Thursday, August 30, 2007

Emily's First Cross Country Meet of the Season

Emily had a spectacular start to the running season today. She finished 14th among 100 7th and 8th grade girls. Jeff did a great job with the photography and captured many great shots.

Finish time

Poetry in motion

And they're off!
Part of the pack



Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Just for you, Paul

At Paul's request, here are pictures of the backyard projects from this summer. Please excuse the weeds, as the landscaping is not complete.

Here is the gazebo that makes the patio a little more usable, instead of a roaster.

The furniture inside the gazebo.

The recently completed swingset. This weekend we plan to fill in with more sand and make sure the concrete is not exposed.

Emily's First Day of 7th Grade

Can you believe that Emily started 7th grade yesterday? Here she is in a dress that she shopped for with a friend so that they could have matching outfits on the first day of school. And although you cannot see it, all of the girls went in last week for manicures and pedicures to start off the school year. We had so much fun that it will become a yearly tradition. On Sunday night, we had a "Welcome Back to School" celebratory dinner at PF Chang's and dessert at Maggie Moo's.

Emily already has a busy schedule lined up with cross-country running and dance. Compound that with both of her sister's schedules and I will need to start looking for a personal driver.

Monday, August 13, 2007

First Day of School 2007

Today marks the first day of school for Reese and Noelle. Reese is in Miss Richards' third grade class and Noelle is in Mrs. Cook's kindergarten class at Prairie Hills Elementary. Emily is the lucky duck today, as it was 6th graders only at Timberview Middle School. Her pictures will be up tomorrow.




Sunday, August 12, 2007

July Update

Just an update to let you know how the month of July went. Please forgive the backwards chronology. By the time I remember that Blogger puts the pictures in on top of each other, I am already too far in and don't want to start over. But, the story is still the same.

Towards the end of July, we made our yearly pilgrimage to northern Minnesota. We started out by way of Cheyenne for Frontier Days. Lots of cowboys. Then we headed east into hot and humid weather. Blech. We made a stop in St. Paul for dinner with my brother and a trip to the Science Museum. We picked my aunt up at the airport and made the drive to my mom and dad's house to enjoy the mugginess and bugs. Oh, and the Korean food wasn't bad. Grandpa did take the girls fishing, and even Noelle caught some bass. Grandpa did help her cheat and she reeled in some of his, too. Enjoy the pictures below.

Here are the girls helping Mimi pick raspberries. Later, she made jam for us to truck across the country to my aunt and uncle's house and Paul and Judy's.
Here are Emily and Reese with Mimi and her birthday cake. The girls also picked out the flowers. And before you ask, Noelle was napping, that is why she is not in the picture.
Here are the girls at some rest stop in Nebraska. It just seemed like a nice spot to take pictures.
We stayed overnight in the St.Paul area. While there, we went to the Science Museum of Minnesota. Here is Reese extracting DNA.

Noelle at the telescopes. Reese and Emily doing a germ test.
Overlooking the Mississippi River. You would not believe that no more than 10 minutes after taking this picture, there was a horrible rain that dumped sheets of water. The water was blowing sideways and made driving difficult. We were drenched walking the 50 feet from our car to the hotel.

We were camping again in mid-July. Here are only a fraction of the children who usually are part of our camping group. We may soon qualify to use the group campgrounds. This time we were only about 45 minutes away in Woodland Park. However, it didn't look any different than the campgrounds that are 2 hours away, so we may be doing this more often.

Here are the girls in a field of flowers while we were on a hike.