The 10 Year Anniversary video montage

I already posted the 20"x30" poster I had framed, but going through all the pictures over 10 years and only picking out six was really challenging so I put them all into this photo video on you tube. I always tell Candice that my favorite part is watching her hairdo's change.

The end of year catchup post

Once October hits it seems like time really speeds up. There are so many special dates (Rachel birthday, Michael birthday, Halloween) in October, then November slows down a bit at the begining, but then Thanksgiving and Christmas seem to blend into one holiday, which leads me to where I am now... about 2 months behind in my blog posts. So I'll try to post about 2 months worth here.

The Monster Half Marathon

On Jan 1, 2009 I ran my longest race ever - a 10k in below freezing weather. It hurt so bad I thought that was the longest distance I would ever do. Somehow throughout the year I go the bug to try a half marathon and ran it in Aug. That hurt so bad that I said "never again". Memory is a funny thing though, and the finishers medal was alot less than I hoped for, and when I saw that the Monster half was giving out a belt buckle for finishing, and I only had to drop 3 minutes to meet my goal in a 2 and half hour race I was ready to try again.

Here is the picture taken of me in the Monster half. Let me just say that I was about 24F, which was quite a bit colder than the 80F in Aug, and it hurt quite a bit more than the first time. All said, I was about 1 minute slower than the first time, but was alot uglier as I went out faster and came back alot slower.

Michaels 3rd Grade Concert

Next we move into school concert season. It is always fun to see the kids with the excited/embarrased look on their faces when they see you at school. Michael isn't big on singing but always tries his best though, and always looks so cute all dressed up with his class.

Rachels 6th grade band concert

Rachel had her first flute concert of the year. If I am going to have a work trip it is always during a concert it seems like, so I missed Michaels and Rachels this time. Here are some of the shots of Rachels.

Aunt Andrea visits

Auntie flew up for Thanksgiving again, which is always fun for the kiddos. Here is the lovely sisters when she first arrived.

We actually got a real tree for the first time ever also. Here is Daddy "unwrapping" the tree.

Here are the kiddos after it was all set up and decorated. Minus the nice glass ornaments though... with 3 cats and one of the them a 6 month old kitten, the oranments wouldn't have lasted. In fact, there are no ornaments on the bottom 2 feet of the tree now :)

Each year we make family ornaments, and this year was snowmen.

We had an early Christmas with Auntie while she was here also.

Candice and Andrea

The whole family and Andrea

Candice and Andrea again

The first snow of the season

The first snow came about a week before Christmas. It was only about 4 inches, but was really, really windy, which ended up with HUGE snow drifts. Here is Michael and Megan standing behing the snow drift infront of the garage.

The Gingerbread house

Halloween came so fast that we actually didn't get to carve pumpkins, so we actually made a Gingerbread house this year. It was a package set though, so not made from scratch, but the kiddos had alot of fun, and ate it as soon as we were done.

Our 10 Year Anniversary

I posted on this already, but here is the happy couple a few days later.

Here comes the snow again

Here we are on Dec 24th. We had somewhere between 15-20 inches over one day and I always love to take "the mailbox" picture, since that is where the snowplow piles it up. Here is Michael standing next to the mailbox.

Christmas day kept on snowing piling on another 6 or so inches. Here is Candice by the mailbox on Christmas.

We had to shovel out the openings on the mailbox and newspaper box so that they could be opened.

Here is the house across the street and their snow pile. This is the "hand shoveled" pile, vs our nice and neat "snow thrower" pile. Notice it is about as high as Candice.

Our Ten Year Anniversary

Candice and I celebrated our 10th Anniversary last year. 10 wonderful years. We went out to a nice steak and seafood place (our 2nd time in 10 years, with the first being our honeymoon), and reminised about the favorite memories. How we met, our first dates, our wedding day, moving to Texas, buying our first house, buying our second house, each of the kids births, going on vacations. As we thought about it, it almost seemed like different lifetimes - Florida, Texas and Minnesota. As I pondered the next ten years I said "wow, Rachel will probably be married and Michael on a mission at our 20th anniversary". That was kind of sobering, as to how fast it can go, and how long 10 years actually is, and how much you can accomplish. Here's looking forward to 10 more wonderful years! I love you honey!

Candice made a super 10 year history of us scrapbook, which I can't post online. I made a 20x30 poster covering our ten years and posted it below. Funny to see all the different hair styles and how much we've changed over the years.

Halloween 2009

Not sure if it's me or not, but Halloween seems to carry less and less of a thrill for the kids.  For me growing up it was exciting because:

• I actually got candy, which was pretty rare
• I got my costume the beginning of the month and could play around in it
• I could actually wear it to school
• The school parties were actually called "Halloween parties" instead of "Harvest parties"
• It was warm enough to wear my costume outside on halloween
• The streets were FILLED with kids trick or treating, and I actually had to stand in line at most doors

Nowadays, the kids still get excited, but it's not quite the same.  Candy is readily available, costumes are "marketing" elements of movies, toys, games they see all the time, the whole school "harvest party" concept, and we only had 6 door bell rings all night.  So, the point of all this is that the costumes were a little "lite" on the creative part this year. 
Michael went as a "zombie scream" with chainsaw, Rachel and Megan were both black cats, and Mommy went as a cowgirl.

