The Polar Opposite of the Bear Shoot

Would be getting passport photos at Walgreen's. From a picture where I'm smiling, to one where I look like I've just spent 8-1/2 hours on a trans-Atlantic flight, followed by Customs and Homeland Security. Bleargh.


Yesterday evening we braved the roads (the two-track in the upper right of the photo) and went into town to return movies, buy sunflower seed for the birdfeeders, and get passport photos taken. My husband and I need to renew ours, and we'll be getting one for our son.

The long-term plan is that we'll go over to the Netherlands for a couple weeks again, but in the short term, we do live in Michigan, the state with 700+ miles of Canadian border, second only after Alaska.

When I was a kid we used to go over to Windsor on our vacation & buy Cadbury biscuits, so my memories of Canada are all chocolate-biscuit-scented. If our son is going to have anything like that in his memory bank, he'll need a passport.

It's hard for me to believe that it's been almost ten years since we went to the Netherlands. 1998 was quite a year for us. That was the year my husband came home and said, "I think I just quit my job," and I (the security-loving, change-hating one) said, "Hooray!!" I think that was also the year the place where I'd temped for too many years finally hired me full-time. (Or was that 1997?)

Shortly after he quit, we paid off our home mortgage, and that October, we went to the Netherlands for two weeks with my mom. I think I've already said that very shortly after we got back, I finally got pregnant with our son. 1998 was a year of big changes!