maybe journalism has a future after all! Congrats, Noah! Noah in a recent reflective moment in the Sculpture Garden at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. In other news, Noah stood in line for two hours to land tickets to the Bob Dylan concert to take place Election Day in Northrop Auditorium on the University of Minnesota campus. Here is a Minnesota Daily story about the rush for tickets.

Happy Birthday to a young cousin!

Happy Birthday to Maria Cook, daughter of cousins Tanya and Levi, granddaughter of cousin Cindi, great-granddaughter of Uncle Joe and Aunt Mavis. Maria turned 5 this week, and her proud mom generously shared these photos, also posted on her Facebook profile: No. 5 is a big birthday! When you're 5, riding a Madison city bus is a major thrill. Here Maria is on the bus with kid brother Perrin. Maria opens gifts.

Readin' and rockin'

Grandma Sprick read in her rocking chair in her Lake City, Minn., home in May 1959. Probably was the Bible, but we're not sure.

Back in '65

Found this old one in a scrapbook of Anna's. That's Bill, LeRoy, Chris (in an excellent pair of PJs), Grandma, Adelaide, Alverna, Vi and Norm at Grandma's old house in Lake City, Minn. It was July 1965. The Millers were probably visiting between U.S. Army stints in West Germany and Frederick, Md.

Another family feast

In this photo of a beautiful table spread with fine china and large, delicious food, you may also notice some Spricks. It was Oct. 9, 1993, Friday night, thus a fish-fry night, and Anna, Alverna, Bill, Elmer and Mavis were dining at Ten Oaks, Joe and Mavis' former place north of Lake City. Note the lovely china cabinet, which Elmer made. Hope he still has that excellent shirt.

"One! Two! Three! And the winner is..."

In this July 1993 wrestling match, bruiser Tyler Broberg, age 0, took out Noah Johnson, age 5. Or maybe he just couldn't take Noah's crazy outfit anymore.

Fashion babes

The second generation of Miller cousins has inherited their parents' savvy fashion sense. In this January 1994 photo, Mo, H.B. and Noah modeled some pretty odd, we mean mod, outfits. H.B. looks like she'd rather be anywhere else -- Manhattan, perhaps?

Trunk of dreams

In this June 1987 photo, Aunt Annette Sprick Kulseth worked on the porch of her Old Frontenac cabin to refinish the old family trunk in which her grandfather, Heinrich Augustin, packed most of his family's possessions when he came to America ("Amerika," it says on the trunk) from Deutschland a century before. To see photos of the refinished trunk, go back to this old post.

A really, really nice nature walk

This past weekend your scrapblog editor went for a long walk in her favorite place, Frontenac State Park. First she hiked down the big hill. Then she hiked up the big hill. Then, down again. Then, up. Whew! It was very good for the scrapblog editor. Here are some things she saw along the way: An apple tree. A beautiful hillside covered with scarlet sumac, goldenrod, asters, fleabane and other September botanical stars. A cathedral of birch trees. A big old tree that had had the !!@##$%^&*! blasted out of it by lightning. The scrapblog editor has become a big fan of a nature blog kept by some Goodhue and Wabasha county nature types. Have learned a lot there about Frontenac State Park and environs.

Vote with your sweet tooth

Last week your scrapblog editor and her old high school pal, Karen Swanson, who was visiting Minnesota, took a road trip from Minneapolis to Lake City and stopped at Emily's Deli in Hastings for treats. There they found a hot contest, the Cookie Poll. People were buying McCain or Obama cookies to show their preference in the upcoming presidential election. As you can see from the tally below, Obama was leading this particular day, but it could be just because someone bought a lot of Obama cookies. We bought some cookies too, but we'll keep our preferences to ourselves, except that of course we tend to favor any candidate who would consider cousin Davy as his running mate.

Does this look like a prestigious campus to you?!?!

Cousin Davy Sprick recently drove his middle daughter cross-country back to school at Stanford (Calif.) University for fall semester. Below, they stood on the stately campus greens, steeped in academia -- oh wait! That's not Stanford! What are they doing in Las Vegas? Supposedly they just stopped for a glass of water on the way west, but we bet they lost some quarters there, too. Below, cousin Davy paused to look at a large ditch in Arizona. Hope there wasn't any poison ivy there!

Anna a-gogo

Aunt Anna doesn't get out much, but she had a couple of adventures last week. Snapshots: She was the prettiest one at her high school class reunion on Friday. (Lincoln High School, Lake City, Minn., Class of [year to come].) On Saturday, the scrapblog editor took Anna shopping at WalMart in Red Wing, Minn. Anna is a extremely careful shopper, driving the cart verrrrry slowwwwwly so as not to hit small children and meticulously checking the expiration dates of every item she purchases and a good many other items she doesn't purchase as well, a habit she picked up from young cousin Noah. Anna didn't hit anything and only got stuck a couple of times, not too bad for a senior driver.

Cousin Chris goes all multimedia

Cousin Chris, who in his day job supervises NFL coverage at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, has recently been appearing in some of the little new-wave videos taped for the Strib's website, www.startribune.com. The site won't let us download these little gems, but if you go to it, scroll down to Multimedia, then scroll down through the little movies to the "Access Vikings" shows, you can find him MCing snappy little reports on our favorite football team. We can't wait to see how he and his cohorts explain today's loss to the Baltimore Colts.

Happy Birthday to Sheila!

Happy Birthday to cousin Sheila! The family's overall class and beauty quotient went up considerably when cousin John "Tuck" Kirkwood married Sheila on April 17, 2004.

Uncle Joe thanks you-all

Your scrapblog editor has been "busier than a one-armed paperhanger," as Aunt Alverna used to say, this week because the Republicans are in town partying while nearby, gazillions of cops and protesters, a minority of whom don't have very good manners, do the police-protester polka late into the wee hours. Thus she hasn't kept up with the postings you-all, or maybe one or two of you, crave so. Thus she's wayyyyy behind in posting this very sweet thank-you note from Uncle Joe, whose manners are impeccable. (Click on the image to make it larger and easier to read.)