// 31. after dinner walks //

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"After dinner sit awhile, after supper walk a mile."  

-   English Proverb

“Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.”

-   Ralph Waldo Emerson

I can hardly believe that we're at the end of 31 days of blogging!  I will close out this series by sharing with you a very beloved family tradition- the After Dinner Walk. 

Sometimes you finish dinner, and you're not quite ready for dessert. You've got to stretch the legs, get the digestion going a little, work up a second wind of an appetite before dessert and coffee are served. It's times like these that call for an after dinner walk. 

We don't walk after every meal.  And not everyone is obliged to come. When Alex first joined our family I don't think he quite understood the after dinner walk, and often opted to stay behind. But he's come around to them more recently and usually joins us. It's especially nice to take a walk after dinner if the weather is particularly fine. Winter walks are not as popular, but if we're feeling brave we'll go.  We always walk after dinner on Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

Everyone get their coats and shoes, my dad puts the dog on a leash. In the summer we can look for golf balls that have been shot over the fence of the near by golf course.  In the winter my brother often brings a pipe. Sometimes we all walk in a straight line, taking up the entire street. Other times people pair up, some walking briskly ahead, while others fall behind admiring a house or a garden. Then we all come home, put the coffee on, and have dessert. It's always the prefect way to end a good meal together. 

And just like that, 31 days of blogging comes to a close. 

The most important learning is done in the home, and I've learned so many things in the home my parents made over the years. Now they're being taught in the home Alex and I are making together. I hope you've enjoyed reading about them. And perhaps you've learned something in the process as well. 

Thank you for reading.  I am looking forward to NOT posting anything tomorrow!

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// 30. eating ice cream out of the carton //

Did you have rules as a kid that became more relaxed as you got older? No chocolate in the morning. Make your bed everyday. Only 30 minutes of TV. Stuff like that? 

When we were kids there is no way my parents would have let us eat straight out of the ice cream carton, but somehow when we were teenagers and young adults this became ok. It even became sort of a nightly ritual.  I think it started with my dad's tendency to eat sweets in very small portions. At night he'd get a little bit of a sweet tooth, but all he'd need to satisfy it was one spoonful of ice cream. So he'd pull out the ice cream, take his spoonful, and put it back.  Then I'm sure at some point he got caught, by me or my sister or someone, and the power of suggestion was too great and they had to have a spoonful as well.  

Well, it got to the point where almost every evening someone would get a spoon and the ice cream, and then everyone else would come running to with their spoon.  And we'd all stand there, eating ice cream out of the carton and shooting the breeze.  

The first time Alex caught me eating ice cream out of the carton he was very surprised to hear that it was something I learned from my parents.  

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// 22. how to road trip //

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Most of our vacations growing up consisted of driving to our cousins' house in Wisconsin, or driving somewhere further away for my older brother's gymnastics meets. We usually did a couple road trips every year and we always really looked forward to them.  We'd all pack a bag of fun stuff to do in the car, along with the school work my mom made us bring. We'd stake out our spots in the van, it usually ended up that my sister and  I had to share the back seat.  We would eat in the car, have times of  chattering, or bickering, and then there were times when everyone ended up snoozing. 

Some people make really good time while road tripping. My Uncle Mike was the king of road trips.  I remember making the drive from Milwaukee to St. Paul with him late at night; he only stopped once to quick run into a gas station for a pop. (soda?) I think the total drive took 6 hours, tops. My family would make the same trip in 8 hours, if we were lucky.  But it was usually more like 9. We tend to make a lot of stops, stops for gas stops, stops for bathrooms, stops for latte's. Not the gas station "lattes" that you push a button to dispense, but good lattes. And finding a good latte in the farmlands of central Wisconsin is not always an easy thing, especially before the invention of the smart phone.  We would take an exit that looked promising, and then drive up and down County Road Such And Such keeping our eyes peeled for anything that looked like a coffee shop.  Sometimes we'd spend close to an hour, going miles out of our way looking for a coffee shop.  Now of course my parents know where the good spots all along I-94 are.  And if they didn't they could use a smart phone to find one. What a thing technology is. 

One of the things we always stopped for when we would road trip to Wisconsin was frozen custard at Culver's.  Once upon a time there were no Culver's in Minnesota, and so getting their super creamy and delicious custard was an extra special treat.  Who am I kidding? It's still an extra special treat! We would each get a single scoop and I'd try to make mine last as long as possible. At some point we wised up to the fact that buying a whole pint is a much better value than buying six single scoops, so we'd get a pint, 6 spoons, and then pass it around the van. 

My dad likes to listen to sermons while he drives on road trips.  Usually once we had obtained the much sought after lattes, everyone would settle down to their napping or other activities and he would put in a cassette tape, then CD, now hook up his iPod, and listen to one of his favorites preachers. I remember being a surly teenager and preferring to leave my head phones on when this happened. But even over the roar of Five Iron Frenzy in my headphones I could still hear the voice of the preacher in the background.  And as I listened more I became interested in what he was saying. Eventually the headphones would come off, my brothers and sister would do the same, and there we would all be, sitting quietly and listen to sermons as we cruised through America's heartland.

Alex and I have taken a few road trips together since we've been married. And we usually adopt the Shepperd method of road tripping with lots of stops, lattes, ice cream, and even sermons to listen to. It's still something I look forward to and something I really enjoy.  Johnny enjoys road trips too! Actually, that's not true, but he does enjoy sitting in the driver's seat during our pit stops!

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