Mountrail County Promoter - Columnists

It Sure Is Quiet At Our House
That’s a wrap on the visits from the grandkids for this summer. Abel went home on Friday after being here since the Saturday before. It’s quiet at our house this week with Dale and I and Buddy catching up on some rest after a busy visit.
Abel’s visit continued with lots of activity. He’s a busy guy and he really wants you to be involved in whatever he’s doing. He’s also quite a chatter as anyone who saw him last week knows.
He was at the office last Monday, where he spent time in the massage chair, got a Whirla Whip with Dale, and entertained Jada with card tricks.
On Tuesday, he and Dale went to Minot while I logged in for the county planning and zoning meeting. They checked out Tilt at the mall, went to Scheels and ate at the food court. After they got back we had supper and then sat down to play more pinochle. After having played a couple of games of two-handed pinochle, we moved on to three handed. I created a cheat sheet for Abel so that he could figure out the meld for the cards in his hand. It took awhile for him to get the hang of bidding, but we sure had fun. Abel also might be one of those bidders who thinks he can bid you up far enough for you to go set and then look surprised when you drop it on him and it happens to him instead.
There were trips to the park to play. He spent plenty of time playing Madden on the PS5. He got a motorcycle ride with Dale.
He and Dale also spent hours putting together a Lego set that he picked out. They were building Shadow from Sonic. It was an adult level build, so I was a little concerned at first that it might be too much for Abel. I was wrong. There may have been a few hiccups along the way, but they finished it on Thursday night. I carefully packed it in a box, surrounded by towels, so that it would make it home in one piece. I also made sure to send the instruction booklet just in case it didn’t.
Abel had planned his trip this year for Crazy Days. Both Carter and Jozie have gotten to be here for this fun event and he wanted to check it out.
Needless to say, the weather forecast made everyone a bit nervous. The Commercial Club rescheduled events to start earlier in the day because they were predicting that thunderstorms would start in the afternoon. Turns out the forecasters were wrong. I know, big surprise, huh? The storms waited until evening to arrive.
It was cloudy and overcast as we made our way to the office on Thursday morning. We started out heading over to Prairie Home Furnishings to get a wristband for the inflatables, mechanical bull and go-karts. To our surprise, we found Wyatt and Tylada Nichols with their team hitched up and ready to give wagon rides. Dale and Abel hopped on right away and took off. I stayed and waited with Buddy, who was enjoying a day out in public. By the time they got back, the rain had started to come down. We went back to the office for awhile, where Abel was staring out the window wishing the rain away and giving us regular weather updates.
The weather started to clear so Abel was able to enjoy lunch from Bravera, a fair-style lemonade from the FBLA group, a root beer float from the cheerleaders, a slushie at BNC, and some mini donuts over the course of the day.
We went to the elementary school for a ride on the go-karts. I ended up being the one to go with him. They warned us we would get dirty. The rain had created puddles along the course. Abel was on the inside and he got the worst of it. He blamed me, claiming that I was driving fast and aiming for the puddles by taking the curves a little tight. I will still maintain my innocence, but I don’t think he will agree.
He took a hard pass on the mechanic bull. His sister had kind of convinced him that it would go fast and he just wasn’t ready for that adventure.

We took a tired, yet very happy, boy back to the house on Thursday after he enjoyed Crazy Days. After supper and a bath, he and I crawled into bed to watch the third Sonic movie so he could explain to me all about the character his Lego set was based on.
Unfortunately, about the time we were finishing the movie, the first of the storms rolled in. It was pretty scary listening to the wind, rain and hail, so Abel and I watched more television before I got him to sleep between waves of the storm.
On Friday, he visited the office again and had lunch before it was time to go meet his mom. We met at the zoo in Minot, where we got to see the new tiger cubs playing with their mom. Although the zoo is affected by construction and there are a lot of things you can’t do this year, we still had a good time. It was with some sadness that I sent him back home with Amanda in the afternoon.
I sure hope he had as much fun as we did while he was here. We packed a lot into that visit. I might be recuperated sometime this week. I’ll have to wait and see.