Family Halloween pictures

Time again for our family Halloween picture.  We tried to look more like zombies this year, instead of ghosts from last year, but we ended up looking like zombie ghosts, or at least I did (that's what the tilted head is supposed to be - zombie like).

Our actual family picture turned out nice also.

Michael turns 9!

October is always a fun month. Back to back birthdays with Rachel, then Michael, followed up by Halloween. It does get one behind with trying to keep upto date with posting pictures, etc.

Michaels birthday was on the 18th (Sunday) and we were going to have his party on the 17th, however that was a 3 day weekend in Minnesota, so of the 5 friends he invited, all but one was out of town, so we ended up moving it to the 24th. So the 17th turned out to be a fun family party where we went "laser bowling". This is quite a bit different than the bowling allies I went to as a youth - Video monitors playing music videos, the lights are off, lasers everywhere, mini line dance lessons going on in the lanes... The kids really enjoyed it.

The next week I (Daddy) took Michael and the boys to Grand Slam for laser tag, mini golf, fun zone, batting cages, bumper cars, and the "money sucking" arcade. Michael had lots of fun. Below is the laser tag picture (a little spiced up).

Batting helmuts look so cute on tiny heads...

Michael at home with us singing happy birthday to him.

Rachel turns 12!

Wow, Rachel's 12... That means she's 1 year away from being a teenager. She's now in young women. Her first 18 years with us are already 2/3rd's over. Boys better not even be on the horizon...
For her birthday she invited 12 of her friends over for some birthday Halloween themed games. Only 9 were able to come, but that was still about 5 too many. All but one had their own cell phone, and were showing off their ring tones, texting, etc. Plus something about girls being together makes them feel like they need to scream constantly. Next year 5 is the max. To show how scary it is I took a picture of the girls (and one boy) out in the back yard.

We also snapped some shots of all the hard work Mommy put into making the menu - Coffin sandwiches, Mummy toes (with nails removed), flattened ghosts, and spider cups.

First snow of the season

Oct 10th. Yes, that is OCT 10th! The view out our back window. Oh yea, it was also 15F with the windchill.

Michaels watermelon harvest

Around the end of the last school year Michael brought home a little watermelon seed in a cup as part of a school lesson. We watered it inside until it was warm enough to plant outside (since it lived that long). When Candice and Michael were outside picking the last vegetables, they noticed his watermelon plant had produced a watermelon (about the size of a silver dollar :) ). Here he is with his harvest.

Fall apple picking

Family apple picking is one of my favorite family traditions. It's great because it's only 10 minutes away, I love eating apples, and we always use it as a time for family pictures. The kids were all on the lookout for bees this year, since Michael was stung last year.

Here is the whole family with the baskets full.


The kiddos trying to look like they want to smile.


Mmmmm... Apples


Megan standing by the tractor that gives tractor rides.


Rachel pulling the apple cart out.


Michael and Joey seeing who had picked the biggest apple.


Mommy taking a picture of Daddy filming the kids. I got a video of her taking a picture of me also...


After apple orchard shots we always take some in the pumpkin patch. Here's Michael on the way to his soccer game.


Megan showing a little impatience with the whole thing.


Rachel (looking too old when we see pictures of her).

Lakeville Downtown Dash 5k

Wow, what a busy day! Michael had soccer pictures at 8 am, Megan at 8:50 am. Michael's soccer game started across town at 9 am, then Megan's on the other side at 10 am, PLUS Candice and I were running in the Lakeville 5k at 9 AM! With the aid of our trusty home teacher giving rides we were able to get it all done. This was my 6th 5k, and I was actually more nervous for this than for the half marathon, because this is a sprint, and it hurts a lot more. Candice was also running a 5k for the first time after starting to run about 7 weeks ago. This was something I never thought she would do, and I am still amazed at how fast she went. We are waiting for the official results to post, but it looks like she was just under 32 minutes, ( which was almost 2 minutes faster than my first 5k. That was her main goal she said afterwards!). I ended up dropping almost 3 minutes over last year and beat my goal time of under 26 minutes - in about 25:52.
My Garmin splits are here

These are the pictures I made to commemorate the occasion. I love Candice's face of pure pain in this first shot.




This will go on our "wall of fame". I was wearing a "bib holder" that looks like it cuts me in half like a sack of potatoes.



The happy finishers!

First day of school

This is Rachel's first year of middle school, so she has to catch the bus at 6:55 am now, as opposed to 9:05 last year! We had to use the flash for her picture outside this year. Here she is all dressed and ready to go into 6th grade.

Michael and Megan got to sleep in longer. Their bus isn't until 9:12. This is also Megan's first year of all day school now that she's in grade 1. She only had half days last year. Michael is going into 3rd grade this year. Looking at this first picture it's the first time we've seen how much Michael and Megan look alike!

Here's Michael "prepping" Megan for her first full day of school.