Rockford Stats and Entertaining Grandkids

I started reading the Rockford Historical Society website and went down a rabbit hole for a good while. Not sure my brain retained much; however, I enjoyed reading the mini biographies on early settlers.

                          Photo taken in the fall - the Crow River runs through Rockford, Mn.

The company Joe goes to work at on Monday is Kingspan. They are an international manufacturing company with headquarters in Ireland. We are amazed they are in Rockford, Minnesota, population 4804 (the Rockford Chamber of Commerce records 4802 – I added two for Joe and me). I was surprised to discover that the Rockford Chamber of Commerce website states there are 467 businesses employing over 3,784 people in Rockford. The unemployment rate is 1.7%. Notedly, several firms have multiple jobs available at any given time. True Value and Kingspan among them. Meanwhile, the City of Rockford Development Department states there are 110 businesses employing 1,000+ people. Certainly 3,784 people are more than 1000. Pretty hefty + sign there.

Charlotte is the early riser in Megan & Jeremy’s family on the days Jeremy does not work. She came down at 8:00am this morning and climbed on the Street Strider. She bounced from activity to activity until Megan came and got her to eat breakfast. Caleb also joined us. Chess with Grandpa, 5 minutes at a time on the street strider, a bit of Adapted Mind educational games, and they were content to hang out with us old folks.

At one point in the morning, Joe took Pan for their daily 5-mile walk. Charlotte grabbed her sketch book and sketched out a story about a man who turned into a monster when he held a crystal. Caleb watched science YouTube videos on dinosaurs. Charlotte played, “Guess the animal” with me – she acts out various animals and I get to guess. I am not a good guesser. Today I missed with, “Grandma, I was a lion. I thought about being a tiger, but I chose lion.” This was after I guessed lion. How am I to know she changed her mind…

After a break for lunch, they came back down for another thirty minutes until they were allowed video game time in the family room. Video games beat grandparents every time. My reward for all this morning company was a well-deserved nap.

Tonight’s dinner was all you could eat at a sushi place in Plymouth, Mn. It was nice to go out with the family. I forgot my hearing aids, so conversation was more difficult. At least for family members when I kept asking them to repeat themselves.