Part 1: A Summertime Accident

Update:  Thanks to everyone who voted for us in the Claussen Pickles "Conquer the Cold" contest. We still don't know if we've won or not, but we'll keep you updated.  Now back to our regularly scheduled program...

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Gosh, it was chilly this morning, wasn't it?  But I'm glad it's fall--I tend to like the "transition" seasons. 

I generally do not like the summer time.  Weird, huh?  A lot has to do with how busy summer is.  I always think that summer should be relaxing and chill, but it never turns out that way. 

This summer was particularly rough for a few reasons.

Remember this guy?  It's Lars--our garden gnome.

Lars in profile--so distinguished!

There was an accident this summer.

This summer, we arrived home from work and noticed that Lars was tipped over in our garden. Then we noticed he was broken on both ends.

Just look at his base--he can't stand up straight!

I lean, says Lars.

And his red hat...smashed!

Look at the size of that hole--I could plant a flower in his head!

Rewind to two and a half years ago:  I was delighted when Lee had given me Lars as a Mother's Day gift.  Lars quickly became a part of our family.  We made him a costume for Halloween last year. We helped him through a tough time earlier this year.  Heck, our friends would ask us how Lars was doing!

And here he was in our garden--toppled, broken, smashed! Just like my sentimental heart!

How could this happen?  Who did this? Why would anyone do something this mean to an innocent garden gnome? we asked ourselves.  

Broken Lars

I couldn't quite figure out how Lars was broken on both sides--did Lars get body slammed? Was Lars dropped on his head, THEN dropped on his stump? Did they try to quarter him?!?

We gathered up Lars and his broken bits and opened our screen door.  This was taped to our front door.

The confession note

One of the kids in our neighborhood had written the note. 

Because the note was signed by the culprit and included her dad's name and phone number, we decided to chat with them and walked over to their place around the corner. The dad called his daughter to the door and together we figured out payment for the damage done to our garden gnome.  Despite being way bummed, I was grateful that this dad was showing his daughter how to be responsible for one's actions.

So, Lars sat indoors for a long time, because we didn't know what to do with him.

We just couldn't go and replace him--he's irreplaceable! Plus, there are some scary/goofy/dumb-looking garden gnomes in stores nowadays. 

But he was pretty busted up.  We didn't know what to do...

Sad Lars, our broken garden gnome

...until we started thinking about how we dressed him up last year for Halloween.  That's Part 2 of our story!

Tune in tomorrow, folks!