Special Iowa Edition
Every year on July 27, it is Finnish tradition to wake up the last person to leave the house by either throwing water on them, or throwing them into a lake or the sea.
On July 27, 1912, 28 nations and 2,500 athletes celebrated the closing ceremonies to the Olympic games being held in Stockholm, Sweden. The tug-of-war gold medalist? The host country beat England for the title (but only two teams competed, so there were good odds).
And with a deep history from the country that shares the Scandinavian skyline, Norway, Ellen Bersagel was born.
Yesterday, we gathered at Bestemor’s (reminder: Bestemor is Norwegian for Grandmother) farm in northern Iowa to celebrate her 96th birthday. We traveled from West Salem to Northwood in the morning (Ezra’s longest car drive to date: 2.5 hours) and arrived just in time for dinner – which is what they call the noon meal in these parts. We had a really good spread of food, as we always do at the farm. At the conclusion of the meal, we had some ice-cream cake to complete the culinary celebration.
Not long after lunch, we all sat with Bestemor as she opened her gifts. It always seems to be a special day when we get to visit with Bestemor, but yesterday had some extra emotion attached to it since it was her birthday and we were able to introduce her to Ezra. It’s a pretty cool thing that Ezra has already been held by 3 of his 4 great-grandparents (and hopefully we will complete that wish soon). We hung around through supper and headed off to the hotel for the night.
Here are pictures from the day, including a couple of the sites on the farm – which only took 5 minutes to go outside and take, bur for which I sacrificed at least 4 mosquito bites. Oh, and Isaac patiently playing catch with Ezra.
The Life of a Little Hippie 
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