The year of 2011 has started out with the usual round of winter challenges in Wisconsin, cold, snow and garage door difficulties. It is uncanny how the chain breaks or jumps the track or the plastic thing breaks---always in the coldest snap of weather. This year the chain jumped off the tracks as Hilde was heading for a state steering committee on land use, so she merely locked the inner door of the garage and headed off, confident that Coffee, who is nearly dormant and very fat in winter would find refuge in the hay pile in the other shed, even on a day it didn't get above 1 degree. Mark ended up getting things in place late at night in below zero conditions, again.

Mark and Hilde have been delighting in the many photos Jim and Kayme post on line of darling Rhiannon. When the eastern Henkels skype with Rhia looking around and waving her arms, the Wisconsin Henkels want to reach thru the screen to hold her---she is so sweet! Already she is cosmopolitan with a part-time babysitter (Kayme returned to part-time teaching) and she is growing so quickly! Rhia has already visited two other states in her second month---Jim and Kayme went up hiking in West Virginia with her and the following weekend, she visited her Fritz grandparents down in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Middle of the month, two fun days of non-work. John and Evie stopped by overnight on their way up to the Williams annual winter weekend WAY up near Ely MN. It was great to see them and feed them. They had wonderful times skiing and building an igloo up there. Then, Mark and Hilde attended the wedding of black belt Bethany Reed down near Madison. It was the day of the Packers vs. the Falcons in the playoff—we left the reception a little early to enjoy the win and cheer loudly.

This month, Mark was only gone two nights to Missouri --but they were cold, three- blanket nights here. Most of the month he has been working long hours preparing for the two-week trial in Madison. Contrary to the way lawsuits are presented on television, civil litigation requires many, many hours of depositions, discovery and then intense study of those materials, so that the defense attorney is very familiar with allt he details of the testimony and exhibits. During the trials, Mark works long hours preparing every night for the next day, making sure experts and fact witness are present and prepared, and focusing intently in court on every statement. It is not unusual for Mark to lose five pounds a week during long trials, although since Hilde has been accompanying him, he eats more regularly.

January is the month for performance evaluations for county department heads and for ADRC executive director. This meant Hilde spent many hours tabulating surveys, drafting summaries and then writing up the evaluations before delivering the good or not good news. It is time consuming and often unpleasant, but done. Hilde also managed to get the virus going around and spent nearly a week with an unhappy tummy and headaches….another winter occurrence, unfortunately.

Somehow, it is always a relief when January is over---the days are getting longer (if not warmer) and the accumulation of snow will not stay forever! It has been quite a winter already. It has seemed if Rudolph was not getting bad weather, DC was or Chicago. With a blizzard looming for southern Wisconsin and Chicago tomorrow, things will grind to a halt for a while again. Despite the snowy conditions, some of the local denizens came to visit on January 30--turkeys really fluff out their feathers in these temperatures.