National Bible Bee

Isaac participated in the National Bible Bee in the "Timothy Track".  His hard work earned him first in his level for verse recitation.

Flower Girl

Lydia had the privilege of being a flower girl at our friend's wedding. Yeah, we think she stole the show. :)

Then, Isaac sure cut a rug at the reception...

New Roof

The new color is called "storm cloud", even though we didn't get a new roof because of a storm, but just because we needed one really, really bad. Just take a look. Click to enlarge it, then zoom in to see the curling, falling apart, and poorly installed (note left edge of lower left photo) shingles and ugly chimney on the left photos, compared to the nice new ones on the right. Oh, and the beautiful new skylight in what what seemed like a cave before.

State shut-down/on the farm

The 3-week state shut down didn't affect us much personally, but it did many others. Because of the beautiful day we decided to go back to the Oliver Kelley farm, a state historic site which was closed until just yesterday. We learned that they pretty much just cared for the animals during those three weeks. We took the horse drawn trailer ride, and the horses were noticably sluggish compared to last time. The driver said he's had trouble convincing them it's time to get back to work after being unemployed for 3 weeks. Also, if you look at the middle picture, they weren't able to care for the large garden in front of the house so it was quite overgrown with weeds. In the foreground is what they've been able to take care of after 2 days, but there's quite a bit more behind them. We helped haul a couple loads of weeds from the garden to the animals and brought some water into the house for some cleaning.

Simon's first birthday!

catching up with a few photos from Spring

A couple of the birthday parties we celebrated.

We said goodbye to little Nicky.

And made some memories together, including this trip to Oliver Kelley Farm (before the state shutdown).

And the Fridley 49er days parade.

"All Things New"

...formerly known as, "Passion Play".

Simon had such a good time at Christmas, he talked the rest of us into joining him for Easter.

Road Trip!

Just got back from a 2 1/2 week, 3,600 mile family road trip. We pretty much headed south to the Gulf of Mexico at Galveston, TX with a number of stops along the way. The kids did amazingly well. We all had our moments but shared a lot of fun memories. We've got about 1,800 digital pictures and video (counting the hundreds of things like the van's ceiling found on the kids' camera). This 5-minute video shows some highlights.

Christmas 2010

Our Christmas morning family music group is expanding.

Simon got to have a very special part in the North Heights Christmas production.

Yes, he does know how to smile.

Fall 2010