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.

Getting ready for school

It's funny how when you all of a sudden realize that school is about to start and summer is almost over you try to cram in all the things you wanted to do all summer. Here's the list of things we wanted to do but didn't get to
1 - go camping
2 - ride bikes as a family a lot
3 - go fishing
4 - go look at stars
Things we crammed in the last 48 hours
1 - hammock time (shown below)
2 - fishing
3 - campfire (shown below)