"When we return home...

... then we shall live
on the memories."

Memories, a block of G35 and package of crisp bread sustain me today.

Three weeks ago, my host parents presented me with this caramel cheese from Norway. The 35-percent-goat-to-cow-milk blend tastes milder than real goat cheese. That's why I requested it when they asked if I missed anything. I received a block of both: G35 for everyday and "ekte geit ost" to save for Christmas.

It felt like Christmas as we welcomed them into our home. They showered us with gifts of Freia milk chocolate bars and wooden camping cups - everyday tokens to them. Because... they too wanted to experience everyday family life.

The result was a cultural combo.

For four days, our Minnesota home became even more Norwegian with coffee brewed daily; open-faced sandwiches for breakfast and lunch; daily outdoor exercise; mealtime conversation that rolled into "kaffe" – further conversation with dessert; and even a card game around the table before bed.

Different than the everyday hustle and bustle… truly a gift of time.

Here and there, the boys flashed their Norwegian know-how. At dinner, Noah toasted Gunn, looking her in the eye, saying "Skål" and maintaining eye contact while they clinked glasses, drank and returned the glassware to the table.

Besides homelife, they wanted to see the boys' sporting events – just as they do in Norway with their two grandchildren who match Isaac and Aaron's ages. Thursday afternoon we drove an hour to watch Isaac run a cross-country meet at St. John's University. We attempted to see Aaron play a Saturday morning football game. Unfortunately, a lightning storm caused a cancellation on our way there.


We showed

them how

Minnesota's

well-to-do

spend their

resources.



Thursday evening after Isaac's meet, we visited St. Cloud's Clemens and Munsinger Gardens.

As we toured, Gunn said, "Never would I have dreamed I'd be walking along the Mississippi River in such a beautiful garden."

On Friday's gorgeous sunny afternoon, Dan took off from work to show them Gull Lake. We boated by multi-million dollar homes and resorts on a ride to a channel restaurant for an alfresco pizza lunch. During our two-hour trip, we even spotted – on the ends of a few docks – Norwegian flags displayed by Minnesotans proud of their heritage.

Saturday after Aaron's game cancelation, we showed them the other side of life. We drove farther west through one the state's poorest counties as we traveled back roads on our way to Dan's Norwegian ancestral homestead.

Before embarking on this Midwest USA tour, they'd defined their purpose:
to see Norwegian immigrant influences.

As we reached the rolling hills and lakes of Ottertail County, they understood how topography drew in immigrants. Both commented, "It looks very much like home."

We stopped at the church that Dan's Norwegian immigrant great-great grandpa helped found in the 1873. In the adjoining cemetery lie Dan's forebears.

The congregation has served six generations of his family. Here Dan and I married fifteen years ago. Nine years later, we celebrated a Norwegian-style baptism of our youngest son here.

On this day, we entered the church. What they saw inside was familiar. The altar, the pews, the balcony, the design – all looked reminiscent of Norway.


When we returned home – after climbing Inspiration Peak for a 25-mile view, lunching at a saloon in the village of our wedding reception, 4-wheeling with the whole family in the SUV over the fields of Dan's family's farm and stopping later for a Dairy Queen treat – my host mom helped me with supper. Meanwhile, my host dad sat in our coffee nook contemplating...

He said, "When we walked inside the church, it struck me what the church here means to the people."

After driving for miles over the rolling terrain, seeing the great distances between homes and towns, asking how the church was supported, and learning it belonged to the members, he understood the church's role not only as a place of worship but also as a community support mechanism… Much different from Norway's state-supported church which is used mainly for life's big moments of baptisms, confirmations, weddings and funerals.

For an even better understanding, the next morning we took them to our local church – also with Nordic heritage. While the boys and I worked with the Sunday School classes, Dan took Gunn and Svein downstairs for Scandinavian style coffee with cakes, cookies and breads as well as a cup and conversation.

Later they found a pew for the service. Noah sat on one side beside Gunn. I joined them on the other end beside Svein. Robed in light blue with other choir members, Dan sat up front and sang four pieces with his group. During the opening hymn, Svein kneed me and pointed to the altar where Isaac and Aaron were lighting the candles as the service's ushers. Gunn and Svein smiled as Noah scurried up front to the pastor for the Children Message before his sermon. They marveled when Noah asked to go forward during Prayers for Healing.

Returning home to a soup and sandwich lunch, all seven of us joined for the last time in harmonized song before we ate.

Almost a decade ago, my maid of honor (who grew up in Gunn and Svein's Norwegian community) visited our family with her husband (then, -to-be). Dan impressed Else with his Norwegian recitation of the table prayer used by his grandparents. She taught us its melody to the tune of the doxology. It's since become our family's signature song.

Shortly afterwards, we gathered on our back step for a family portrait and good-byes before Dan drove to Minneapolis with two-fold purpose: to catch his work-trip flight to Reno, Nevada and to drop our family's Norwegian (grand)parents at their hotel to start their group bus tour of Minnesota, South and North Dakota, including a stop at Minot's famous Høstfest celebration.

On their two-week trek, they passed by places Gunn's grandfather ventured a century ago when he lived seven years in "Amerika" as a young man owning a farm the near MN/SD border, working on the railroad as it moved west and ranching as a Montana cowboy before returning to Norway to meet, marry and settle down in the homeland with Gunn's grandma.

This afternoon as I munched on my G35 cracker, I wondered whether it was Gunn's grandpa who inspired her parting words:

"When we return home, then we shall live on the memories."