A Midwestern Drop-In From the Knudermuths

Fans, this is a picture of, from left to right, Anja, Elsa, and Birdie.  !!!!!

Longtime Fans will remember Joe's friend, Elsa, and her parents, Julie and Ted's friends, Sanne and Todd.  Sanne, Todd, and Elsa moved to Salt Lake City in June 2009, when Joe and Elsa were about a year old.  Since then, they have added Anja to Team Knudermuth, and moved to Seattle.  But yesterday, they were back here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.  (Todd's family vacations at a spread one of his aunt's has in Wisconsin and they, together with Todd's sister and her partner and their new baby, and Todd's mom, broke the multi-part trek out there at Raleigh House.)  We laid eyes on Anja for the first time and saw Elsa as a big girl.  Wow and wow.  Sanne saw Clara for the first time, and we saw Sanne after what had been about two years.  Sanne and Julie cried.  It was better than Cats.

Clara was really interested in the people who were, to her, all new, save Todd who was in town briefly a little over a month ago.  Elsa and Anja had to eat lunch and Clara sat herself right down at the table where the girls had a conversation about the IKEA cups they all have at their respective homes.  We learned that at the Knudermuth residence, family members use a particular color--e.g. Todd uses yellow; therefore, better for Elsa to use a different color at this lunch.

Joe had just woken up from a nap and was a little more wary of the invaders, especially after Todd and Ted left to go get more groceries for the Wildermuths' week away and he was the only boy among rather a lot of girls: Sanne, Elsa, and Anja; Julie and Clara; Elsa and Anja's Aunts Amy and Gwen, and their little Lila; and Elsa, Anja, and Lila's Grandma Jean.  But by the time the cars were being reloaded, he was flitting around--and had been tempted into the female fold with apple slices.

Story time with Amy and Gwen

Sanne and Elsa (Todd's outfit did not coordinate with his ladies' ensembles)

Anja (Sanne, all over again)

It was a sad day for us when the Knudermuths moved away.  Sanne and Julie's pregnancies with Joe and Elsa overlapped by seven months, which meant that their maternity leaves overlapped by about a month.  So after spending some of our college post-college years together, we spent a lot of our first year as new parents together.  To the extent we thought that might change, we just hoped it wouldn't.  Of course,  you never know where life will take you.  But at least with that uncertainty comes the possibility that life will bring you back around again now and then to the people you love who scatter about.

Yesterday, as the Knudermuth caravan pulled away, Sanne leaned toward the open window and said, "Don't cry, Julie!"  Too late.

But we'll see Team Knudermuth again in about a week on their way out of town, and we'll get to spend more time with them then.