Another Win

The fourth grade football team played a tough defensive game and ended up winning 6-0 against a BIG Chisago Lakes team. It was an exciting game and we have seen so much improvement in all the guys over the past weeks. Noah has made some great new friends, and we have enjoyed getting to know all the parents. Thanks to Grandma Judy, Papa, and Grandma Sue for coming to cheer on Noah and the Pine City team.
Noah has been saving all his money and yesterday bought a Nintendo Wii gaming system. We have had a great time with it. Jake is the master at boxing, and Lydia is pretty good at bowling. Noah beat me pretty bad at tennis - tough on my ego! The system work using body movements - so in boxing, you have a controller in each hand and to thow a punch, you need to throw a punch with your arms. Sure beats the old Atarii system I had as a kid!
We are hoping to pick up Joe 'Mewoer' today. We will post pictures when he gets here.

The rain ends and the party begins

Noah celebrated his 10th birthday today by having 12 buddies over after school. With all the rain we had this week, mom and dad were in a slight panic, trying to figure out what we were going to do to keep the guys entertained if they needed to be inside. However, the rains ended this morning and the afternoon turned out to be nice! The boys played football, ping-pong, basketball, foosball, etc. The guys even commented on how good of a b-ball player Deb is after she kicked their butts in lightning!
We then headed off to the Homecoming game where the Dragons beat the Braham Bombers 14-0. Noah said he had a great day! He has his game tomorrow morning and then we are having a few families over to bbq afterwards. Hopefully for a celebration lunch!

Rain, Rain, Go Away....

We are still behind in our rain totals for the year, but we do not need to catch up in one day! The storm woke up everyone but Jake in the early morning hours (poor Deb couldn't sleep with all the wind, lightning, and thunder). When I left for school we already had over two inches of rain, and my rain gauge read over another inch by the time I got home. I just had to go and pump some water out of the pool. By the way, our pool does not look like the picture anymore. I have vacuumed it and put the solar cover on it. We are now up to 66 degrees! Looks like the weather will be warm again after last weeks cold spell. Noah has 14 buddies coming over after school on Friday to celebrate his birthday, so I hope the weather is nice so they can play OUTSIDE!!!!

Brrrr.

When we left for Noah's football game this morning, it was only 29 degrees! Yikes! But the sun was out and the 4th grade team played a great game against North Branch, winning 14-7. Noah was an animal on defense with 3 sacks and a dozen tackles! He played end for one series today (the picture with noah being closest) and had a carry of 10 yards. He is loving football, so one more sport to fit into the year.


Well, my goal of blogging twice a week has already failed. I hope to get better once tennis is over. We have a very small team this year, but still have many matches coming up. (Three a week for the next three weeks)
We finally have the pool cleaned out. I forgot to tighten a hose last night and when I was backwashing the filter, I became coated with all the dirt and iron we had vacuumed out! Noah thought it was funny, I did not!
The picture of the pool is the 'before' picture - before cleaning, that is. The water is clear now! Noah has been driving his four wheeler around, dragging the yard. We hope to plant grass still this fall.

Birthday Party

We had the family birthday party this afternoon over in Grantsburg for Noah, Elly (Deb's cousin Casey's daughter), and Andrew (Deb's cousin Kelly's son). We had a hot dog roast, hayride, and campfire. The weather was nice, and the food was great!

One week down...

We survived our first week of school, but we are all exhausted! It was extrememly hot on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. My classroom was 87 degrees at the end of the day on Thursday. The students were dripping sweat onto their desk tops!
Lydia was excied to be back at Jenny's house and made some new friends. She also accompanied me to Noah's football practice. This morning she sang out loud to all the songs at church.
Jake had a very good week of school and caught a bunch of grasshoppers up at the high school during Noah's football practice. He is our nature / animal guy.
Noah had his first football game. He did a great job and felt pretty good about how things went. His team lost 7-6, but they played hard!
Jeff and Deb spent a lot of time on school work and we both helped out with the children's ministry program at Journey North Church. Our church has branched off in two directions and we have chosen to go with the Journey North 'branch'. We held our first sevice this morning at Pine Technical College, and things went well, with a few wrinkles to work out.
The pool was also installed on Thursday and Friday. We still have a few things to do. The kids want to go swimming, but I think we will need to wait until spring - the water is soooooo cold!

A good first day

We all had a good first day of school. Jeff has some large 8th grade classes, but a smaller biology and anatomy class. The high school was very warm and the students were tired and sweating by the end of the day. We really need air conditioning! After school then was tennis practice. Deb had a pretty good day in her new classroom. Noah came home all smiles. He really had a good day and has lots of buddies in his class. Jake came home and told us about some 'new' friends (girls) in his class and how he and one of the girls lost their two front teeth on the same day! Lydia had fun at Jenny's house but was exhausted. She could not even finish her supper and went up to bed.
Noah's football team scrimmaged the 5th grade students tonight. They made some great plays and made those older kids work hard. Noah is a maniac on defense. He made a number of tackles and caused a few fumbles. He likes being rough and tough and making tackles. We are looking forward to his first game this weekend.
So we all survived the first day back. It was a warm one, but we made it. Only 3 more days until the weekend, and 174 student days until summer vacation!

Just like Thanksgiving...

Thank you grandma Judy for the delicious turkey dinner yesterday. As the kids said,"This is just like Thanksgiving!" However, instead of football, we had a mean game of baseball in the backyard. Jill, Tom, Taylor, Jake, and Jordan vs. Jeff, Deb, aunt Deb, and Noah. It ended up a 6 to 6 tie due to the relief pitching of Jake! He pitched tough so that our team couldn't go ahead! We had a great afternoon with a skit and some singing and dancing performed by Taylor and Lydia.
Jeff and aunt Deb have run the last couple mornings. The weather was beautiful on Saturday morning, but muggy and humid this morning. Yesterday was a great 9-mile run, but today was a 5 mile 'recovery' run. We will have to see what tomorrow brings!