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Interview & photos by Pam Roberts
Jill and Jay Lilja: Jill: “We’re soaking up the sun. Jay is getting out on his new bike. It’s been great, taking advantage of the warm weather. Getting outside when we can. He’s lots of fun. He’s 16 months.” Jay: “Yeah.” Jill: “I’m a nurse at the EBCH and I work night shifts and I just got up and we’re going for a walk. We’ve been doing everything and anything we can. We’ve been going to Florida to see grandma and we go work out at Studio North because I teach classes there and Jay comes with me. Yeah, we’ve been having fun and I am very thankful and blessed. We’re going to be outside the rest of the day, I’m glad it’s finally warm enough so we can be outside.”
Barbara Omerza with Phin: “Phineas. She was supposed to be a male and it turned out it was a female so we shortened Phineas to Phin. I’m just the grandma. She’s my grand dog. We’ve had kind of a long winter. She had surgery on one of her back legs. She had a torn ACL and a damaged meniscus and her knee cap was coming off her femur. She had some extensive surgery so we didn’t do much walking because we had to watch that back leg. About three weeks ago we got the go ahead we can walk as far as we want now. So we’re outside catching up on our walking. She had a hard time getting used to walking on four legs again because she’d been using just three for so long. But she’s doing good, she’s on all four legs again and we’re just trying to keep her from getting hurt again. I haven’t been doing much. Just lot of church stuff and a lot of reading. I belong to a book club. I like historical fiction. And there’s a lot of good books out there. A lot of good ones. They’re not hard to find. If you go to the library they can steer you right. We’re going to finish our walk. We just got started and then we’re going to go home and do some laundry. Always something right? “
Jacob Vanderbeek and Braden Jonas: Braden: “We’re going to a concert in Duluth. It’s a music concert by Daughtry. I don’t what kind of genre it is. It’s a famous singer. Chris Daughtry” Jacob: “I like math in school and PE and fishing. I fished recently with Braden, couple times this season. I have my pillow because I’m probably while we’re in the car, I’m just going to lay down and put my head on it.. Because we’re going to get back late.” (Oh, Braden’s mom just called.). Braden: “We gotta get going.”
Joren Kujawa with his grandparents Jeff and Ann Shallman: Ann: “We’re just out for a walk enjoying the beautiful weather. Joren is happy to be riding in his stroller and not having to wear a big snow suit. So he’s pointing at things. He’s our grandson. We live in Ely. We’ve lived here a little over four years. We moved here to be close to our daughter and son-in-law and two little grandsons and just to enjoy Ely. So we got our own canoe last summer and we like to ride our bikes. Jeff works from home.” Jeff: “I work with I.T. I work from home four days a week. Work’s great.” Ann: “I take care of Joren three days a week and I help out at the yarn shop: Sisu Designs. Jeff’s sister Anna, owns the yarn shop.” Jeff: “She’s in Arizona right now.” Ann: “I do some knitting but not as much as Anna. We like to do the outdoor things here. Ride our bikes, walk on the Trezona, go in the canoe a little bit.” Jeff: “Cross country skiing in the winter.” Ann: “And we love to go to the shows. We went to Fiddler on the Roof. It was Amazing! We plan to go to all the summer shows too.” Jeff: “And we really enjoyed the Film Festival.” Ann: “Joren doesn’t talk yet but he says YES. That’s his big word.” Joren: “Yes.” Jeff: “I’m on break from work so I need to get back in about 15 minutes and finish my day.” Ann: “And Joren and I are just going to play.” Joren: “Yes.”
