This and that's

Updating my blog is not my strongest quality. Again, I apologize to everyone! The kids are great...just busy and growing like weeds! I cannot believe there are only 12 days left of school. I have absolutely no idea how I will manage this house this summer. When the kids are together lately they fight; but my threat is going to be summer school if they start up right away. :)Joe was offered and took a permanent job with Great River Energy and started a week or so ago. It's really no different then it was before but we now get the job security part and benefits that go on forever. (He was an outside contractor for just about 3 years for them) Luck for me he now works 4 10's and gets an extra day off each week. I don't mind the long hours when he's home random days here and there. Oh- he also gets holiday pay again- woohoo!Hannah received her first ribbons for swimming this past weekend. She swam her 1st 100 Free and placed 6th. I am so excited to see her progress.
Isaac also started baseball again for the season and really loves it. He has really come a long way from last year. He also signed up for Boy Scouts for fall and Joe is going to be taking one of the lead positions in the pack. Looks like we have scouting running though our blood around here.OK- so one more funny story of the week. We went to Valley Fair last weekend as a scouting event and I wanted to go on the Antique Car ride they have. It's a ride where you drive smaller versions of real cars and Hannah piped up that she was driving because she was tall enough. Well fare enough; I wanted to drive but she insisted so I let her! The problem was that I had Isaac and Avril with me so I had to sit in the back with them and Hannah had to be up in front alone. Well, the #1 rule of these cars is that you cannot switch drivers after leaving the entry gate and Hannah's legs weren't strong enough to push the pedal all the way down. So we caused quite the traffic jam with Hannah only being able to go about a foot or two per try. Well we made it around in about 15 minutes and I laughed the whole way! She won't be driving any more any time soon.

I love this picture...what a ladies man however, I should teach him how to be polite. Or has he already learned how to tune them out???


On Monday, Isaac had his 1st Kindergarten music concert and he was so cute. He gets a very serious look on his face when he is deep in concentration. It was very short but nice.

April

My apologies to all of you that watch our family via this blog. I am waiting for things to slow down a bit, and they will after May 8th. It's a big day because my 1st semester of college will be over!! Right now I have an English class that is all writing, so for me to write up stuff for our blog just doesn't happen as much as I would like. So I will wrap up what has happened this month as best I can.
Isaac turned 6 on April 6th. We spent the day bowling then went out for dinner at Space Aliens with Joe's entire family. It was a great day and I still can't believe he's SIX!

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter...We did! We spent the morning at church then the rest of the afternoon with Joe's family. They hold a yearly egg hunt and this year they hid 80+ eggs. The kids love the hunt and the little treasures grandma and grandpa hide.
The rest of this month we have been outside!!!! I love Minnesota spring weather. There can't be anywhere else like it. Only in MN; do we put our coats away when it turns 40 degrees in the Spring then whip them back out when it's 40 degrees in the Fall.

Oh my a whole month has gone by!

Oh my gosh.... I had no idea that it had been so long. I'm sorry!
Not much has happened but I wanted to share with everyone our new hobby. It's called Geocaching. Joe just goes online to the Geocaching website and finds the coordinates to where they are located. Then we head out with the GPS and find the little treasures. The website says that there are 754,445 caches around the world so this should keep us busy for a while. For example this weekend we went up to my grandparents house in Garrison and on the way home we stopped at a rest stop and headed into the woods and found 2 of them. Then we stopped in Elk River and found 2 more. So now we have found a total of 6 and the kids love this. Some of them are easy and some are going to be a challenge. But it's fun, fun, fun!
If ya look in Hannah's hand that is the container this one was hidden in. If you want something new to do on a Sunday afternoon go get a GPS and check it out: www.geocaching.com

Vacation

2 weeks ago now... we spent Tuesday through Friday at The Great Wolf Lodge in Wisconsin Dells. The whole experience was exciting and exhausting. We choose to go there because for us it was full of fun for everyone. They had 3 large indoor water parks and a foam ball tree fort activity place. Owen and Avril didn't enjoy the ball playing place because they had these air guns that were extremely loud. But the water parks provided more then enough to keep us all content for the week. And Isaac finally broke out of his shell and enjoyed all the water slides. In previous years he wouldn't even try and this year is just hopped in line and went, no coaxing or anything. We were quite happy to return to normal life though....normal food....normal bed....normal shampoo! :)



Then Valentine's weekend Hannah had an amazing swim meet. She did the 50 freestyle in 53.68 seconds, which was 5 seconds off her previous best time. (Place 14 out of 24) Then on her 50 Back stroke she had a time of 58.13 seconds, which was 1.61 seconds faster then her best time. On that one she placed 9th of 23. This was a total bummer because they give out ribbons for 1st-8th place. I turned into one of "those moms," the moms that somehow become louder then the entire audience! I can't help it-Hannah rocked! And she is officially part of the Sea Devils Team. Her coach put her up to the Bronze level which is officially team however, over the summer she turns 9 so her time standards will be faster so she'll have a lot of work ahead of her.

Owens 1st birthday was a bummer because both Isaac and him had the stomach flu which worked itself through this house all of last week. We also found out over his week long birthday that he doesn't care for cake or being dirty. But sadly in the end my little baby is growing up way too fast.

Ok, so right now I should be doing one of the 2 journals due tomorrow for English. But, instead I decided to do this. Not too much happened over the weekend but it was busy none the less. Joe and I both took on different shifts for the STMA swim meet yesterday. (Only to fulfill our time so we don't have to pay a butt load more for Hannah to be in swimming) Oh well we survived but it was a long day...Joe worked from 8:00 to noon then me from 1:00 to 5:30. Then it was off to bed early so I could get up for Hannah swim meet today. I hate to report that today was just not her day but better luck for her next time. She was between 2 and 15 seconds slower then her best time. It's still exciting to watch anyways. She has her last meet of the season in 2 weeks so I hope to report better then. I will report back in a week or so cuz we are off to the Dells this week.
TA-TA

Not to much is new around here. Um let me think....Oh sure Avril is 3 as of January 29th and of course had a birthday that lasted an entire week. She is growing up far to fast for this mommy along with everyone else in this household. No more diapers, no more nuk, no more help with hardly anything. UGH!
We celebrated by going out to eat on her birthday to AppleBees. It's become a past time for us because they are always willing to sing Happy Birthday and give the birthday person free desert. The kids love the attention from strangers! Then we went to Joe's parents for the traditional dinner, cake, presents and so on. Then on the following Saturday we brought a group of 9 kids to Maple Maze out in Maple Grove. Wow was that fun(yes I had an adult count of 4) but boy can those kids go, go, go. Let's just say we all slept great that night.
I am extremely busy right now with Girl Scout cookies and school seems to be kicking my butt. My only time to do homework is late and I can't seem to concentrait too much by then but, I will make it. I hope.
Pray for my grandma that she makes it though her surgery ok and for Joe that he either keeps or finds a job.
I will leave you all tonight with a picture of what happens to my house when the kids "help" put grocerys away!!